Word: fishermen
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Protesting fishermen who had shut down traffic in several large ports on France's northern coast ended their two-day blockade Thursday - but promised to be back if their grievances weren't addressed. Few in France question the readiness to deliver on those and other threats of uprising by workers around the nation whose jobs are imperiled as recession bites deeper. Indeed, that kind of action is only an updated echo of France's historical penchant for insurgency in response to adversity - a tradition now making a comeback with the global economic crisis...
...flotilla of some 500 boats that had blocked the ports of Calais, Boulogne and Dunkirk since Tuesday weren't protesting the recession as such, but rather European Union fishing quotas that the fishermen claim further undermine already slumping business. Still, their move to bring trans-Channel traffic to a creep - and shut down ferry service altogether - paralleled similarly muscular action by workers across France who have taken the law into their own hands to protect their jobs. (See pictures of France on fire...
...Usually that works. Most French bossnappings have resulted in negotiations to reduce layoffs or increase severance payouts - or both. And this week's blockading fishermen got a promise of $66 million in government loans to ride out the rough economic seas. What they didn't get was movement on lowering the E.U. fishing quotas that provoked their ire in the first place. Because of that, it's a good bet they'll soon be seen mounting their aquatic barricades again...
...find real Nishi, too. A shaman wanders into our camp, his hornbill cap adorned with a mirror and a majestic eagle feather. One night, three silent Nishi fishermen carrying torches pass our camp. We watch their silhouettes flicker and vanish into the steep night forest. They had lit torches to find their way, and to scare off tigers and evil spirits. I shiver, glad that we're on the river, and just passing through...
...quarter of a million seabirds died as a result of the spill, one of the worst ecological disasters in history, and the populations of those species have yet to fully recover. The lucrative herring and salmon fisheries are still damaged - by one estimate, the spill cost local fishermen nearly $300 million. "On the surface, Prince William Sound looks like it has regained its majesty," says Keith Colburn, an Alaskan fisherman and one of the stars of the reality TV series The Deadliest Catch. "But below the surface it's completely different." (Listen to Colburn talk about the Exxon Valdez anniversary...