Caught in the Middle

This article originally ran in the 2007 online edition of Flux, the magazine of the University of Oregon's School of Journalism. It placed 6th in the In-Depth category of the 48^th annual William Randolph Hearst Foundation's Journalism Awards Program, helping me earn a spot in the National Writing Championships held each year in San Fransisco. Flux also published a slide show of the images I shot to accompany the story.


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Impoverished fishermen in the Galapagos struggle to stay afloat

Puerto Villamil feels like a seaside ghost town, though plenty of people live there. A maze of sandy streets radiates from the cluster of bars, restaurants, and shops huddled near a quiet harbor on Isabela Island, Galapagos. Small, unpainted concrete-block cottages mingle with empty, weed-filled lots. Old outboard engines and other maritime trash fill many yards. The wrecked corpses of pangas — small fishing boats — sprout everywhere like invading species. Anti-littering slogans written by fishermen in Spanish decorate most of them: “No Botar Basura El Mar” — Don’t Throw Trash in the Sea. Few people outside the small South American country of Ecuador realize people live in the Galapagos and fewer understand the plight of the islands’ fishing community.

Galapagans are some of Ecuador’s poorest people and the islands’ fisheries cannot support their growing numbers. Scientists and environmental groups are pressuring Ecuador to save the ocean ecosystem, but few outsiders seem to notice the fishermen’s need for jobs to replace the collapsing fishing industry.

The fishermen and their families, reserved but friendly, smile at the few passing tourists but say little. The international media portrayed a different, violent image of Galapagos fishermen during strikes against fishing quotas that erupted in 2000. Scientists and environmental groups, worried about the dangers of over-fishing, fought to close the lucrative local sea cucumber and lobster fisheries that many Galapagos fishermen depended on. The fishermen protested, saying that environmentalists cared more about animals than about impoverished Galapagan people struggling to survive. During the strikes, fishermen took park employees hostage, vandalized park property, and killed endangered Galapagos giant tortoises.
Many Galapagos tourists go to Santa Cruz Island. Some visit San Cristobal. Almost none make it to Isabela, home to most Galapagan fishermen. These endangered fishermen aren’t as interesting as the rare species that attract tourists to the islands.

Above: A tour guide explains the natural history of the Galapagos to a group of tourists on the uninhabited island of Bartolome.

On the other hand...

About those sardines. Grist's food writer, Twilight Greenaway also wrote about the Mother Jones article on sardine overfishing. Put the blame for potential sardine overfishing on Australian salmon farms and conventionally-raised chickens, she says, because sardines and other forage fish are used as feed for industrial animal production.

Which takes us back to Leeann's comment about industrial food production of any sort. We already know that farmed salmon are bad, right?! Not to mention battery cage broilers.

So better we eat sardines than use them as animal fodder. I'd say we should  still tread lightly until we're sure forage fisheries aren't being over exploited, by health conscious foodies or by industrial agriculture.

Is there something fishy about sustainable sardines?

Maybe we should just chalk this one up in the “you can never win” category.

Leeann, my partner in urban homesteading crime and soul mate in the never ending quest for well-honed prose, has been trying to fall in love with sardines. Now I think sardines are splendid, always have. And Lily, the crown princess of backyard fowl, thinks they are absolutely delectable (she’s got a carnivorous streak a mile wide, just like the chickens she so adores).

But Leeann, not so much. It’s just that they are so, so fishy. Leeann, in fact, loves fish. She’s is wild about my plank-roasted wild Pacific Salmon. But she has this thing about eating recognizable body parts, or, in the case of tinned sardines, whole bodies. Cue a long-winded discussion about the ethics and spirituality of eating meat. Or peas for that matter.

But back to the sardines. Why would Leeann, or anyone else who gets squicked out by the sight of little fishy bodies all packed together like oily cordwood, want to eat sardines?