In the latest video from SeaLegacy, Sony Artisan Andy Mann meets up with Paul Nicklen, Cristina Mittermeier and the rest of the SeaLegacy team. “It feels great joining the SeaLegacy team here in Baja,” Mann says. “They’ve already been here filming natural history and wildlife, and I’m here to tell the other aspects of the story. The Biosphere Reserve is a proposed marine protection plan in Baja Sur. It’s meant to regulate and push out industrial fishing fleets. And it’s meant to benefit artisan fishing communities.” Keep watching as the SeaLegacy team discusses using powerful storytelling and journalism to give voice to those affected the most. Stay tuned to the Alpha Universe YouTube Channel for more.
Sony Artisan Andy Mann meets up with the SeaLegacy team in Baja Sur to tell the story of the community members and local fishermen.
The industrial commercial fishing industry is wiping out the opportunity for the smaller artisanal fisherman. The SeaLegacy team realizes how important it is to film the communities to tell their stories of how the current way of the fishing industry isn’t sustainable. “What I hope to accomplish here,” explains Mann, “is to paint a broad picture of the story. Give voices to all the community members here that would be affected and benefit from a Biosphere Reserve.”
Fishing for these small communities isn’t just their work, it’s a way of living. They have depended on the sea to sustain their families and now with more and more boats and fishermen on the water, you can begin to see the change in the ecosystem and lack of diversity. The industrial boats aren’t respecting the volumes and the smaller boats have a difficult time making enough to get by.
“There are big industrial fishing fleets that come in the Gulf of California,” says Mann, “and the fishermen have told me they can take as much fish in one night as these communities fish in an entire year of fishing. It’s unsustainable and it’s starting to hurt the economy here.”
Stay tuned to the Alpha Universe YouTube Channel as the team works to tell stories of those underrepresented voices in the community. “If we can work with the local artisanal fisherman and protect wildlife in nature, this entire area through their needs, through their future of survival,” adds Nicklen, “then we really have a chance to protect all of Baja."
