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“The work is deeply connected to my own purpose. I have deep appreciation and gratitude for what the ocean has meant to my family. It is enormous. It has put food on our table and provided a meaningful life for my father. There is a spiritual element to our connection to the ocean and what it’s provided for us, for my grandfather, my great-grandfather. It’s a way of life that has given us our life…I am enormously grateful for the ocean, fish and the family fishing industry.” Brett Tolley works as a community organizer for the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance (NAMA). Tolley comes from a four-generation commercial fishing family out of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He has worked in the fishing industry hanging nets, crewing boats of various gear-types and commercially shellfishing. He received a degree in International Relations from Elon University with a focus on Social Justice and International Trade. Tolley currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he previously worked as an advocate for low-income housing, immigrants and human rights. Tolley wrote and produced an award-winning documentary about the migrant experience along the U.S.-Mexican border called “Dying to Get In.” The UC Food Observer met Tolley at the 30th Anniversary of Farm Aid. And as he explained to us then – and in this Q&A – the experiences and interests of family fishermen and family farmers are truly aligned in many ways. Q: Can you tell our readers a little about what brought you to this kind of organizing? Brett: I’m from a fishing family and work as an organizer for the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance (NAMA). I’m from Cape Cod…on my mom’s side, our family goes back to the Mayflower. On my father’s side, our connection to commercial fishing goes back four generations. Fishing connects me to my family and community. I grew up fishing on the boat with my dad and brother. Fishing families like ours are very much like farming families. We’re being told to either get big or get out. If you’re at a certain scale, there’s very little hope in this industry for you. One of the most powerful experiences that shaped my current work was gained when I was a student at Elon University and had an opportunity to study abroad in 2005. I lived at the U.S.- Mexican border, on the Mexico side. My study abroad experience focused on North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), with an emphasis on how free trade agreements impact communities, the environment, local economies and people. I got to learn first hand what NAFTA’s impacts were on Mexico. One impact was increased migration to the U.S. (mostly from Southern Mexico and Central America) and a high number of deaths as people tried to cross the border. I was really moved by the stories I heard. And they were almost the exact same story you’d hear from many American farming families who were also being pushed off the land. Farming families in Mexico or Central America who had been on their land for five, ten generations or more, were being displaced. There were stories of how through the free trade agreement and policy change, these families could no longer stay on the land. Their business was no longer viable. They had no hope but to literally risk their lives to find work to feed their families. What really struck me was that the patterns of the international policies promoting the industrialization of big business were exactly the same sort of policies facing my father, my family and my community. We were not farmers, but fishermen. But the kinds of impulses that have pushed for agricultural consolidation are being mimicked on the ocean. There is a focus on putting industrialized models on fishing. There is one fundamental difference: the concept of land and agriculture operates within the private property model. The ocean is a public resource, similar to a national park. To me, this feels even worse: we’re repeating mistakes we’ve seen take place with the displacement of small and medium scale farmers. Now we’re going to do it on the ocean and to a public resource. That’s what led me to this work initially. And it’s why NAMA has participated at Farm Aid for seven years. Brett: The Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance – NAMA – is a community organization of fishermen and supporters who are mostly based in New England…but our network is growing. We’re in Gloucester, Massachusetts. An explanation about terms: when I use the term “fishermen”, it’s used as a gender-neutral term. The women I know in New England self-refer to that term. That’s not the case everywhere. When I head into the mid-Atlantic, people might use the term “waterman.” And there are different terms used around the country and internationally. NAMA has a staff of four. We’re not a big organization. Our big picture focus is on changing seafood markets and policies, to positively impact lives and drive change we want to see on the ocean. NAMA supports a large network of individuals and organizations. One of our roles is to support a network called the Fish Locally Collaborative. The collaborative is comprised of about four hundred individuals and sixty organizations spread throughout the U.S. and with international partners, as well. At its heart, the Fish Locally Collaborative is driven by small and medium-scale fishing families, but the network is diverse. We have food activists, farming organizations (that’s how we connected with Farm Aid), marine and social scientists, people involved in fishery management, etc. Basically, the collaborative represents the spectrum of people involved throughout the seafood value chain. Our job is to help build connections and to align ourselves around a shared set of values so that we can take action. How can we channel our energies together to change policy and markets? Brett: One example we’re proud of that is spreading is the Community Supported Fishery (CSF) model. In 2008, a group of fishermen in Maine were not getting paid much for their catch. They knew they’d have to catch more fish to make more money, but that it would be a one-way road to overfishing and unsustainable for all of them in the long run. So they paused and asked if they could do it better.
