2015 Judges' Runner Up
Martin Larsson
School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities
The Last Wild Fish
A black night at the Girjalva River in southern Mexico. The dam that controlled it was closed. The water was therefore calm and shallow, making it easier to fish. I was in charge of paddling above the heads of the fishermen with their harpoons, and to document the amount of fish they caught. The cooperative of the fishermen wanted my photos for the negotiations with the company in charge of the construction of a new dam in the river, to show the impacts that the new dam would have. The fishermen were rather successful. Beside a monthly payment during the construction, they were promised to get support to produce fish in cages once the dam would be in place. But that fish would not taste like the wild ones, they complained, and they would have to spend time and money feeding it, taking care of it, and preventing thefts.
