Bonnaroo goes green

by Jon Bowermaster on

It’s possible that some of the biggest applause heard at last weekend’s Bonnaroo extravaganza was not for Lil’ Wayne or Mumford and Sons, Eminem or Dr. John, but for the phalanx of silver tankers that arrived once or twice a day slopping over with cool, fresh water to resupply the fest’s communal fountain/shower.

Each time a line of the half-dozen shiny trucks entered through the campgrounds, their big rolling tires generating even more dust, the crowds parted reverently to allow them access.

Even more than microbrews and vegetable samosas, drum circles and pot, umbrellas and sun block, fresh, clean water is the key to keeping the festival alive.

During its ten-year run, the mid-summer fest – this year’s version hosted 120 bands and more than 80,000 – has experienced all weathers, from downpour to heat wave. This year’s was the latter. Other than a few drops and some distant lightning near the onset of Buffalo Springfield’s reunion show late on Saturday night, the skies were clear and pale, dry and hot. Which meant those 160,000 feet scuffling around the 700-acre compound very quickly turned the place into a dust bowl. The stages were often masked by a fine scree of brown Tennessee dust hovering in the air 30 feet above ground.

Creating a sizable city, even if for just four days, requires massive logistics on top of selling and delivering all those computer-coded wristbands and organizing the arrival and departure of fleets of band-bearing tour buses. Most of life’s essentials – particularly water – have to be brought in from elsewhere. (Two deaths were reported over the weekend; heat exhaustion may have been in part responsible, though so could have overdose, genetics or freak accident. That number brings the total to have taken their last breaths at Bonnaroo at 10 in 10 years.)

%Gallery-126954%Thankfully there seemed to be plenty of water. While there were the ubiquitous long lines outside the occasionally overflowing porta potties, the lines to fill water bottles, Camelbacks and empty gallon milk jugs with drinking water were manageable (the drinking water was tested daily by the state’s Department of Health to make sure it stayed … drinkable). One of the most popular carry-ons at the fest was a Nalgene water bottle with their own misting fans. Surprisingly a big semi-circle of misting fans near the fountain seemed to be underused.

The fountain strategically built at Centeroo – big enough to shower 50 or 60 at a time – is the literal heart of the festival, especially when temps reached nearly triple digits, with some dropping by multiple times in a day to dust off.

Like several of the big summer fests, Bonnaroo has put lots of effort into greening its event, for obvious reasons: Anytime you create a small city in the middle of nowhere for several weeks (set-up begins months in advance, especially now that the show’s organizers own most of the land that hosts the festival) you’re going to have an impact: Think of all the air miles, buses, RVs spewing fossil fuels that deliver those 80,000+ and the garbage left behind. To its credit the festival has won a variety of awards for its efforts, based on self-evaluations and external audits.

Attendees, for example, have the option of adding any amount of money to their ticket purchase price to support the festival’s green efforts, like carbon offsets, a composting program, future plans for more solar power, which about half of ticket buyers pay into.

Last year’s event was about the same size and the North Carolina-based Clean Vibes company, which was hired to look after the leftovers, reportedly sorted 489 tons of garbage, diverting about a third of it to be recycled. That included carrying 101 tons of recyclables (81 tons of that was plastic bottles), plus 23 tons of cardboard, 21 tons of scrap metal, 45 tons of compost and 5 tons of cooking oil.

I talked with a bunch of the dedicated “Trash Talkers” – they are identified so by their t-shirts – who stand by each recycling drop and either advises on which bin to drop what (recyclable, compost, garbage) or stick plastic-gloved hands into the mess to personally re-sort. They’d gotten in for free, saving the couple hundred bucks on a weekend pass, and seemed happy to be there, despite a weekend of trash sorting. A 24-year-old from South Carolina standing near the Which stage said he’d organized his whole weekend work schedule around this one, Friday night posting, so that he’d have a good view of Primus.

Despite any touted green ethic, whether by organizers or attendees, there was trash… everywhere. I watched 40,000 people back off from the stage after Mumford & Sons played for 90 minutes and the ground was carpeted with plastic cups, plastic beer bottles, plates, wrappers, etc. People are people, essentially slobs, and it wouldn’t have mattered if the crowd had gathered for a jam band or a Nascar race, it was a mess. As it moved away, many heading for the main stage for a Black Keys set, even more volunteers moved in with plastic garbage bags to try and pick up and sort as much of the mess as possible. Convoys of electric ATVs piled high with plastic bags filled with garbage were even more ubiquitous than the water truck convoys.
Organizers clearly understand the link between clean water and life since several international non-profits focusing on water issues were featured at this year’s version, including its lead non-profit partner Challenge, as well as charity: water and Water for People.

Even post-fest, water was on people’s mind. This suggestion from a chat room posted minutes after the last act left the stage:

Ways to improve bonnaroo?

  1. Several more mist tents with a slightly higher output of water
  2. At least 5 more filtered water stations, with adequate water pressure
  3. MORE SHADE!! 1 tent the size of “This Tent”, without a stage, and without the sides. 40 cheap ceiling fans running at full blast would be a nice touch too.
  4. More / Better art installations
  5. More / Nicer / More frequently cleaned Portapotties

[flickr image via Jason Anfinsen]

Overfishing and the future generation’s catch

by Jon Bowermaster on

The biggest debate in the ocean world today continues to be, Will we run out of fish, and when?

An intense squabble has been going on for nearly twenty years, since the global catch of seafood peaked in 1994. Predictions since have warned that we’ve taken 90 percent of the fish from the sea and that by 2050 or so all of the fish we currently know would be gone, that jellyfish will rule the seas.

Which is very true … in some places. Globally, despite growing international awareness, fisheries are still being abused, particularly the big fish we most love to eat, including marlins, bluefin tuna, cod and snapper.

But highly-placed members of the U.S. government have been making the rounds in recent months very publicly saying that our fisheries are actually doing quite well, thank you, due largely to laws that are working and a grumbling-but-dutiful bunch of fishermen who are obeying them.

A couple weeks ago Eric Schwaab, administrator of the National Fisheries Service, a branch of NOAA, told a crowd at the Boston Seafood Show that overfishing in the U.S. was in many respects and for the moment … over.

He bolstered his argument with statistics suggesting that the 2007 reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which imposed strict annual catch limits in U.S. waters, is working, that the 528 different fish species it monitors are doing okay. He called it an “enormous milestone.”

How big an area are we talking? Just how big is the U.S. fishing zone? 3.4 million square miles paralleling 90,000 miles of coastline.

Those who agree with those government stats say the good news deserves better publicity, that doom-and-gloom headlines about the “end of fishing” attract more eyes than those that show, in fact, fish in some places are making a comeback.

I admit to having contributed to some of those gloomy reports, based primarily on my own empirical research. During my travels to coastlines around the world the past two decades I am constantly quizzing fishermen on their personal experiences at sea. Are you catching as much fish as you did ten years ago? Do you have to go further out to sea to find a reasonable catch? Are some species you used to depend on gone or lessened?

Virtually everywhere I go outside the U.S. the responses are the same: There are fewer fish, especially big ones, which requiring fleets to venture far out to sea in order to find a reasonable catch.

One important distinction is that there is a difference between a fish species that is “overfished” and the act of “overfishing.”

While the two can exist simultaneously, there are some differences, which can be confusing, especially in a headline-dominated media.

A species that is “overfished” means it is below its healthy population level. An overfished area can recover if it is temporarily placed off-limits or certain catch limits are instituted, which is what’s happened in recent years in many U.S. waters.

“Overfishing” means taking more fish out of the ocean than natural reproduction rates can replace. There are many examples of fish species that have been so badly overfished they will never come back. Bluefin tuna is currently headed that direction.

Michael Conathan, director of Ocean Policy for the Center for American Progress (CAP), explains it this way: “In effect, this is the difference between a household’s budget and debt. Exceeding an annual budget is overspending. Overspending for multiple years will accumulate debt, which can be referred to as being in an ‘overspent’ state. Even when overspending stops, the red ink doesn’t magically turn black. The deficit remains. Many of our fisheries are still overfished (or overspent), but the first step in resolving that dilemma is halting overfishing.”

At a minimum, the current laws regulating fishing in the U.S. have helped the fisheries “make progress” (Schwaab’s words). I am happy to help spread that word. But a worry exists: There are plenty in the commercial fishing business, and politicians whose voters work in the fishing industry, who want to take a glimmer of good news and change the laws and open the fisheries back up to bigger takes. Many believe that would be too much too soon, that the fisheries need more years to fully recover. Grumbling fishermen disagree.

One overriding concern no matter which side of the debate you’re on is that fishing, like all big businesses today, knows no boundaries.

The market for fish is a global one. Eighty-four percent of the fish consumed in the U.S. comes from abroad; half of that is from farms. Much of the fish caught in the U.S. is sent abroad.

Government fishing officials in countries ranging from Vietnam to Indonesia, Japan to the Mediterranean, are not as optimistic as their U.S. counterparts. Many of them report parts of their fisheries that are dead and gone, never to return.

While U.S. enforcement seems to be working for now, the worldwide demand for fish continues to grow and someone’s going to fill it. There are plenty of fishermen out there on the ocean happy to comply, rules and regulations be damned.

Exploring Richard Branson’s Virgin Oceanic

by Jon Bowermaster on

The first time I met Richard Branson we were in the kitchen of a small bed and breakfast in the high-Arctic Inuit village of Clyde River. Taller and blonder than I expected, he was dressed in full cold-weather gear and had just flown in by private plane to join a dogsled expedition. Slightly bemused, he was struggling to figure out how to microwave a cup of tea.

I think of that scene whenever he announces he’s setting off on a new adventure – whether by hot air balloon, cigarette boat or, as of this month, one-man submarine. While exceedingly bold, maybe even brave, I’m not convinced technology is his strong suit … which makes me a bit worried when he announces he intends to go deeper below the surface of the ocean than any man or woman before, to explore the bottoms of the five oceans.

His $10 million “Virgin Oceanic” is the continuation of a project begun by Branson’s friend and former ballooning partner Steve Fossett (whose small plane mysteriously disappeared over the Nevada desert in 2007). The goal is to take the ultra-lightweight sub to the deepest, least-explored parts of the planet … perhaps simultaneous to the date sometime later this year when his “Virgin Galactic” rockets its first paying passengers ($200,000 per seat) into space.Nothing Branson sets out to do is small. He’s become the Steve Jobs of high-end adventure in that it seems anything he proposes is quickly bought up by wealthy folks who would follow him anywhere. His attitude is equal parts measured and cavalier. “I have a great difficulty saying no,” he admits. “Life’s so much more fun saying yes.”

The Deepflight Challenger was built by the leader in sophisticated submersibles, Hawkes Ocean Technologies of Point Richmond, CA, and is the brainchild of renowned ocean engineer and inventor Graham Hawkes. Branson intends to use the 18-foot-long, 8000-pound craft in what he’s calling the Virgin Oceanic Five Dives project, hoping to take it to the deepest point in each of the five oceans. The Scripps Institute of Oceanography, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and Moss Landing Marine Labs have signed on to support the scientific efforts of the team, which will study marine life, the tectonic plates and help Google Ocean map the ocean floor in 3D.

Hawkes has also constructed submarines for upcoming explorations of the Gulf of Aqaba, Jordan, and a multi-year ocean expedition led by venture capitalist Tom Perkins.

“I love a challenge,” says Branson. “When I learned that only one person had gone below 18,000 feet under water and the sea goes down to 36,000-feet, it seemed to unbelievable. And talking to scientists and finding out that 80 percent of species on earth haven’t been discovered yet – that’s unbelievable. Knowing there are thousands of shipwrecks on the bottom of the sea that never have been discovered is pretty good fun as well.”

Searching for gold-laden Spanish galleons could be another part of the adventure, as is setting records. In the spirit of Fossett – who loved setting records and owned 115 when he died– the dives will include setting 30 Guinness World records. It is hardly a risk-free adventure. A leak or engine malfunction at depths where pressure is 1,000 times normal would be catastrophic, for both man and machine.

They hope the first of the Five Dives explorations will take place as early as this summer when explorer Chris Walsh captains the sub to the bottom of the Pacific’s Mariana Trench, more than 30,000 feet below sea level. Branson intends to captain the next trip, to the bottom of the Atlantic’s Puerto Rico Trench, a mere 25,000 feet below.

The other three areas to be explored are the Diamantina Trench in the Indian Ocean (26,041 feet), the South Sandwich Trench in the southern Atlantic (23, 737) and the Molloy Deep in the Arctic Ocean (18,399).

The carbon fiber and titanium submarine should be able to go 7 miles below the surface of the sea and be on its own for up to 24 hours, though the hope is that each trip to the bottom, and return, will take no more than five hours. Its ‘wings’ will essentially allow it to ‘fly’ over the ocean floor collecting data.

Before each dive remote-controlled vehicles (ROVs) will be sent down, armed with bait, to stir up marine life, which will be filmed by the submarine that follows.

Branson already owns a three-person version of the sub, also built by Hawkes – the “Necker Nymph” – which he rents for $2,500 a day at his private Caribbean island resort.

“This experimental trip to the bottom of the ocean could lead to bigger crafts,” says Branson. “We’ve coined the phrase aquanaut – anyone who goes below 20,000 feet – there’s only one person at the moment and it would be fun to make as many aquanauts as there are astronauts.”

Branson is familiar with adventuring risks. In 1972, marlin fishing off Cozumel, he swam two miles to shore when his boat was swamped by 10-foot waves. In 1977 he was the first to try flying a kind of tricycle with wings and managed to land it after soaring hundreds of feet off the ground; its inventor was killed a week later doing the same thing. He’s been nearly killed skydiving and rappelling down a Las Vegas hotel and plucked from the ocean on numerous occasions when his balloons went down.

When we traveled together in the Arctic, Sir Richard (only his mother still calls him Ricky) told me about getting lost in the north woods of Canada when one of his ballooning adventures went awry. “We called on the radio and told the guy who responded that we were on a frozen lake surrounded by fir trees. He paused a minute before saying, ‘Well, this is Canada … you could be in any of ten thousand places.’ ” A rescue chopper picked them up eight hours later.

Such luck won’t be an option at 25,000 feet below; if something goes wrong down there he better have packed an extra set of wings.

Habits and a new path towards sustainable fishing

by Jon Bowermaster on

Old habits die hard, especially when it comes to fishermen and their daily catch. With many species of fish around the globe hammered by overfishing, laws are being written and enforced to protect them, which sometimes means convincing indigenous fishermen to alter centuries-old traditions.

But changing fishing patterns that go back multiple generations can be a hard sell when it is the legends and skills of a great-grandfather, for example, that still drive traditional hunts for green turtles or whales, dolphins, manta rays, sharks and other now-threatened species.

Sometimes, of course, it’s not family tradition that propels the illegal hunting by indigenous fishermen, but greed and willful ignorance of modern-day laws.

A recent story in the New York Times highlights the dilemma of pink river dolphins in Brazil’s Amazon River. The subject of legend (it is thought they are magical creatures that can turn into men and impregnate women), they are also endangered. But that’s not stopping locals from hunting them and using them as bait for catfish (attracted by the strong smell of dolphin meat) or simply killing them to eliminate them as competitors for catches. From the river fishermen’s perspective there are too many dolphins, they’re a nuisance and hardly need protection.

“We don’t like him; we are his enemy,” one fisherman told the Times. “I killed one when I was waiting for the fish to bite. He kept coming closer and the fish were leaving, so I harpooned the dolphin. I couldn’t stand it anymore.”

Experts in the region suggest thousands are killed every year – out of a population of just 30,000 – though they are supposed to be protected by law.

Though they risk prison sentences, fishermen know enforcers are spread thin around the vast Brazilian Amazon. Evidence of the hunt is hardly hidden, with the genitals of river dolphins sold at open-air markets as aphrodisiacs, alongside oil from anacondas and crocodiles.

1. Certain island groups in the Pacific, from Hawaii to Tahiti, are still home to endangered green turtles. The biggest hard-shell turtle in the sea they can weigh over 400 pounds. Despite laws prohibiting taking them, it is still common to find turtle soup and turtle meat on tables, especially at ceremonies. A few years ago I was on the remote French Polynesian atoll of Raritea (where Thor Heyerdahl’s “Kon Tiki” had washed up in 1947) and locals were preparing a feast to celebrate the opening of the island’s new airport. The president was flying in to cut the ribbon. In his honor local fishermen had brought back three giant green turtles for the feast, each weighing more than 400 pounds. Finding the endangered turtles was not hard and the fishermen knew what they were doing was illegal — they took me to see them where they’d hidden them beneath palm fronds — but that didn’t stop them.

2. Despite a variety of international laws on the books since 1931 – a moratorium against whaling was established in 1982 — whaling by indigenous communities continues around the globe. Japan is of course the most prolific and renowned, hunting whales off its own shores but also venturing far into the Southern Ocean near Antarctica every year. But the Japanese are hardly alone: Inuit groups across Canada continue to hunt and harvest whale meat, which the government admits it allows more out of political expediency than good conservation; in the Faroe Islands around 950 long-finned pilot whale are killed every summer by locals who claim the hunt is an important part of their culture and history while animal-rights groups protest it as cruel and unnecessary; Greenlandic hunters take 175 whales per year, making them the third largest hunters after Norway and Japan, and have recently gotten a concession from the International Whaling Commission to take two big bowhead whales each year until 2012; indigenous whaling communities also continue to hunt in Iceland, Indonesia and Russia. In the United States whaling is still done by nine different indigenous communities in Alaska, taking about 50 bowhead whales a year from a population of 10,500 and one or two gray whales each year; conservationists don’t believe these numbers are sustainable.

3. In the Philippines the reef fish Mameng (also known as Maori or Humphead Wrasse) is considered one of the world’s most valuable fish and can be found in high-end restaurants in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia. In particular, its lips are regarded an expensive delicacy. The Mameng is also endangered, thus fished illegally. Big, colorful fish (six feet long, more than 400 pounds), the Mameng have long been classified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as “at risk,” meaning they may soon be extinct. Still divers take them daily with compressors who fish the shallow reefs of the southern Philippines, usually capturing them by the highly illegal method of cyanide poisoning (the fish are stunned by a squirted mixture of sodium cyanide, which of course kills everything in the area, including corals, sponges and other fish). The captured fish are then fed in pens and fattened for traders, mostly from mainland China. Philippine fishermen are also known to hunt both devil rays and manta rays – both on the IUCN’s “near threatened” list – usually taking them at night using strobe lights and nets.

4. While illegal shark finning gets most of the attention in the waters off the highly protected Galapagos National Park and marine reserve, the illegal taking of sea cucumbers in the surrounding seas has essentially stalled future growth. While quotas are in place, allowing up to 2 million sea cucumbers to be taken each year legally, recent annual catches have been coming in at just over a million. “That’s not because the fishermen are taking any less,” says Sea Shepherd’s Galapagos director Alex Cornelissen, “it’s because the other one million are being taken illegally and not reported.” Giant bags of sea cucumbers, headed for ports across the Pacific in China and Japan, are confiscated each year in mainland Peru. “But it’s a mafia-like organization that transports them,” says Cornellisen, “which is very hard to stop.” The last time a Sea Shepherd activist uncovered a cucumber smuggling ring a hit was put out for his life. The pay off? $40. “Life is cheap in Peru,” says Cornellisen.

Fishing in the French Polynesian waters

by Jon Bowermaster on

Fakarava Atoll, the Tuamotus, French Polynesia – Maru’s 16-foot, plywood fishing boat, steered by one metal rod coming straight out of the floorboards in his left hand and accelerated by another rod held tightly in his right hand, hugs the eastern edge of Passe Garuae. One of only two passes accessing the atoll’s thirty-six-by-twenty-one mile lagoon, twice day big water rushes either in or out and navigation requires years of experience.

As we try to edge our way out onto the South Pacific for a day of fishing, currents at the heart of the pass are running out at about seven knots, creating what appear to be standing riptides. If we were anywhere near the center, we’d most likely be cart wheeled by the fast-moving water and big waves.

Maru, a 46-year-old native of Fakarava – the Tuamotus’ second-largest atoll – has driven boats through here thousands of time, so far without incident. I’m hoping his luck stays.

Despite a population of about 700 on this remote atoll 150 miles north and east of Tahiti, there are surprisingly few people making a living off fishing. It’s not because there aren’t fish, but because the big industry here – black pearls-has become more lucrative and in some respects easier. Though the boom in the growing of black pearls has weakened the industry a bit in recent years by flooding the market – every Polynesian with access to the ocean wants in on the business – it doesn’t require risking life and limb on the open ocean everyday.

Maru tells me he prefers this life than the more intensive routine of seeding oysters and monitoring them for more than a year and a half, hoping they’ll produce pearls. His days are routine, leaving from the docks of Fakarava’s one town around six and returning by two or three in the afternoon. His catch provides the bulk of the fresh fish for the atoll’s residents. This day he’ll take a dozen big mahi-mahi, spearing them from his boat while simultaneously steering and accelerating. He surveys for signs of a small school – watching for the big fish to break the surface – and then chases them down, tiring them. It requires a skill-set few Westerners can imagine: Steering, accelerating, scouting and spearing, all with only two hands.He is a man of few words, especially when intent on the catch. But after he pulls in his last fish of the morning he admits that he feels “more alive” when he’s out on the sea. Today the ocean is nearly glassy-calm, though there are days when it is not quite so paradise-like. Gray skies and big winds do visit this corner of French Polynesia, though he admits they are rare.

Fishing for jacks or sharks inside the big lagoon is an option, but for the big, wild fish – bonito, yellow-fin tuna, mahi-mahi, barracuda or paru, a large red perch – the ocean is the place.

My real curiosity with Maru is if there are plenty of fish here in this part of the Pacific or if numbers are decreasing. Since he fishes six days a week, he’s the best source on the atoll and assures me there are plenty of fish in his ocean and that he catches as much as he wants, on any day.

The biggest pressure here is not what the locals take from the sea though; it is the pressure of illegal fishing by big boats from China, Japan, Europe and even South America. A 200-mile EEZ protects all of French Polynesia’s 130 islands and the territory has agreements with some fishing fleets to allow quotas on yellow-fin tuna catches. But last year a Spanish trawler with motor trouble was towed into the Marquesan island of Nuka Hiva, loaded with illegally caught fish. A Venezuelan boat was fined $635,000 and its captain jailed for a month recently for taking at least 80 tons of tuna over a few weeks in the same waters.

The beautiful, seemingly trouble-free waters that surround us this day are emblematic of a global ocean dilemma. While there are plenty of international and local laws on the books to protect against poaching and illegal fishing, enforcement is very difficult. The 130 islands of Polynesia cover just 1,622 square miles of land but the territory includes nearly 1 million square miles of ocean. With a small Navy, supported by tax-dollars from France, surveying all that blue is a difficult task.

To Maru, such concerns seem to come from another world. His focus is pretty narrow, mostly on tomorrow, maybe the end of the week. He says he rarely sees signs of international fishermen – though they are out there, all around – and brags that on any given day he can fill his bright-red boat with big, colorful fish. The trickier challenge for him is that the market is not what it used to be.

“It used to be that everything I caught was sold in Fakarava,” he says, after successfully navigating against still-outgoing currents in the pass and into the lagoon. “Now, because we get so much food flown in or by cargo boat from Tahiti, there are less people buying.” He often ends up freezing part of his catch and selling it to bigger boats heading back to Tahiti.

“It’s easier when I sell everything to my neighbors,” he says. “But wherever the fish sell, I’m happy.”