Things we need to know

Over the last year or so, several prominent news pubs, including Time, Newsweek, several newspapers and CNN all ran major stories about the seas and the effects of over fishing, and about the steady rise in aquaculture, known more widely as fish farming. The reports were all solid, very important and had that "this is really serious, right now" sense of urgency and a close-to-runaway train feel.

Any presentation to the masses (the masses that read, at least, or watch at least one news program) that promotes and explains the values of science, environment and the global connection of, well, everything (again, I refer everyone to the "Nothing Disappears" principle) is a good thing...even if the biggies mentioned at the top of this post were LATE in getting said presentation out there to the masss audience. Two guys, and their associates, had spent the last six years documenting both the overfishing and aquaculture situations, and they did it so well that last year they beat out March of the Penguins for best documentary at Hollywood's most important enviro awards ceremony. Now, the Penguins may have marched to the tune of seventy, eighty million bucks at the box office, and I'm not suggesting that it wasn't a fine, fine film, I'm just saying that you need to know about the work of Habitat Media, their award-winning documentaries Empty Oceans, Empty Nets and Farming the Seas, and the guys who made the documentaries, Steve Cowan and Barry Schienberg.

People who make documentaries certainly don't do it for the money. They like money, and most of them certainly wish they had money, and they're definitely not trying to avoid making money. They just have this drive, this focus, to share something with people who are interested in a particular subject, or who could be interested in it if they knew about it. If they knew about it. PBS aired Steve & Barry's documentaries, and continue to air them around the yearly environment week time frame (good gosh, someone give me those dates!), so lots of people have seen the documentaries, and they're available on DVD, so more people can see them, if they know about them. And, lest ye be fooled, the actual mechanisms that go into getting your stuff on PBS prevent you from making much money even when it gets a national broadcast. That whole, long list of sponsors before and after a program is the financial motor that drives the piece to completion -- getting the piece over the air is another beast entirely, and I'll write about that in the future.

We do have the now-iconic, love him or hate him or find him somewhat amusing, Mr. Moore to recognize for raising the overall level of awareness about, and the audience numbers for, documentaries, and the available delivery platforms for accessing them have never been larger. The current (there's a pun here, for those who follow TV and the next mentioned person) docu man of the moment is private citizen Al Gore; the critics love his film, people are paying to see it, the subject matter is important, and the whole rising tide lifts all boats thing is true. And yep, documentaries have a point of view, even a slant, on their subject matter, and that's the way it's supposed to be, because it is where art meets commerce, and as long as the damn film isn't a damn lie, the filmmakers' point of view NEEDS to be there...otherwise why bother.

Farming the Seas and its predeceessor are really important now, because the federal government is working with big-buck entities (as if the feds would work with small-change chumps, but I digress) to support the growth of aquaculture on the same scale as conglomerate-controlled agriculture, and plans are already well underway to begin using vast tracts of our oceans -- the water within our international boundaries -- to put together some massive fish farms. It's not that the whole concept is a bad idea, but, well, you should see Farming the Seas and do a little reading up on it (I'll get some links together) so that when it hits the big media outlets again as a story, your critical thinking skills can come into play and you'll have a better sense of those unseen, hidden aspects of things of which you should always be aware (ref, the very first post of this blog).

Steve & Barry and all the other people who sacrifice personally, emotionally and financially to go after a story and package it up for us need to be recognized and thanked. If you know people like these guys, or you feel strongly about a documentary that we truly need to see, let everyone know. Let me know, specifically, documentaries you feel strongly about -- one way or the other -- and I'll add it to the Story & Pictures "See This" list, and send a link (if you know of one) so people can buy it, see it, find out about it and whatnot.