Shifting Baselines Blog

1/4 - OPENING STATEMENT FOR 2005: Why is everyone so afraid of fishermen?

ANGRY E-MAILS: Two weeks ago (Dec. 20) our Tiny Fish PSA began airing in Santa Barbara and Santa Monica, California. I first became aware of this when I received a rather strongly worded e-mail from a fisherman (written on Christmas Day!) swearing about MPAs and our PSA. His e-mail closed by saying that he hoped we all, "choke on fruitcake". Lovely. Merry Christmas to you, too.

ANGRY PHONE CALLS: Then, on Monday Dec. 27, I was in the SB office when the phone rang with a call from another enraged fisherman asking who was paying for the commercial. I explained we are an independent "communications project" indirectly supported by 21 partner groups but not really answering to any of them. He replied, "I think what you are doing is irresponsible," and slammed the phone down.

An hour later I got a call from another inquisitive fisherman, but this time I was a little better prepared and managed to engage him in about 15 minutes of conversation. I pointed out that the wording of the PSA is not an endorsement of MPAs, but says only, "Do they work? To find out, visit shiftingbaselines.org." And that on our home page we have the big MPAs button which leads to a DO THEY WORK? button which leads to separate pages for PRO and CON. And the CON page lists the website of all the organizations that we could find who are arguing against MPAs. As always, our belief is that the facts speak for themselves.

More importantly, our job with SB is not to make the case for or against MPAs (yes, we do have an "enviro" slant in that this is a project about halting ocean decline), its only to help overcome a very major current problem which is that the ocean conservation world is hard at work trying to implement plans for MPAs as part of a "solution" to a problem for which virtually none of the general public has any awareness. Which is why the PSA has the letters MPA in very large font size -- in hopes that at least some people, after seeing the spot a couple of times, would begin to wonder, "Well, whut the hell is an MPA?" And this might help attune them to the existing issue.

Anyhow, it turned into a good and civil discussion in which we agreed the communications issue has been a problem.

SUBSTANTIVE INTERNET FORUM: The next day, using our software that tells us where people are linking to our website from, I discovered a fisherman's website that was discussing "the new MPAs commercial" in a forum that already had 20 posts concerning it. Their comments ran the gamut from bellicose to thoughtful. I went ahead and joined the website and made an introductory post, explaining that I am the individual most responsible for the PSA.

What ensued was a very interesting and insightful discussion. You can read the whole exchange here.

Some of the comments were good, some not so good, but WHAT WAS MOST SIGNIFICANT as a pattern was that all of their responses to me began with a "thank you" for taking the time to communicate with them. You can read what you want into that and either be cynical (you're being duped) or interpret it as indicative of the communications problems that exist. Either way, I don't see ANYTHING in the mass media that is attempting to introduce to the mass audience (this means the non-PBS crowd) the concept of MPAs, even though my NMFS friends said to me last spring, "The public might as well start learning about them because, like 'em or not, they're headed their way."

That's my two cents for the new year.

Here's to 2005!

Allcoast Sportfishing: Check out their discussion of the Tiny Fish PSA

Posted by Randy Olson at January 4, 2005 12:55 AM