Floating Lives

The atmosphere in the windowless meeting hall is rife with anxiety.  At the head of the room, seated in a panel, are the 24 members of the New England Fishery Management Council.  Facing them is another body:  the body public, arranged in a series of disorderly rows.  Between them a microphone stands like a spear thrust in the ground.  The Council is proposing a series of sweeping emergency measures designed to curb the continuing decline of New England’s groundfish stocks, a discussion punctuated by periodic hoots of dismay from the ranks of fishermen before them.  Two dozen people sit in a great horseshoe to defend and protect a fish’s right to life; who will speak for the fishermen?

It is 7:00 on a Wednesday night.  These men and women have been seated here since 8:30 this morning, sacrificing a day of work, awaiting details of proposals which may, within a matter of weeks, radically alter and perhaps even eliminate their livelihoods altogether.  They are angry, they are frustrated, they are voicing their concerns to a constituency which is not mandated to take them into consideration.  One microphone to translate what it would mean to lose a centuries-old way of life, one avenue to weigh the gravity of a loss of biological diversity against a loss of cultural diversity.  Unsurprisingly, this single capillary of communication is insufficient for the task.  Who has the vocabulary, be it English, Portuguese or Italian, to explain what it would mean to lose everything you have and everything you understand—not to some whimsy of fate, but because forces, including your own resourcefulness over the years, are conspiring to take it away from you?

There is hostility in the ranks at the far end of the hall, but there is also resignation.  Multiple generations have gathered to face the latest music.  In some huddles a sense of family reunion nearly transcends the day at hand.  Yet much of the pervading mood against the back wall never makes it to the mike.  “Aren’t people as important as fish?” is a query which should not be rhetorical, but is.  Eyes are wide with fear and uncertainty, jaws are clenched, laughter is sour and hollow.  “You should be ashamed of yourselves!” one man bellows in disgust.  A young woman approaches the mike, a college student, and testifies to the psychological impact of the fishery decline upon her family.  The economics of self-esteem.  “They don’t care about us,” one woman whispers to another.  Yet contrary to the popular press, this bitterness does not necessarily equate with uncooperative behavior.  More than one loud industry voice to take the floor today has called for the complete closure of the fishing grounds, maintaining that this is where things are headed; why prolong the agony?

Fishermen know that their knowledge, stemming from experience, is valuable—equally important to that of the scientific community.  “Raise your hand, go up there and tell them it’s absolutely asinine,” one urges another, “do they have any clue what’s going one?”  Why the silence?  Why does neither one of them share his commentary with the rest of the room?

Fishermen are not a vocal lot.  Hemingway found romance in this and fishermen’s wives organizations have toiled to galvanize the industry’s position by speaking in the void left by those who spend their lives on the water rather than in stuffy conference rooms.  These men and women will stand firm in the face of whatever bad news the Council serves up at the end of the day.  They will take it hard, but take it they will.  Pitchers of drinking water are spread out along the bar, sparking one fisherman to comment as he fills his glass, “They should have beer here, for God’s sake.  To calm our nerves.”  His smile reminds that you’ve not lost everything until you lose your sense of humor.

If the industry perspective on the crisis can be characterized as one of stubborn denial, it must be acknowledged that inherent in this stance is the shining thread of resilience, the courage to weather the storm.  In the words of George Putz,

People who have not done it cannot conceive of the hassles involved in commercial fishing, and people who are involved have a 10,000 year-old right to exercise contempt for the terrestrially comfortable.

Gnarled fingers, weathered faces and salt-stained boots cluster together here against the back wall, sizing up the clouds gathering at the other end of the hall.  Here at the back is age, experience, outrage, humor, hope, guts, a wealth of information, a stronghold of opinion, and a cross-section of humanity unparalleled in its dinosaur refusal to change with the times.  They snicker and shake their heads, they leave the room when cynicism loses its cathartic appeal.  But they always return, just as they have to the sea and her bounty for centuries.  The instinct—which fisheries management has yet to consider other than a liability—is to remain afloat.

~Originally published October 2000