Capt. Tim Rider (right) delivering fish with his son, Paxton. He prides himself on using sustainable practices.
If corporate entities continue to gobble up smaller, sustainable family-owned fishing outfits, fishermen like Tim Rider could lose their livelihoods.
Stories like Rider’s are at the heart of JD Schuyler’s Last Man Fishing, an hour-long documentary exploring the contrast between sustainable and industrial fishing methods. The film, narrated by bestselling food author Mark Bittman, looks at the threats to both family businesses and the environment.
Last Man Fishing, which has its Wisconsin premiere Feb. 26 at the Barrymore Theatre (7 p.m.), seeks to educate audiences about the dangers facing sustainable fishing while also highlighting the people caught in the crossfire.
The best part of the movie are the scenes with Rider, a fisherman from Maine, and his young son. They provide visual representation of what will be lost if commercialization wins in the end. These moments are all too brief, and greatly outweighed by interviews by experts on the politics of coastal fishing.
Ten years ago, Schuyler, who is based in Indiana, started devouring books on local food movements and failing food systems. He began making short documentaries on urban farming and food co-ops in Indianapolis. Last Man Fishing, his first feature-length documentary, grew into a five-year project.
“It was a hard lesson in navigating the intricacies and issues with fisheries,” says Schuyler. He says he had to back up at one point and look at the issue in its simplest terms: “How are the small-scale fishermen being threatened, and are there opportunities for them to stay viable?”
The industrialization that has threatened small-scale fishing began in the 1950s and ’60s. Schuyler refers to this process as a “death by a thousand cuts.” Coastal communities are facing economic collapse; consumers are purchasing cheaper product that has been degraded by international shipping, and often mislabeled; coral reefs are being destroyed by trawlers; and many fish species are nearing extinction as a result of overfishing. The problems are vast, and the lack of transparency for consumers makes this film an important tool for learning how to support a just and sustainable food system.
Schuyler says the important underlying issue is over-industrialization, which threatens coal communities, farming communities, and now coastal fishing areas. “Once all the infrastructure leaves a small community, it’s not going to come back,” says Schuyler. As a Midwesterner, he believes the struggle of small fishing businesses are another David vs. Goliath fight that threatens to dismantle small-town economies.
“The ocean seems so far and unrelated,” says Schuyler, “But these issues, the trends are happening in a number of industries — you can still be empathetic about what’s happening to these guys on the fringes.”
Hopefully, Last Man Fishing will make consumers think twice about where the fish they consume comes from.
Proceeds from the Barrymore screening will be donated to the River Alliance of Wisconsin and Southern Wisconsin Trout Unlimited.
