Sacrifices for Sustainability? Rethinking Vulnerability, Consent, and Justice Under China's Summer Fishing Moratorium

ABSTRACT As sustainability becomes a central goal in global environmental governance, the policies enacted in its name often impose sacrifices disproportionately on certain communities. Yet the ways in which affected groups interpret, justify, or contest these sacrifices remain underexplored, limiting our understanding of how sustainability transitions are made socially and ethically intelligible. This paper offers a case study of China's summer fishing moratorium (SFM), one of the world's most extensive seasonal fisheries regulations. Based on nine focus group discussions (FGDs) from three coastal cities in Zhejiang Province, we examine how fishers make sense of the chronic vulnerability resulting from the SFM. Findings show that many internalize these hardships through moral reasoning grounded in intergenerational responsibility, ecological care, and restitution for past overfishing. Yet such justifications are ethically fragile: when perceptions of fairness, recognition, or consistency erode, so too does the legitimacy of sacrifice. By tracing these dynamics, the paper contributes to critical debates on environmental justice and the moral foundations of consent, compliance, and legitimacy under sustainability governance.