Yucatan Diary
Diary Postscript
by Ben White
posted 02/11/05
OK folks, just one more. I felt like I left a few loose ends with the 22nd diary entry. I promise after this I will not inviegle myself into your email box until the next adventure. 23 is a better number to end on, anyway.
First:
A pilgrim journeyed far to meet a zen master. When he arrived, he saw a strange scene. The old master was standing in a shallow river trying to rescue a scorpion that had fallen into the water. The master would pick up the scorpion, who would sting him. The master would jerk his hand back and the scorpion would fall back into the water. Whereupon the master would pick him up again and be stung again. When the scorpion was finally safely to shore, the pilgrim asked the master why he kept picking up the scorpion when it kept stinging him. The master said, "Because it is in my nature to try to rescue, and it is in the scorpion’s nature to sting when frightened."
The Battle of the Ewing in the Yucatan: in a nutshell.
The story of trying to prevent the RV Maurice Ewing from blasting the Yucatan coast actually began in late 2003, when I received an email about the “Incidental Harassment Authorization” applied for by the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) for the Ewing cruise. Even though the email said that "small numbers" of marine mammals were involved, I requested a copy of the hundred-page document and was floored by the sheer numbers of creatures involved- thousands of whales and dolphins that the LDEO was requesting to "take" through harassment.
When I found out that the Mexican government had approved the seismic study based on just a few pages of information, and lacking the list of creatures LDEO had asked permission to "take", I quickly forwarded the US application to the Mexican embassy in Washington. They were not amused. When the Ewing showed up in Progreso to begin their cruise last year they were boarded by the Federales and told to take a hike. The reasons given by the Mexican environmental agency Semarnat sounded familiar: the study could not be justified due to the harm it would cause the sea life, the ship had been involved in causing whale deaths already in Mexican waters, and that the entire Mexican coastal waters had been declared a sanctuary for great whales.
Then in June 2004, the project reared its ugly head again in two day back-to-back hearings in Merida on both the Ewing permit and one for Pemex (the Mexican national oil company) for seismic testing at another site. Working with my Mexican colleague Araceli Rodriguez and some of the heads of the fishermen’s unions, I sent down a bunch of studies done over the last thirty years that show that seismic airguns damage fish and fisheries. The government hearing administrator asked to see these documents in the night between the two hearings. After reading them he declared the next day that both permits had been rejected.
I found out in December that the project had been propped up again and had been approved by the Mexican government after partnering with scientists from UNAM, the Mexican national university. We scrambled to head it off through government agencies or by suing the US National Marine Fisheries Service, but to no avail. (On the last point- the permit that NMFS granted LDEO for the cruise is an IHA- an incidental harassment authorization which is a quickie short form only usable when there is absolutely no possibility of the research project causing severe injury or death. That is just impossible to claim in cases such as this when emitting pulses of 255 decibels.) I got ready to fly to Merida to engage in a peaceful direct action to stop the ship- the last resort.
The idea was simple. To get into the water near the ship to force them to turn off the seismic airguns unless they wanted to be responsible for my death. I had organized volunteers to join me in just such an effort in February of 1998 to oppose a Navy test of Low Frequency Active Sonar on whales in Hawaii. That time, we were not prevented from going to sea and were able to shut down about half of the broadcasts attempted over a month of tests. As it is not illegal to go swimming at sea and the Ewing claimed that the device is harmless, I couldn’t see how I could be stopped.
Once in Merida, I worked with graphic artist Bryn Barnard to quickly put together a flyer in Spanish and English warning about the arrival of the Ewing. In the couple of weeks before the Ewing arrived I covered the coast with these, hitting every fishing village along the north Yucatan rim to huge support from the locals. The hubbub that ensued caused the issue to be in the newspapers and television for weeks and delayed the Ewing from starting even after it was reported waiting off Progreso. A big wind from the north also helped.
When the ship arrived, I contracted with Mexican fishermen Manuel Jimenez to take some press and me out in his boat to shadow the Ewing. We met with the Port Captain and explained what we had in mind and he saw no problem. All we would need to do is give him the names of everyone going. The very day before we were to go out, and the day the Ewing started up their big guns, he rescinded the permission, saying that we needed a boat licensed to take out estrangeros- foreigners, that a fishing boat wouldn’t do.
So I spent about a week finding such a beast along with a willing skipper and crew. I found all in Holbox and contracted them to come down and connect with me and the press in Puerto Telchac on January 28. Once there, they were told to wait for permission from the Port Captain before leaving early the next morning. Hours later they were called before the representative of the Progreso Port Captain and told that they would never receive permission to take me out because a forty by forty mile exclusion zone had been imposed to protect the Ewing. Plus they were told that they would not be able to ply their trade and take out tourists on their boat at all until the Ewing leaves on February 20. At that point I realized that, unless I was willing to jeopardize both the boat and the freedom of those willing to take me out, that I was shut down in my plan to get into the water by the Ewing.
Over the next week, after getting reports of dead fish, turtles and dolphins floating on the tide to the west of the Ewing, I spent hours searching the beaches to the west and south and talking to fishermen and Port Captains all along. They are now primed to report any more bodies (four turtles have been found to date since the Ewing arrived) found on the beaches to both my Mexican animal protection colleagues and the government agencies responsible. Unfortunately, these agencies are Semarnat and Profepa, the two responsible for signing the permission for the Ewing to work.
With all of that in place, and unable to get out to the Ewing, I decided that I might as well be working from home than from Merida. I had done every single thing that I could think of to stop this test for over a year. It was time to fight like water again, slide sideways and tackle them in other ways.
It is an endless debate among activists as to what method is most effective to bring about change. To me, we need them all, whatever direction each person feels compelled to pursue. Personally, after all polite appeals, governmental procedural methods and legal challenges are exhausted, the only way I know is to put myself as close as possible to the point of injury and try to get the story out.
In this campaign, at one point I had a clear strategic choice: do I tip my hand and say what I am planning to do in order to get more widespread coverage but also allow them time to figure out a way to stop me? Or do I just try to get out there without telling the press, knowing that the Ewing itself already knew what I was up to? I decided to announce that I planned to enter the water as a human shield. And sure enough, that is what was compelling to the reporters. I have found this before. The press is generally not interested in advocacy issues; they want the red meat of confrontation. If someone might die (me), all the better. For the first time that I am aware of, controversy over an imminent seismic cruise went worldwide on the mainstream media.
So far in trying to stop war, the wearing of fur, the capture and confinement of dolphins, the extension of corporate control over the world through globalization, the killing of harp seals and whales, the destruction of ancient trees, the abuse of creatures in zoos, circuses and aquariums, the sonic blasting of whales and the construction of nuclear power plants, - I have lobbied, spoken at hearings ad nauseum, marched, sat-in, taken over the offices of Episcopal bishops and aquarium directors, hung banners above fifth avenue in New York, climbed flag poles dressed as Zorro, rappelled off the roof of the Spokane arena to protest Ringling Brothers Circus, dressed up as clowns with legendary animal rights prankster Bob Chorush and my kids to infiltrate the Shriner’s circus, deployed 240 sea turtle costumes onto people and helped shut down the WTO in Seattle in 1999 and 360 dolphin costumes at WTO in 2003, locked myself onto the railing at Sea World to play a tape of Corky’s family to her, appeared on Good Morning America debating Sea World, faced 6 years to life for saving seals in Canada, been beaten by cops at Ontario Marineland while peacefully leading a demonstration, cut loose captive dolphins and whales at night, been gassed to unconsciousness, been shot at and punched, been arrested over a dozen times protecting wildlife, slept in a tree for three days and nights, and jumped in front of a sonar ship to stop its blasting of whales.
Obviously, I will shamelessly pursue any stupid gimmick if I think it might help reduce the amount of suffering we cause. But after all this, I confess that I do not know how to stop big bad things. I don’t argue that direct action is the best way. It just is, at one point, the only way left. I believe in it personally as a way to refuse to acquiesce to hopelessness in watching our living magical world be pummeled into nothingness and to feel like there is not a single thing we can do about it.
I have not and will not give up on stopping the Ewing on this and future cruises, as well as all other seismic and active sonar ships. But it will be a long-term tall order, like fighting the waging of war and the subjugation of some human beings to others. In trying to regulate the intentional emission of very loud sounds into the ocean we are stepping on the best heeled and most influential industries in the world: the military industrial complex, the petroleum companies and the American scientific establishment that serves the first two. The only force stronger is the combined power of the global civil society: Us.
Now AWI is going to follow the money and take the fight directly to Columbia University (parents of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory), the National Science Foundation, and the National Marine Fisheries Service. We are also going to the UN with our international anti-ocean noise colleagues to petition for worldwide restrictions on the deliberate injection of intense sound into the oceans.
If anyone has any idea of an approach that I have missed, I am all ears. Better yet, you do it and I will help you.
Thanks so much to all of you who stayed with me during this campaign. It is just one chapter in a very long book. This diary was originally intended for about a dozen friends also working on this issue and it snowballed into reaching hundreds. Your kindness and support has meant everything to me.
With the blessings of the gods that I am allowed a little while longer in this garden, and the help of those who feel as I do, I will keep on doing this stuff, just because it is my nature to do so.
Love and Revolution, Ben
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