Stepping Up and Speaking Out

As a student at UMass Amherst, I've spent a lot of time learning about power structures in our

society that systematically oppress marginalized communities and groups of people. As an activist, I have stood in solidarity with many groups of people who have been affected by systematic oppression, including workers in a fish processing plant, and more recently, community-based fishermen in New England.

This past April 21, I was among a group of students who attended the New England Fishery Management Council meeting in Mystic, CT. We were there to support the region's fishermen in their struggle for fair and equitable policies in their fisheries. The Council ignored us, but that doesn't mean we didn't disrupt the normal ebb and flow of their meetings.

Real Food Challenge organizers at the Council meeting on April 21

The Council itself embodies many of the problems and dynamics that have allowed for the same groups of people to dominate the political, social, and economic arenas of the United States for so long. All of the twenty-seven members were white. Twenty-four of the twenty-seven were male. Many of the council members have known business connections to the same fishing industries within New England that they are charged with regulating.

Of the community members to testify in front of this ruling body, we were students; too young to be taken seriously, we were fishermen; too uneducated to be sensible, and we were community organizers; our motives too contrary to the motives of the council to be viable.

Despite all of these assumptions about our inability to think sensibly about the issues facing New England's fisheries, our collective act of solidarity with local fishermen totally disrupted business as usual at the meeting. More importantly, fishermen viewed us as allies in an environment that has felt isolating and hopeless for many years.

In the end, the outcome was not what we hoped. But what we learned loud and clear was that the Council isn't equipped to accept public input and address the needs of the public - despite the oceans being a public, commonly held resource. What it tells us is that more actions like these are necessary in Council meetings all over the country. Only with continued pressure will any structural change take place within these dysfunctional council meetings. Let us know if you plan to speak out at your next Council meeting!

Best,

Drew Fournier

Drew is a student at UMass Amherst and a campus organizer with
Real Food Challenge.

We'd like to share:

Building community

See you this summer!

We're looking forward to the opening of our Seafood Throwdown season with a great event on May 28th at Armory Park in Providence, RI. New partners the African Alliance of Rhode Island will join us, among others. For a full description of the event and a listing of this year's Throwdown schedule, check

our events page.

Learning about seafood seasonality at last year's

Armory Throwdown

Influencing policy

Speaking up on fleet diversity

On April 21, we attended the New England Fishery Management Council meeting in Mystic, CT to continue pushing Council members to fix Catch Share policy so it works for community-based fishermen. The Council's decision fell short of what we asked, but we shook things up nonetheless. Read more about what happened on our blog. And take a minute to sign our petition to fix Catch Shares .

Transforming markets

Hospitals continue to step up their game.

Hospital food's come a long way in the past few years, and our work on building partnerships and connections between hospitals and sources of local food is really starting to pay off. Kudos to our partners Health Care Without Harm and Farm to Institution New England on furthering the good work!

What we're reading

The lowdown on ocean grabs. The corporate agenda of the TPP. Sardines and

sea lions.

Thank you for all that you do. Catch you next month!