A continual engagement framework to tackle wicked problems: curtailing loggerhead sea turtle fishing bycatch in Gulf of Ulloa, Mexico

Incidental fishing bycatch of loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) epitomizes the type of wicked problems increasingly faced by authorities, scientists, and stakeholders around the world. Successfully tackling wicked problems requires the implementation of approaches such as “continual engagement” to enable dialogue and collaboration amongst the stakeholders (as posited by Habermas’ communicative rationality). Yet, continual engagement may raise the likelihood of political collision (as posited by Mouffe’s agonistic pluralism). In the case of loggerheads’ incidental bycatch, the attitudes of the stakeholders swung back and forth between collaboration and confrontation. To address these challenging circumstances, we implemented mediated modeling following the concepts of reflective equilibrium and overlapping consensus (as posited by Rawls´ political liberalism) to (1) portray the interests of individual stakeholder—or narrow reflective equilibrium, (2) achieve effective communication among the stakeholders—or wide reflective equilibrium; and (3) find enough common ground on how to curb incidental bycatch—or overlapping consensus. While not being a panacea, our approach to continual engagement effectively addresses the fundamental issue of empowering otherwise marginalized positions.