This research endeavors to understand fisheries collapse and policy approaches to address environmental risk from an interdisciplinary perspective. An examination of the historical, social, technological and environmental changes in the Susquehanna River Basin, and between American shad and communities, connects this local story of resource collapse to the larger narrative of environmental harm and environmental policy approaches to resolve resource conflicts.

By reviewing the story of the American shad of the Susquehanna River though a theoretical lens of cultural construction and applying a methodology of resource hermeneutics, this research has endeavored not only do document the collapse of the American shad in its historical context, but to better understand fishery collapse as a cultural performance. As a result of this theoretical and resource hermeneutics analysis, the lessons learned through this research have far-reaching implications for the ability of fisheries management to make the fundamental changes necessary to ward off worldwide fishery collapse in the next three to four decades.

To begin to shift currents towards an alternative future involves respect for the past. To adequately understand and respond to environmental risk beckons that we understand the underlying factors that contribute to resource collapse. The long-view of deep historical time in an interdisciplinary understanding of resources, a resource hermeneutics, is one step in this direction. An equitable commons governance that replaces policy dominated by the privileged position of scientific experts and resource stakeholders is a second step. A third step in this direction, and perhaps the most challenging to contemplate, is to cast aside the destructive ideology of human dominance over nature and to embrace what we have objectified as resources, in this case the fish, as actors with social agency. This research has delved into what this conversation may look like by considering the fish's point of view.