United We Fish Rally

About a week ago I got a call from my friend John Edens the fisherman. He told me about a rally in Washington, DC, protesting the Magnuson-Stevens Act. A bus was going to take fishermen from Hampstead, N.C., up to the capital. After all the years I filmed in Sneads Ferry making Wild Caught, I had to film it—so I called and got the last seat on the bus.

The Magnuson-Stevens Conservation Management Act was passed in 2007 with the goal of controlling endangered fish species—but it’s turned into a rigid tool that endangers fishermen, especially the small-scale fishermen like the guys in Sneads Ferry. Two bills are in Congress that will allow more flexibility in applying the guidelines of the act. www.unitedwefish.com has information on the bills to make the act more fishermen-friendly.

The bus left at midnight Tuesday night, drove through the night to DC. I was surrounded by with a bunch of angry (but very amiable) fishermen.

Imagine a busload of fishermen in their slickers carrying signs walking through Union Station—we got a lot of stares!  We took the Metro to the NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration/National Marine Fisheries) offices in Silver Spring, MD. For John Edens, his son Rob, and many others, it was the first time they had ever been on a subway). When we got to NOAA, I was immediately ordered to shut my camera down! we were essentially thrown out of three office buildings; at the third building, I was threatened with arrest for stepping too close to the building. (Shades of Michael Moore, but I’m better looking.) We were forced to picket on a snow-piled, icy strip by the road.

Organizing fishermen is like herding cats—they’re independent thinkers. To get fishermen from all over the country to protest shows how upset they are by Magnuson-Stevens. Their livelihoods are on the line because of regulations that are overly complex and rigid.As N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission member B.J. Copeland says in Wild Caught,

“There’s no doubt we have too many regulations….The problem is that we don’t really know how much regulation we need and so we keep trying to come up with ways to manage these systems. . . . I mean right now I would agree with the fishermen, there are too many regulations. I am on the Marine Fisheries Commission, and I have no idea how many regulations we are trying to enforce. This is a problem.”

But the bottom line for the commercial fishermen is that if they can’t get out on the water, they lose the only livelihood they’ve known, the only livelihood available to them. Their anger over the Magnuson-Stevens act is only one aspect of what they’re dealing with: the impact of imported seafood on low dockside prices being the main factor. That affects their ability to pay rising fuel prices, maintain their boats, and feed their families.

One amazing thing was that the rally brought together commercial and sports fishermen, two groups who are usually not the best of friends, but realize they have to stand together to fight what they see as unfair regulations.

The other amazing thing is that the rally brought together people from all over the political spectrum, both among the fishermen and the politicians who support change. Barney Frank (MA) and Charles Schumer (NY) spoke, as did the newest member of Congress, Scott Brown.

The day culminated in a rally at the Capitol with 4,000 or so angry fishermen from all over the country! It was great! And so I filmed the whole thing with my little HD camera that gets pretty amazing results.

Then it was a long bus ride back to Hampstead. I talked all night with a guy who’s pretty right-wing and then with his son who’s a Tea-Partier, a really angry man.

It’s interesting to look into their mentality and try to understand it. They are angry about people who are losing their jobs and their savings – and in my opinion, blaming the wrong people. But they certainly have a right to be angry, and we joined together in a common cause. In this day and age of polarized viewpoints, that was a big step.

Going home on the bus, they put “Wild Caught” on the TV system—many of the fishermen were moved by it. It’s their story.

More and more, the rally convinced me that for fishermen, consumers, everyone, speaking out can be effective. If you’re concerned about access to local, sustainably caught seafood, visit www.unitedwefish.com and learn about the bills being proposed on the Magnuson-Stevens Act. And act–write or call your senator or representative!

—Matt Barr

Hungry for Green: Feeding the World Sustainably

Carolina cornfield

Premiere of Hungry for Green: Feeding the World Sustainably
The latest documentary from the Unheard Voices Project, produced in collaboration with Dakota Wesleyan University
Introduced by Senator George McGovern
January 27, 2010, 7 pm
Elliott University Center, UNC-Greensboro

You need to see “Hungry for Green if you want to explore these questions:

• What is agroecology?
• What size farm is the most efficient?
• How can we feed the world’s growing population with dwindling resources such as water and fossil fuels?
• Who has a better solution to feeding the world, family farmers or agroindustrial conglomerates?

You can probably guess where I stand on some of these issues, but note I said “explore”!  ;>)

In our new documentary, “Hungry for Green,” prominent agricultural experts like Fred Kirchenmann of the Stone Barns Center and Ivette Perfecto of the University of Michigan argue that organic agriculture and an agroecological approach to farming offer a healthier, more responsive and ultimately more sustainable way to feed the world’s population. The doc grew out of the 2008 McGovern Conference, held in Mitchell, South Dakota, which brought Kirchenmann, Perfecto, and a number of other agriculture experts, economists and others together. After the conference we filmed with South Dakota farmers, ranchers, Lakota Sioux, and local officials who are trying to balance South Dakota’s rich resources in sustainable ways.

When we did the interviews for the documentary, one thing that I found very refreshing was how South Dakotans from across the political spectrum were open to alternative energy, including wind power, which South Dakota has in abundance. Part of this is looking to the future, but in part looks back at the past when, in living memory, isolated farmhouses used windmills to generate electricity for wells, washing machines, and lights.

Another “innovation” from the past is the reintroduction of buffalo on private ranches and Sioux reservations. As if mindful of the fragility of their traditional habitat, the buffalo graze in a way that doesn’t destroy the prairie. They also require less care than cattle do.

I’ll post on the première at UNC-Greensboro and on Senator George McGovern soon!

Hungry for Green

We are just getting this blog up and running, so I’m going to try to recapitulate what the Unheard Voices Project has been up to in the past month! In mid-November, Matt, UVP editor Chris Holmes, and I went to Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, South Dakota, for the 2008 McGovern Conference, “Hungry for Green: Feeding the World Sustainably.” The main impetus was Matt’s work on Wild Caught: The Life and Struggles of an American Fishing Town. His depiction of small-scale shrimpers and crabbers, fishing in tandem with, not opposition to, the ocean, has meshed with the growing popular interest in sustainable food sources.

Matt did a presentation on sustainable food sources, showing clips from Wild Caught as well as an interview he did with Ted Ames. Ted is a fisherman-scientist who won a McArthur genius award for his work interviewing old-time fishermen, piecing together their knowledge of the cod’s spawning grounds and migratory routes before the fishery collapsed.

It was exciting being with people who “get” sustainable agriculture—and with people like Fred Kirschenmann of Iowa State and Stone Farms (NY) who are transforming agricultural practices. And there were a lot of parallels between agriculture and fisheries—especially the interconnectedness of many life forms. On land, for example, companion plantings support erosion prevention, water retention and pest management, whereas in the ocean, each species is interdependent on multiple other species—including fresh-water fish that no longer can reach the ocean thanks to dams—to survive. Another factor that is true for both fisheries and agriculture is that healthy food sources require healthy communities. The Lone Ranger approach—a single farmer practicing monocropping on thousands of acres, or a huge freezer trawler that scrapes the bottom of all forms of life and lands its catch hundreds of miles away—needs to be replaced with strong communities who monitor their resources, and have a say in how their product is harvested and distributed.

After the conference, we visited South Dakota ranches and farms where people are going back to the old ways, whether reintroducing buffalo to the land, or raising organic cattle and poultry… more on that later.

It’s been quite a ride…

The Unheard Voices Project has taken us on a fascinating, unanticipated ride. When we were wrapping up the documentary With These Hands: The Life and Struggles of an American Fishing Town, we never dreamed it would ride the crest of debate on sustainable food sources. The project, With These Hands: The Story of an American Furniture Factory, gave us unique access to the Hooker Case Goods Plant in Martinsville, Virginia, as it shut down operations in 2007–a story that has been repeated across North Carolina and Virginia.

The best thing is the people we have met along the way! People  have shared their lives and wisdom with us, including fishermen and furniture workers, farmers and ranchers. Many of them have become fast friends. Matt and I are honored to be able to share their stories through documentaries and this discussion.

Cornelia