The Dolphin and the Prostitute - a talk with Paul Molyneaux

"The way we treat women is the way we treat the ocean."

Of the many take-away quotes from the talk I attended this evening at Hopkins Marine Station, that was most definitely the keeper of keepers.

It was one of those opportunities where I had to make a decision. At the end of a long day at the lab, do I chill out and watch Juno with other students and get free pizza, or do I drive an extra 20 minutes to Monterey to hear this talk I had heard about? And at such a crossroads, I followed a tactic that has served me well in the past - which will I regret doing more if I don't do it now? I didn't now much about the speaker, Paul Molyneaux, except that he is a commercial fisherman-turned-author who has written two books, The Doryman's Tale, and Swimming in Circles, about the state of the world's fisheries. But, luckily for me, following my gut (rather than my stomach) turned out to be the right decision.

Molyneaux's talk was about his forthcoming book, and he was an absolutely captivating storyteller. Though surprisingly short in stature - he can't be much taller than five feet - he was able to command the room with with a gentle and natural ease. No PowerPoint presentation, just the seemingly dying art of painting pictures with words. And a rather refreshing twist, he actually pulled out a few props.

While discussing a visit to an artisanal fishery in Mexico, he described hearing a puff of air exhaled while the fishermen set their nets at midnight. And as he explained discovering a dolphin entangled in the fishing net, he pulled out a stuffed dolphin from behind the podium. A few chuckles. But holding the dolphin in his hands, he demonstrated how it would lift itself to the surface, take in several panicked breaths, then sink again. And how the fishermen, not willing or able to risk their own safety, or maybe their net, did not cut it free. And after five hours of fading, labored breathing, the dolphin let out piercing screams, and then drowned.

At dawn, when the fishermen reeled in their nets, there was the dead dolphin, and the fishermen cast its body aside. Here Molyneaux tossed his prop to the floor and reached behind the podium again. For at this point in the narrative, he was joined by the cameraman accompanying him on his story, recounting an exuberant play by play of his escapades with a prostitute the night before. Molneaux pulled out a doll at this point, and the display particularly affected me because it was Josephina, one of the American Girl dolls I had read about when I was younger.

But it was the connection that he made at this point that captivated me all the more. "I thought about this woman (the prostitute) and the dolphin," he said, "and I could not separate them in my mind." For here they were, both representing the body - the dolphin representing the body of the ocean, the woman our own fragile selves - and both were stuck, both in a bad place.

The analogy surfaced again in his visit to India as part of a Guggenheim fellowship. There he heard a woman share the saying I mentioned above: "The way we treat women is the way we treat the ocean." For in this seaside village where women squatted on the wet streets peeling shrimp for $3 a day, so too were there destructive bottom-trawling practices, so too was there domestic violence. The ocean, a woman. A productive and precious body that gives, and gives - but is thus subjected to violence from those who will take and take.

And from this intersection hope could also arise. Is it a coincidence that he witnessed these same women shrimp peelers unionizing in the same period that their village called for a ban on some destructive trawling?

His story from Thailand was eyeopening as well. The home of the largest shrimp farming practice - and largest "sex tourism" industry. Failing shrimp farms and women prostituting themselves in Bangkok to support families back home. The people are backed into a corner, but the system pays out because of "our hunger for shrimp and for sex," as he put it.

It all is driven by economics, and he referenced the "critical triangle" I first learned about when interviewing Steve Vosti at UC Davis. In "ecological economics" there is a pull between the environment, culture, and money - and the trick is to find balance between all three. But our (American) economic system places all the value on $$$ when it comes to fishing (and probably other things as well), and there is nothing left to support a community when that particular market or fishing stock collapses.

Yet Molyneaux described the places that his travels took him where there were solutions to be found - at a lot of it comes from a paradigm shift in how we view fishing and ownership. We need to completely rethink our attitude toward fishing. I asked him - Can the rate that this way of thinking catches on ever match the rate at which we are outstripping our natural resources? What is it going to take to reach that tipping point?

It's going to take people talking to people, he said. You talking to me and me talking to somebody else. And though I've heard that real and lasting change needs to originate with lawmakers, with broad-reaching regulations (he himself acknowledged that these community-based fishing programs depended on strong leadership) - still, when it comes down to it, if all you can do is start with one person at a time, then that's what you have to do. Better that then throw up your hands in despair.

It was wonderful to hear someone talk about an issue that I've been wanting to learn more about, that I dream of getting involve in, the intersection of my passions - marine biology, helping people, the developing world. It doesn't seem so far-fetched anymore, wanting to bring respect and protection to both women and the ocean. And I made it back to Moss Landing in time to watch an incredible sunset, and make a personal pact, a private resolve, not to lose hope. There are so many meaningful things to work for that are at stake.

And I even had time to snag some pizza.