To the editor:
Kudos to your sensitivity for publishing, and to Bob Moore for providing a perspective and explaining the meaning of “sustainability,” a term with which I took issue in one of his previous articles. It sure helps to know the terminology.
As one who invariably tries to identify the broad trends behind the individual actions, it appears to me, that unfortunately the prime opponent of sustainability is the American desire for short-term gain (i.e., major profit) and its acquiescence to corporate values that incrementally, but inevitably consume the nation’s natural resources. Just as millions of acres of beautiful topography were destroyed, never to be replaced, by relentless strip mining; and the economy and the function of small farms were destroyed by corporate food processing and mega-acre combines, it appears that now the fishing industry is the target, peopled by thousands of independent fishermen/businessmen is slowly losing the battle against the large ship corporate fishing interests that are supremely skilled in using the press, the politicians and even the environmentalists to gain their ends. And without anyone being aware of it? Is everyone so engrossed in fighting the daily battles that are being staged, so like a chess game, each one diminishing the options of the fishermen, that the larger game itself goes unrecognized? Am I being misled, am I too cynical, is it only my imagination or is this, indeed, the real story? And if it is, can it be told or is it too macro, or perhaps even too political to be addressed directly? What is needed is a Rachel Carson approach to the problem, which may not lie within the purview of The Working Waterfront….
Norbert Nathanson
Northport