Comments on: No corner left untrawled

By: kevin z

kevin z — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 05:11:56 +0000

Thats not a bad idea jebyrnes, except most people view fruit and veggies as a more common use ingredient than fish or crab. Now if they smoked the fish! Thats a whole different story…

But along with that model why not have a CSA type thing for local (or even national franchises) restaurants near fishing communities to get fresh seafood with the catch season?

By: jebyrnes

jebyrnes — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 07:36:35 +0000

Actually, I’ve always wondered if the CSA model could somehow be imported to fisheries – sure, it’s slightly riskier for the shareholders, but, it links people closer with their fish, gives more profit directly to fishermen, and, if done right, can allow people to make sustainability choices and have their dollars go directly to those fishing with sustainable practices.

Also, you’d get to pick up your weekly “fish box”

heh.

By: Mark Powell

Mark Powell — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 04:17:34 +0000

There are more options than these. Try on this one:
http://blogfishx.blogspot.com/2007/09/enviros-seafood-businesses-make.html

Seafood buyers are now, in many cases, more invested in the future than fishermen. Also, they want to sell a story of sustainability with their fish. The political deck is being reshuffled.

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 23:08:41 +0000

I think perhaps the solution (or part of it) is to shift our style from “counter movement” to working with the fishermen. As you say, poorly managed fisheries are short-sighted, and do damage to fishermen’s livelihood eventually. Environmental groups have had success working with fishermen’s groups to manage fisheries (too lazy to look up links right now), so I say, more of that, please!

The iconography is an interesting issue, and points to another thing I think the environmental movement needs to do more of: popping the lobbyists’ marketing bubbles. A CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation; ie., factory farm) has pretty much zero in common with the family farmer and his cowboys we think of when we hear “cattle ranch” or “farmer,” but lobbyists get to use the farmer image to encourage Americans to support bullshit measures like our Farm Bill, which actually damage real farmers.

By: Eric Wolff

Eric Wolff — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 22:55:30 +0000

Can? Maaaybe. Will? No. It’s the same old problem – the fisheries lobby is small but tightly focused, while the environmental movement is big but diffuse and vague. The fisherman have associations who hire lobbyists. They have relationships with legislators that go back hundreds of years. The environmental movement has a lousy public image – treehuggers anyone? – and only weak political pull. Plus, you simply cannot underestimate the romantic power of the image of the fisherman in his sou’wester braving the stormy seas, much like the romantic image fo the small family farmer. Both are deeply rooted in Americans’ vision of themselves (there’s a fantastic Doonesbury that gets to this in which the widow doonesbury delcares “you can’t stop me, I’m a depression era widow of a World War II veteran living on a family farm” or something like that. The senator responds:, “I yield tot he widow’s awesome iconography”).

A powerful counter movement to the fisherman and the farmers will require motivating large groups of people for long periods of time. In other words, in means actually changing the American culture of consumption.

By: Mark Powell

Mark Powell — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 20:53:32 +0000

Good stuff, thanks! Don’t you think WE can be a much more powerful lobby than fisheries?