Fishing for a Future: Educating the public about destructive fishing
Fisheries are one of the
most productive aspects of our society’s economy. We rely on fisheries for not
only our food but also our income. However, destructive fishing practices
plague the industry, leading to issues in sustainability. From excessive
bycatch to destruction of the ocean floor, the fishing industry needs to start
changing for the better. It is estimated that about 17-22% of what is caught by
all fisheries is bycatch. That approximates to 2 billion pounds per year (Oceana,
2014). The fact is, these practices are not “necessary” and bycatch is not “inevitable.”
We can, and should, do better.
For my project, I chose to create an Instagram page
called “Fishing for a Future” (https://www.instagram.com/fishingforafuture/).
My goal was to educate people on these issues and make the information on these
topics more “digestible.” The reports on unsustainable fishing and bycatch (like
the bycatch reports put out by NOAA) are hundreds of pages long, so I aimed to
present the information in a simpler, more “to the point” fashion. I set goals
for myself; one was to have 100 followers by the end of the project and the
other was to have an average of 20 likes per post. I achieved the “likes” goal,
however fell a little short on the follower count. However, those goals were
not as important to me as was the goal to educate people on these issues.
Each post I made was dedicated to a particular issue in fisheries. In my first post, I introduced the issue of bycatch since that term would be important to most other posts. Then, I went into more detail about gillnets, trawling, cyanide fishing, goliath grouper harvesting, longline fishing, and ghost gear. In these posts, I was able to use concepts learned in Environmental Communication and from our textbook [insert textbook name here]. First and foremost, I used the concept of visual rhetoric in all of my posts. Visual rhetoric is a powerful tool that uses “seeing” nature as a way to persuade or inform someone about an environmental problem (Pezzullo and Cox, 2018). By creating a visual representation of these issues, I felt as though my audience was able to better focus on these issues and care more about them as opposed to if they were just reading about them in a long 500 page report. I also experimented with naming, calling gillnets “silent killers” and trawling “the worst of them all.” Giving them these cryptic names made these practices stand out more and grab a person’s attention. This turned out being fairly effective, since the post called “Gillnets: silent killers” turned out to by my most popular. Data visualization was also used in a majority of my posts, which use images to represent numerical data (Pezzullo and Cox, 2018). As I stated before, the data given in NOAA and Oceana reports is not well-visualized and can be difficult to interpret. I was able to use these posts as a way to present the facts in a “quicker” fashion. Instead of just reading the statistics on a piece of paper, my audience could read the facts quickly while looking at what the data actually stands for (e.g., seeing a trawling vessel in the background of a statistic saying 78% of all bycatch comes form trawling). Further, I used marine animals as condensation symbols in a couple posts. For example, I put a picture of a humpback whale next to a fact saying that humpback whales are the most prone to becoming entangled in ghost nets. Also, I used the vaquita as a condensation symbol for the issue of illegal gillnetting. Whales and dolphins are animals that a lot of people have emotional attachment to. I decided that it would be a good idea to connect these animals to these problems, trying to get people to care more.
I also used “clicktivism” on my post about the goliath grouper harvesting. Clicktivism is defined by Pezzullo and Cox (2018) as “taking action simply by clicking on a link.” One morning, I found out that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) was thinking about lifting the ban on the harvest of goliath groupers. I saw this as a really good opportunity to post and raise awareness as to why these species were so important. In that post, I included a statement saying that there was a link in my “bio” to submit comments to FWC about keeping the ban in place. I was able to create this post and get it out to the public in a short amount of time. Three people reached out to me saying that they sent in comments after seeing my post, which brings the total to four including my comment. While I may not have gotten many likes and didn’t reach my follower goal, I think that this is my greatest accomplishment. The fact that I was able to reach a couple people and make an impact on them was the most rewarding part of this project.
I am really proud of the work that I did. Although I did not meet my goal of 100 followers, 76 followers is pretty impressive for organically growing an Instagram page in about three weeks. This is an issue that I am really passionate about and intend on focusing on in my career path, so I have been thinking about continuing on with the Instagram page and keeping it active. The issues of harmful fishing practices and bycatch will not go away on their own. However, there is so much room for improvement if we can all collectively take action. Projects like mine are very crucial for increasing public knowledge and driving change. I encourage everyone to take a look at my page, learn something about the problems in modern fisheries, and reach out to @fishingforafuture on Instagram with any questions.
Keledjian, A., Brogan, G., Lowell,
B., Warrenchuk, J., Enticknap, B., Shester, G., Hirshfield, M., &
Cano-Stocco, D. (2014, March). Wasted Catch: Unsolved Problems in U.S.
Fisheries . Oceana.
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