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Changing lives—promises kept

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In June of 2010, I traveled to Puerto Lempira, Honduras to meet with representatives from the Association of Handicapped Miskito Lobster Divers. I wanted to understand the forces that drove them to sacrifice their lives and their health to harvest lobster.

As part of those meetings and discussions, one member of the association told me that other groups had visited with them before, taken pictures and notes and then nothing had come of it. Mentally I promised them that I wouldn’t be one more visitor who simply took from them without giving anything back.
Earlier this month, almost a year to the day from when I visited with the association members, Dr. Elmer Mejia and I conducted training for each of the boat captains so they will better be able to care for divers on board their boats when the inevitable happens. During that training and the accompanying symposium, I also ran into one of the men from the association. We simply said hello, but I wondered if he remembered the discussion we had at the association office.
Dr. Mejia and I also made a series of recommendations that, if enacted, should reduce the risk these divers face daily.  We also recommended that those previously disabled divers should be trained as on-board medics. The idea was that these divers would be dedicated to caring for a diver, and be prepared to administer oxygen, insert a Foley Catheter if necessary and even deliver an IV if it was appropriate. This serves several benefits for the divers. They would have a knowledgeable person on board to take care of them—and someone dedicated to their care, rather than the boat captain. I also can’t think of a better “role model” as a medic than a diver who has been hurt before. “If you don’t want to end up like me, listen to what I say.” That is an extremely powerful testimony.
Overnight, I received word from Dr. Mejia that the boat owners association and the handicapped divers association are working together to make this happen. Small groups of the disabled divers will soon begin traveling to Dr. Mejia’s clinic in La Ceiba to receive 6 weeks of training in diving medicine and caring for injured divers.
As I’ve said many times before there are no easy answers to this problem. But this sure seems like a good start to me.

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Lack of empathy?

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Earlier today, the people who produced the documentary film “Fresh, new thinking about what we’re eating” posted a blog on their website that I wrote about the situation with Harvesting Divers. The documentary film is all about our nation’s food supply and is well worth watching. They are also getting into the realm of sustainable seafood and so they were interested in this topic.

I am grateful for the additional attention this group brought to the issue, bringing it before an entirely new audience. When they posted it, they also posted their link on their Facebook page, again putting the information in front of a new group of people. Read the blog here.

I was surprised, though, by a couple of the comments people posted on Facebook afterward. I realize that not everyone sees the gravity of this situation, understands it, or cares – but this was interesting.

  • How can people working in this industry not understand the dangers?
  • I do sympathize with these divers, but they are making the consious (sic) choice to take this job.
  • For starters, we could reconsider *what* we eat, and take a different job that doesn’t involve taking life like this — yours or the creature’s.
  • Know and respect the dangers… In any line of work! Common sense, too.

The problem is, for most of these men, there aren’t alternatives. They are fishermen. That is all they know. Many are illiterate. They don’t understand what happens to their bodies. Ok, there is actually one alternative – at least for the divers in Honduras. They can get involved in the drug trade, helping to distribute drugs to the US from Colombia.

These are men working in an industrial setting for a company doing hazardous work. I see no difference between this and coal miners in the 20s and 30s, migrant farm workers in the 60s and 70s and sweatshop workers or people working in packing plants today. The only difference is, their actual working environment is even more dangerous –with the exception of the coal mine perhaps.

I just thought we had learned from our mistakes and moved forward, understanding the need for safe working conditions and proper training. I guess not everyone sees things the same way. .

Caveat Emptor Lobster

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I’ve written a lot about lobster on this blog, the practices around harvesting it and the terrible cost harvesting divers pay when they go out to catch lobster. One aspect I’ve never talked about, though, is the people who are buying them and then selling them in the US. I hope to dig into that topic more in the near future, but here is an interesting little tidbit.

Over the weekend, a friend took a picture of lobster for sale at a local discount warehouse store with a pretty large seafood section. There is no way of knowing if this lobster was caught by hand or by trap—both techniques are used in Brazil for harvesting lobster. The interesting part is there has been a 6 month moratorium on harvesting lobster in Brazil. It was done so the lobster would have time to reproduce and grow. The moratorium was just lifted on June 1, 2011.  The package says this lobster was packed on June 3. While it is technically possible that this lobster was caught on the first day of the return to fishing and rushed off to market in the US, the odds are low. And if it had been, why would it be frozen?

So, either this lobster is very old and has been frozen a long time, or it was harvested illegally and inappropriately. The package does say “previously frozen”, but I doubt any consumer would expect it to be frozen for 6 months or more. I wouldn’t be thrilled to pay $25 US for something that had been frozen that long.

I’ve said it before and it bears repeating now, I’m not opposed to harvesting or eating lobster – although I haven’t had lobster since I began the Harvesting Diver Project. Simply stopping the harvesting of lobster would simply put a lot of people out of work with no real solution to the problem—it would simply make lobster that much more exotic and expensive without helping the fishermen. I can just see black market lobster being sold at exorbitant prices rivaling the drug trade. That said, this is another great example of a supply system that needs fixing.

If you don’t believe me, read the original article yourself from Brazil talking about the return to lobster fishing. It’s in Portuguese, but your browser can translate it.
“Icapuí Hoje é um dia de voltar à rotina: madrugar no mar, mergulhar manzuá e esperar que dali venham lagostas bem graúdas, porque por seis meses elas se reproduziram e ontem acabou o período do defeso. […]”

 

“Icapuí. Today is the day to return to the routine: up early in the sea, diving manzuá and expecting to come back with big lobsters, since for six months they must have had enough time to reproduce and grow big, and the banning period has just ended yesterday.[…]”

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Exploring

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I realize I’m very fortunate to see parts of the world that most people never dream of seeing. I get the chance to see beauty in forms that I have never seen before. And I relish every moment of those experiences.

We took today off and explored a bit. Elmer wanted me to see the mountains and see how people live in the villages in the mountains ringing La Ceiba, Honduras and some of the beauty that is the jungle. After driving to the near the head waters of the Cangrejal River, we made our way back down to the Pico Bonita National Park. The office is on one side of the river, but to get to actual park we had to cross a very long, very bouncy suspension bridge. We were probably 75 feet above the rocky river running below us.

We had planned on a short hike, 30 minutes or so, just to get a feel for the land. Not expecting to be gone too long, we opted to leave the water in the car. That is one of those decisions you see in the movies and you immediately scream at the actors that they are making a mistake. The route that the people in the office told us would take about a half an hour was actually just to the point where we could go back another half an hour to see a water fall—we opted against that. But we still had another “half an hour” back to the bridge. Except it took us about an hour to get to place to make the turn and finish out the loop.

Granted, I stopped a number of times to take photographs. And it was hot and humid. Most of the time, the air barely moved. It could even get dark and oppressive. This was a single track trail, up and down over rocks and leaves and fallen trees. I slipped a couple times, and once actually made it a couple feet over a hillside. Fortunately, I was holding onto a small tree when I did it. And Elmer grabbed my arm to steady me as well. On that final leg of the hike, well into the second hour, we passed a couple plastic bottles other visitors had left behind. Elmer reached down and carried them out with us.

If you want to see more images from the day, check out the album I posted on FB. If you’re not already a “Friend” send me an invitation.

But, while we were driving around and exploring, some other things caught my eye that weren’t quite as beautiful. The road up the mountain was dirt and gravel. In a couple places, small children were standing beside the road—and I mean 5-9 years old—throwing dirt into potholes. Whenever a car would come through, they would stick out their hands for money.

The air was filled with smoke in a lot of places. I finally realized why. The farmers were lighting fires on the hillsides to clear land in preparation for planting beans. And the rainy season is coming on. I am sure they have been planting that way for many, many years, but with the steep terrain and the hillsides cleared of vegetation, you know almost all of the topsoil will end up in the river. And they will move on to the next hillside the next year.

There were other things, public health and sanitation related, that disturbed me even more.  I realize there are many things in the world that need fixing and no one person can do it all. I have no interest in trying to save the world. And frankly, some of the things I saw can probably be found just as easily in the United States, too. I chose not to photograph those things. Without having a reason, it felt like it would have been exploitative.

I didn’t watch Oprah’s final show recently, but I understand she called on her viewers to find something to be passionate about; something that makes life worth living. I would repeat that. I have no (serious) issue with most of the “entertainment” on TV today, but it is simply mind-numbing entertainment. We all need to relax from time to time and that is fine. But there are other opportunities in our own back yard to get involved and make a difference in someone’s life. Helping out one person, or one situation, can often have a much greater influence than you even realize.

Appreciate the beauty around you, but find a way to make it even better. Maybe it simply starts with picking up a discarded plastic bottle or two on a trail. You never know what might happen when you do.

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Six o’clock news

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This morning as we were getting started, a member of the National Congress entered our training and spoke for a few minutes. But more importantly, he listened for a while. He wanted to hear what we were teaching the boat captains. Just a little while after that, presumably after speaking to the congressman outside, a crew from the La Ceiba television station and a photographer from the newspaper showed up and watched our training for a while—the odds are good we will be on the evening news.
The government had decided to close the lobster fishery all together in Honduras. But after pressure from the divers and the boat owners (and the rest of the fishing industry) they have decided on a two-year extension. But in that time, they dive community has to make serious steps to fix the problems. The government wants to see the number of divers injured each year drop off sharply. Actually, the government has made no promises after this two year extension, but the boat owners believe if they can fix things, the government will allow them to continue.
Over the last three days, Dr. Mejia and I put on an eight hour training program for 54 dive boat captains touching on everything from oxygen first aid, to stocking first aid kits, to how to prepare and use a Foley Catheter. We prepared certificates of completion for each of the participants to show what they had done. We just found out that the boat captains association (APICAH) has laminated those certificates and boat captains will be required to display them (along with other certificates showing their equipment is in good working order) or they will not be allowed to leave the dock and harvest lobster once the season reopens in July. That is a tremendous step, and is also an indication of why every boat captain has taken the training so seriously.
I can only hope that more organizations with a stake in the lobster industry in Honduras get involved and work to make things better. It’s not a simple fix. It’s not the “evil boat captains” taking advantage of the divers. It’s not the “drugged out divers” not following the rules and getting hurt. Neither of those things exists–at least not as a group. Everyone has a role to play to fix the problem, keep more divers healthy and protect the fisheries here in Honduras. They will have to work together to do it. Things look promising from here on out, though. We will just have to wait and see to make sure each group follows through on its plans.
More later, but after the conversations I have had on this trip with the stakeholders in the industry, I am more encouraged than before.

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