THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2019 // 3
SCRATCHPAD
Fisherpoets ask how to make people care about the environment
By ERICK BENGEL
COAST WEEKEND
P
oems, stories and personal
essays presented at the
annual FisherPoets Gath-
ering often ask: How can humans
live in balance with the natural
world, what do we lose when we
don’t, and how do we commu-
nicate this message in a society
running on self-interest and short
attention spans?
I talked about this over coffee
at The Logger Restaurant with
Billie Delaney, a commercial
fi sherman who lives in Browns-
mead, the day after she gave her
coast
fi nal performance at last week-
end’s Astoria event. Fishermen
who, like Delaney, work in Bris-
tol Bay, Alaska, are heavily rep-
resented at FisherPoets. Some
sported buttons opposing the Peb-
ble Mine, the proposed mineral
extraction operation that critics
believe would endanger fi sh pop-
ulations in the Bay region.
To get people to understand
possible threats posed by large-
scale projects like the Pebble
Mine, awareness-raising groups
often focus on the things peo-
ple interact with — the sock-
eye salmon they eat, or the native
tribes they admire — that may
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
weekend
arts & entertainment
ON THE COVER
Blues
guitarist
Terry
Robb.
be harmed. (By some quirk of
human psychology, people have
trouble getting activated around
the need to defend natural forma-
tions like river bars and water-
sheds, she said.)
Delaney said organizations
often resort to using “charismatic
megafauna” — whales, bears,
seals and other cuddly crea-
tures — as mascots or symbols to
make environmental issues seem
real and urgent. But the starving
polar bear whose pathetic, bony
image breaks ours hearts is only
dying because the animals it eats
are dying, a pattern that rumbles
through the food web.
COAST WEEKEND EDITOR
ERICK BENGEL
CALENDAR COORDINATOR
SUE CODY
CONTRIBUTORS
NICOLE BALES
DAVID CAMPICHE
RYAN HUME
KATHERINE LACAZE
BARBARA LLOYD McMICHAEL
NIATECHNIQUE
See story on Page 8
COASTAL LIFE
4
Meet and drink
8
Ministering through music
12
The 10th annual Savor Cannon Beach
FEATURE
A Q&A with blues guitarist Terry Robb
DINING
Columbia Bar
Charlie’s Old-Fashioned
FURTHER ENJOYMENT
MUSIC CALENDAR .....................5
CROSSWORD ...............................6
SEE + DO ............................. 10, 11
CW MARKETPLACE.......... 15, 16
CLOSE TO HOME ..................... 18
BOOKMONGER ........................ 19
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It would be nice, in Del-
aney’s view, to be able to have
an intelligent public dialogue
that accounts for the complex-
ity of these issues without rely-
ing solely on cheap emotional
appeals. The disappearance, for
example, of krill, a life form
essential to the diet of many
Antarctic animals, tends not to
inspire strong feelings, but it is a
big deal nonetheless.
“It’s really hard for people
to be like, ‘We gotta save these
krill!’ because nobody cares
about krill,” she said.
Remember that grieving killer
whale who carried her dead calf
for 17 days off the coast of Can-
ada and the Northwestern U.S.
last summer? That sort of painful,
high-profi le incident takes place
against a backdrop of interlock-
ing factors, from the overfi shing
of orcas’ food supply to distur-
bances and pollution caused by
putting urban infrastructure on
natural waterways.
Just getting people to pay atten-
tion to these issues, though, seems
to require exposing them to a
fl ood of tear-jerking social media
posts that, while perhaps inspiring
people to care, invariably dimin-
ishes the conversation right when
it should be deepened. CW