For Jane Marynik, farming was not a childhood dream.  

Attending college in her 30s while juggling  four kids at home, Jane Marynik’s goal was to get a physical therapy degree. It wasn’t until she joined the sustainability club and cared for a rain garden that her interest in farming budded. At the same  time, her youngest son developed a soy allergy, and in her words “soy is in everything!” Her solution? Start  farming.

Currently, Marynik manages a 240-acre organic farm in Minnesota, 20 miles south of Lake Superior. A couple years ago, she started her own bean operation. Marynik joined me for an interview on a rainy day in the midst of a snow storm. After the interview, she’d be headed out to crawl “through a wet field harvesting beets by hand” before the freeze set in. “It’s going to be great” she chuckled, before settling into the couch for our interview. 

As an organic farmer, Marynik is passionate about environmental stewardship. Making sure her operation fits within the existing ecosystem is the first step. That starts with soil management.  Whatever goes into the soil on Marynik’s farm will eventually runoff downstream into Lake Superior. Instead of synthetic fertilizers, Marynik  uses compost for soil microbes, which are microscopic life forms, such as bacteria, that cycle nutrients and purify pollutants. Microbes keep the soil healthy naturally, without altering the environment and changing local ecology like pesticides.

The soil on Marynik’s farm is alive. Bugs and worms and critters are everywhere. On a bigger farm” she argues, “where they overtill and overspray, it’s just dirt. Soil is a living thing, dirt is just dirt.”

Such soil management policies make all the difference in a warming world. Minnesota has a water problem. As climate change makes droughts more frequent and longer lasting, soil quality can make the difference between turning a profit or taking a loss. 

Marynik’s microbe-rich soil retains moisture. During droughts, the soil stays healthy. Conventional farm soil becomes a hard crust during droughts, so when it does rain, the soil is unable to absorb all the water, leaving farmers to watch as their land washes away. Unlike these farms, Marynik’s nutrient -rich soil is able to soak up the influx of water. 

Farmers are taking more and more steps to make sustainable changes, both on their farms and in legislation. Marynik has met “a lot more people that are trying to do some sort of sustainable farming.” Marynik believes farmers can be leaders in addressing climate change. This is why Marynik likes farming. ”It allows you to work on some of these big issues that are affecting everyone,” she says with a smile. “I’d like to think that amounts to something.”

Sustainability looks different depending on who you’re talking to. In the Minnesota area, smaller farm operations, like those of Native Americans or the Hmong, focus on food sovereignty and growing culturally important foods. Native Americans practice seed saving. Hmong groups have huge community gardens where each family can grow their food. “In farming”, Marynik explains, “there are a lot of opportunities to do things to take care of the environment.”

Sustainable soil practices that smaller farmers are utilizing are not just a matter of combining organic farming and commodity crops. For one thing, organic farms and commodity farms can’t be in the same area. Organic farmers grow specialty crops, primarily for consumption. Commodity farmers grow commodity crops like corn and soybeans primarily for processing. Commodity crops are sprayed aggressively with pesticides. As these pesticides are sprayed, overspray can  drift onto neighboring farms. Organic farming does not allow for unchecked pesticide use, so there must be a buffer between farms to avoid this drift. 

But that’s only the start- there’s “also a bit of a cultural issue,” according to Marynik. Farmers who grow commodity crops have huge operations and often look down on organic farmers, whose operations are small because of the more rigorous standards concerning pesticides and harvesting. Commodity farmers tend to be older and stuck in their ways. They aren’t really open to doing things in a new way. While some commodity farmers get their organic seal, “they spend a lot of time trying to prove it makes financial sense to their neighbors.” 

Marynik hopes to one day buy her own land. But land is expensive.  Marynik credits young farmer lobbyists, who advocate for land to be more affordable and for young farmers to get student loan forgiveness, for progress. “Farming is a public service,” says Marynik.  Without us, “people wouldn’t be able to eat.” It’s essential to support farmers as we would any other public servant.”

Having a smaller operation allows Marynik to be more intentional with what happens to her product and meaningfully engage with the community. In addition to local stores and restaurants, Marynik sells her product in a local  REKO ring (Reko is a Finnish word for “fair consumption”)- each week, farmers post what they have to sell, and then consumers can contact them directly and arrange a pick up. For many farmers, this arrangement gives  them agency. Small farmers may have young kids, so sitting at a farmer’s market all weekend isn’t possible. 

However, Marynik is  aware of the disadvantages low-income communities in the area faced when accessing fresh produce. Organic farming is expensive. “I’m growing these small scale beans and I’m charging $7 a pound, which is ridiculous,” she exclaims, “but it’s what it costs.” She also participates in a  farmers market that helps lower income people access fresh, organic food by SNAP benefits. Essentially, if they put $7 towards a pound of beans, they will receive $7 to put towards more groceries. Her goal, she asserts, is to ensure that “locally-grown organic produce isn’t just available to people that can afford it on their own.” 

Proximity gives you power. Marynik was adamant that “given the choice between choosing organic far away or non-organic local, I’d still choose local.” Seeing the food you eat being grown and forming a relationship with the farmer who grows it is the best way to gain transparency. Farmers with local networks are able to make an impact in their communities.

“The globe is overbooked,” said Elizabeth Becker. That is her way of saying that the tourism industry is getting out of hand. In 2023, tourism made up almost 10% of global GDP, which equates to about $9.9 trillion USD. Despite its success as a business industry, tourism drives  overcrowding with disruptive and even destructive consequences. For Becker, the key is in raising awareness.

Elizabeth Becker is a seasoned journalist. She started as a war correspondent and later shifted  to national security, international economics, and foreign policy. She is also the author of five books, including Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism, a book on the beginnings of tourism and its impacts on eight different countries. 

Becker had initially intended to write about tourism as part of her regular job as a journalist, but was faced with a hurdle. “[M]y editors at the time said that tourism is not an industry—it’s what we do, you know, for pleasure.” Rather than give up, Becker decided to take a break from journalism. She was in her 60s, which she said was “the right time,” and got a fellowship at Harvard to start her research. 

When she started, she encountered a second hurdle: information was limited. “When I looked for a book about the basic history of [the] tourism industry, it didn’t exist,” said Becker. That led her to write Overbooked, which was officially published in 2013.

Eleven years have passed since the book’s publication and I was curious to know what she thought of the industry now. “[T]here’s a huge difference in recognition of the power of tourism and the problems of tourism,” she said. “Huge recognition.” 

The main goal she saw countries pursuing was to get as many people as possible. The assumption was that tourists bring in money and benefits. However, the influx of travelers had an impact on housing markets. One of the causes of such problems is Airbnb. The platform is meant to be used by homeowners looking to “host” guests for a fee, and by travelers as a way to find more affordable or unique lodging options. 

You may wonder why this would be a problem for locals. Becker highlighted that Airbnb often do not follow regulations: “They have no guardrails. They do whatever they want.” She spoke about how apartment buildings were also being rented out. While there are This is particularly bad in places such as New York where the housing market is expensive and limited in availability. With more homeowners opting for short-term rentals, rents on long-term accommodations go up, placing a  burden on residents looking for long-term housing.

I asked Becker if she had any suggestions on how to travel more sustainably and avoid such issues. She immediately said, “Oh, I’m not, that’s not my shtick.” Becker explained that she is more interested in the local perspective and helping her audience gain awareness of how the tourism industry affects their country of residence. 

One way is to bring tourism into more conversations. For a recent talk, Becker spoke about legislative action that is being taken to minimize the expansion of Airbnb. She pointed to an island community off the coast of Savannah where laws were passed to restrict Airbnbs to a small part of the island. By having more of these conversations, Becker hopes that similar legislative measures will be implemented elsewhere.

“I would like people to see how tourism really does affect you,” Becker urged. “Be brutally honest about whether it helps your community and if it doesn’t, how do you correct it?”

New York is one such place where such questions need to be asked. In 2022, New York City implemented Local Law 18—a law that mandates the registration of short-term rental properties and places strict restrictions in their operation. The main goal was to address the impacts of platforms such as Airbnb on the housing market and give residents more equal opportunity in pricing and availability. 

Airbnb’s listing in New York dropped by 15,000 rentals, but not all local residents were happy with the outcome. Some homeowners rely on short-term rentals as additional sources of income. However, with requirements for the accommodation to be registered with the city and for homeowners to be living in the dwelling while guests are present, many were forced to stop.

Countries are experiencing “overbooking,” which impacts the residents. Becker continues to cover the industry not only to raise awareness of such issues but to also encourage action. Whether that is voting or voicing the realities of a situation, residents have the responsibility to ensure their rights and create a better tourism environment for all.

Foodies are famous, often parodied, and notorious for their desire to always be trying new foods. But are they dangerous? According to Russ Cohen, they might be. 

Russ Cohen is a professional forager living in Massachusetts where he teaches classes to groups on how to forage. When he sat down to talk with me, he was making tea from black birch twigs for a class he would teach the next morning to a gardening club. He describes the tea as like “drinking Wintergreen flavored life savers.”

Starting as a kid in the 1960s, he has spent the majority of his life foraging. First taught by his parents, who he clarified “weren’t hippies or anything,” he really grew into it after taking a high school course on foraging. Since then, Cohen has traveled the globe, from New Zealand to Norway, eating wild foods- including once where he illegally harvested mushrooms in Switzerland. 

He is chatty and willing to share his love of foraging with anyone who asks. Cohen showed me his jars of hickory nuts and how easy it is to harvest them and share them. They’re his favorite thing to forage and he uses them for baking, cereal, and snacking. 

He teaches foraging in 40 programs a year, each to different groups. Cohen travels around Massachusetts and teaches at clubs, the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the Wild Seed Project, and more about how to forage responsibly. This includes showing people what is safe to harvest, how to take enough without depleting an area (for example, taking one leaf per plant), and where foraging is allowed. 

The biggest problem Cohen has noticed in recent years is not climate change, or social media, or even foraging laws- its foodies and the chefs that cater to them. 

In the past, chefs in high end restaurants have focused on local produce and farm to table meat- now they have expanded to foraged food. Foodies – people who eat as a hobby by trying different cuisines – are eating it up. There are dozens of restaurants that specialize in this around the world, like Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York. They offer food from the Hudson Valley year round. 

Adventurous young eaters have influenced food trends for decades with their desire for new and exciting experiences. In the 80s, young American professionals called yuppies focused on food from far away countries and continents. In the 2020s, there has been a complete reversal. Now, foodies want hyper local food. 

And, according to Cohen, chefs have turned to foraging to fulfill foodie’s desires. Fiddleheads (a sweet vegetable from ferns) and ramps (a wild plant with a garlicky taste) are exceedingly popular, as are mushrooms. They provide nutrient dense, delicious food that is not going to be found in grocery stores. 

But foragers hired by restaurants often pick entire patches and leave nothing behind. Harvesting sustainably means causing no permanent damage to an ecosystem. There must be enough plants left for others, animals, and the future. This is not the method restaurant foragers use. Cohen has “seen places where the plants used to grow, where every single plant was dug up and they’re gone. They’ve been extirpated from that habitat” in the name of foodies having something new to try.

This leaves sustenance and hobbyist foragers in the lurch. Cohen has noticed this in areas such as Camden, Maine where wild food restaurants are popular. Wild plants may have all been harvested before anyone else can even touch them. 

Cohen is concerned with this, especially when it means that the only way locals can try foraged food is when they pay for it and have someone else do the actual harvesting for them. With restaurants like Blue Hill at Stone Barns going for a whopping price of $398 – $448 per person, this is not possible for most. Cohen believes in the value of connecting with nature while foraging. He sees it as the most important of foraging. But this hobby has become a tool to bring consumers in and push locals out. 

People who are hired to forage for restaurants are often locals who rely on this work. Foraging for high end restaurants provides them an alternative income that can be the difference between making rent or not. For many, it is vital work. Russ Cohen is aware of this, and says that he tries to not be sanctimonious about it since “it could make a significant contribution to their overall financial situation by, you know, doing some picking fiddleheads in the spring or something like that.” 

It is a necessary harm for many. But when this trend fades, as all trends do, the problem will remain. Patches can’t grow back when there are no seeds or roots left to grow back from. This needs to be reversed. 

When this trend started, Cohen even thought about quitting teaching. He questioned if he was one of the people allowing this to happen through his lessons. He asked himself “am I part of the problem for sharing information about these plants and should I shut the hell up?” 

Thankfully, he decided to teach with a focus on conservation instead. Part of this is finding a solution to foodies, and he believes there are ways to satisfy the desire for foraged food without endangering ecosystems: invasive species. 

Plants that cannot be overharvested and plants that endanger ecosystems provide plenty of cooking inspiration. Kudzu, Japanese knotweed, stinging nettles, and dandelions are all perfectly edible, perfectly delicious invasive alternatives to fiddleheads and ostrich ferns and could replace the drive for unsustainable foraging. Cohen explains that if a “restaurant puts Japanese knotweed on the menu, it’s hard for me to get, you know, worried about, because we’ll never wipe out Japanese knotweed.”

Eating local isn’t inherently bad – in fact, it’s a suggested behavior by environmental scientists.  Foodies don’t have to give up their cravings, but neither do foragers. Foraging sustainably (and invasively) is a happy medium that keeps the planet – and foodies- happy. 

“It’s difficult to research death,” Dr. Suzanne Agan admitted, regarding wildlife deaths. Even when the focus is on wildlife survival, “People are not going to choose something that is hard to digest.” 

The scientists and individuals who were concerned about wildlife loss found success in Yellowstone National Park. When Yellowstone was first established in 1872, the Grey Wolf population was abundant, but the Wolves soon found themselves face to face with humans who wanted them gone. The consequences of eliminating a top predator from an ecosystem were unknown, so the wolves were progressively wiped  out without a second thought. That changed in 1973, once the Grey Wolf was listed as Endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The USFWS had recognized that this extirpation did, in fact, have environmental consequences. The creation of the Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery Plan in 1987 aimed to establish Grey Wolf populations in Yellowstone once more. The plan was able to successfully bring back 300 Grey Wolfs. This program, along with others made to establish Wolf populations throughout the states became increasingly popular, hoping to have the same success as Yellowstone. 

  Her lasting passion for wolves also made it easy for Dr. Agan to pursue Red Wolf research while pursuing her PhD in Antioch University New England. Dr. Agan now works with the Red Wolf Recovery Team (RWRT) in North Carolina to study how Red Wolves are being affected by poaching and what can be done to stop this. 

The RWRT was created alongside the Red Wolf Recovery Area (RWRA) in 1987 by the U.S Fisheries and Wildlife Services (USFWS) in order to protect and bring back the Red Wolf population in North Carolina. North Carolina, like much of the United States, used to have thousands of wolves roaming the land. Similar to what happened in Yellowstone, Red Wolves were essentially wiped out in North Carolina. Red Wolves are now considered the world’s most endangered wolf. The RWRA has dedicated itself to designating the recovery area and reintroducing the species.]

“There’s only about 20 in the wild right now,” Dr. Agan explains. She hopes that by reducing poaching, the population will bounce back. 

Dr. Agan clarified what poaching means, she knew that the word had a relatively negative association. Poaching is often associated with an unlawful individual who illegally kills hundreds of deer or turkey for money. She explained that “Poaching is the sole action of killing the animal, not the intent. A hunter can be out hunting deer, shoot what he thinks is a coyote, and it turns out to be a wolf, that’s still poaching.” Since the Red Wolf is currently listed as an endangered species by the U.S Government, killing one is illegal. Dr. Agan also pointed out that hunters target bears and deer, not Red Wolves. Moreover, Red Wolves are scared of people and have no interest in being around them, which means they are not really considered a threat to human life. There was no good reason for landowners to kill  Red Wolves.

Dr. Agan heavily emphasized that the main reason for Red Wolf poaching was that landowners “don’t want government intrusion on their property.” Even though the RWRA is nearly 6,000 km2, that did not stop the Red Wolves from going beyond its boundaries. The RWRA program was put back into action in 2021 after being put on pause due to program technicalities that had to be addressed. Red Wolves started showing up on landowners’ property outside of the RWRA,  leaving landowners confused and angry since the FWS had not said that the Wolves were being reintroduced. 

  The FWS then attempted to give landowners ways to co-exist with the Red Wolves. Dr. Agan told me that if a Red Wolf ever wanders onto their property, they could call the FWS to remove it and take it back to the RWRA. But the landowners are reluctant. They were already upset and since a call to the FWS meant the government would be on their property. To avoid both, landowners would kill  the Red Wolves. If there were no Red Wolves present, there would be no reason for the FWS to come onto their property. 

 “You won’t be able to protect wolves if landowners are not on board, you can’t just slap high fines on people and throw em’ in jail,” Dr. Agan chuckled wearily. Despite the fact that it may seem like a good idea to appropriately punish landowners for poaching, that only makes local residents more  resistant to the recovery program.  

Dr. Agan noticed that having someone who was able to make the landowners feel heard and included greatly aided in recovery efforts.  “One of the older biologists who worked on the project – they had so much respect for him and liked him so much.”  In that case, when he told people not to shoot a wolf, they wouldn’t out their respect for him.   they said they would not shoot a Red Wolf on their property, because they had too much respect for the biologist they were working with.” She continued to say that including landowners in the RWRT was essential if they wanted to work towards a solution and have actually bought them in to be a part of the team. 

Dr. Agan believes it is possible to reduce Red Wolf poaching and increase the species odds of recovery. As long as the RWRA and FWS include every stakeholder, most importantly landowners, to get to that solution. Dr. Agan is optimistic about working with the hunters, noting that they may be the key to bringing back the Red Wolf population.  “They need to get hunting orgs to be on board with protecting Red Wolves…The hunting community is the one that poaches the most…they have the ability and they have access – they are out where the wolves are with the gun in their hand.”

I met Jim Woolford in Oklahoma at the National Environmental Tar Creek Conference. The conference was about one of the country’s oldest Superfund sites, Tar Creek, an area with extreme environmental contamination. Woolford delivered the keynote address on the history of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) involvement at Tar Creek. His long list of critiques and hopes for the future of the EPA was eye-opening. 

During his keynote address, Woolford made an offhand remark about the Environmental Protection Network, the organization he is volunteering for during his retirement. The Network is a non-profit that holds the EPA to the highest standards. Five hundred retired EPA employees comprise it. Even though Woolford was not at the conference to talk about the Network, his comment piqued my curiosity. So, I asked Woolford if he would be willing to sit down and discuss his work at the Network with me, which he kindly agreed to. 

When we met over Zoom, Woolford started by introducing himself, explaining how he started at the EPA in 1986. He emphasized being an EPA employee wasn’t ever his planned career goal. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and political science and getting a master’s focused on state and local politics Woolford “stumbled into” the EPA while working at a consulting firm that took on the EPA as a client. Over the next thirty-four years, he held a variety of positions at the EPA, rising to director of the Superfund Program. At the end of his career in 2020, he received the Distinguished Career Award.

People Walking at a Minewaste Pile (one of many) at the Tar Creek Superfund Site

[Source: Author]

Woolford’s long career and success with the EPA begged a question—why, after such a long and successful career would Woolford choose to devote his retirement to an organization that critiques the EPA?

Woolford doesn’t consider his work at the Network as one simply rooted in criticism. He describes The Network as improving people’s lives by explaining choices that the EPA has made and directing communities to other organizations, such as the Thriving Earth Exchange, that can help address the concerns of communities living near Superfund sites. By building a network of environmental organizations, the Network helps communities impacted by Superfund sites access resources to navigate the complicated politics of environmental health. This is something that I witnessed the Network do firsthand at the Tar Creek conference as Woolford took great care in explaining the EPA’s actions there and how the community could fight for a better future. When I asked directly why he invested so much time in the Network despite being retired, Woolford said that “public service is somewhat like a religion.” He may have retired from the EPA, but he hasn’t retired from public service. 

During our conversation, I also asked Woolford about working for the EPA during the Trump administration. Woolford’s answer was incredibly diplomatic yet honest. He explained how, while Trump was president, the Superfund program gained backing from the administration.  In his view, this was just for show. Superfund became “the favorite child,” but that didn’t get the program any genuine support. Despite that frustration, Woolford had nothing but good things to say about the experience of working at the EPA overall. After several tumultuous decades under presidents with very different levels of commitment to the environment and environmental health, Woolford enthusiastically tried to convince me to work for the EPA. 

Sign Found at Tar Creek Superfund Site

[Source: Author]

So how can we best understand the Network and Jim Woolford’s role? I would call it a friendly watchdog organization, monitoring the actions of the EPA and holding it to the highest standards. The Network does essential work for communities impacted by Superfund sites. Seeing Woolford at the Tar Creek conference was evidence to me of the Network’s commitment to healing some of the most environmentally devastated parts of the country. Members of the Network such as Woolford are not only making sure the EPA does its best for the country, the people, and the environment but also improving many lives by explaining the EPA’s actions and directing communities to organizations beyond the EPA or themselves that can help. 

“You can always tell an environmental law professor’s office because right next to their desk on the wall, there’s a dent,” Professor Richard Lazarus tells me, half jokingly.  “I’ve been hitting my head against that wall for about the past 30 years.”

In the past decade, Lazarus has been frustrated with, “see[ing] us stumbling so poorly on climate.” He worries that we won’t be able to avoid the worst outcomes of climate change. Why? He explains, we lost four years during the Trump Administration. President Trump rolled back, revoked, or reversed over one-hundred environmental rules. Will environmental law recover? Will the courts be able to help us after President Trump gave the Supreme Court a conservative majority? These concerns preoccupy Lazarus.

It hasn’t always been this frustrating. Looking back on how he got into the field, Lazarus reflects on his roots. Born and raised in Urbana, Illinois, he graduated from high school young and enrolled in college at the age of 16. At the time, Lazarus notes, he still looked like he was 12 years old. After trying to take classes, Lazarus dropped out. He realized he needed to grow up some more and find something, as he put it, “that made [his] heart go pitter-patter”. 

After traveling Europe with other teenagers and finding more of himself, he re-enrolled at the University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign. Lazarus decided to get a B.S. in Chemistry and B.A. in economics. For him, a defining moment was when he knocked on his advisor’s door and told him his plan. Instead of turning away, the professor took him seriously. He said “okay, how are you going to do that?” Lazarus remembers. Lazarus never looked back. 

While studying chemistry and economics, Lazarus worked hard, even spending a semester at MIT. After graduating, he was admitted into Harvard Law School. Yet, he keeps his roots close. Lazarus proudly asserts, “I think people in the Midwest have less swagger.” He notes, “I knew all sorts of really talented, wonderful people who didn’t end up at Harvard Law School and this and that. And that’s just because of the quirks of life.” So, he built a career centered around how to best enact distributive and transitional justice in environmental law. 

Currently, Lazarus is a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Over his career, he has provided written briefs to the Supreme Court forty times and has made oral arguments in 14 of those cases. Clients in these cases have included state and local governments and environmental groups. Moreover, Lazarus was the principal author of the Report to the President and National Commission on the BP Deep Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling Commission. Following the 2020 Presidential Election, Lazarus was appointed to lead the incoming Biden administration’s Transition Team for the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Despite the success of his personal career, he is still disappointed with the state of environmental law. In his first edition of The Making of Environmental Law, published in 2004, Lazarus remembers his optimism. He is now feeling frustrated with “underestimat[ing] how much, among other things, the sort of wicked dimensions of climate change were going to cause upheaval and ultimately disaster.” In his second edition of The Making of Environmental Law, published in 2023, Lazarus poses his theory of what happened since: “For three decades, we’ve been saying ‘train, train, train’ and we had a moment at the beginning of the Obama administration where we thought something was gonna happen.” At the time, it seemed Democrats and Republicans were ready to take action together. 

But Lazarus recalls “The here and now [of politics] just cratered us politically.” In 2010, Republicans gaining control of the House of Representatives cratered us. And, in 2016, President Trump was elected, directly placing a climate denier in the White House. As Lazarus put it, the trajectory of environmental law has become a “trainwreck.”

When asked about the future, Lazarus says that “the courts aren’t going to save us.” While the courts have advanced environmental issues in cases such as Massachusetts vs. EPA, Lazarus doesn’t believe that there is any substitute for elected officials making change. 

While reflecting on his career, Lazarus is happy to have helped the next future of lawyers. He notes, “Oh, legacy? And that’s easy. It’s teaching.” While Lazarus notes that the Supreme Court arguments and working with the Biden/Harris transition team have been great fun, he loves his students. In fact, he “gets a huge kick out of them.” And, while there is a lot of work to be done, Lazarus remains hopeful. At the end of our interview, Lazarus posits, “you know who they are gonna listen to?” He points to me, the next generation of environmental advocates.

Imani Black // Credit: Minorities in Aquaculture

Imani Black is reshaping and rethinking the aquaculture industry. From founding Minorities in Aquaculture (MIA) to her own personal research on  shellfish aquaculture and Black maritime history, Imani is making an impact. In just three short years, MIA has partnered with the NOAA Sea Grant program, the Pew Research Center, the Chesapeake Bay Program, Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences, and other organizations to connect women of color in  the aquaculture industry on a local and global scale.

Imani’s passion for the Chesapeake Bay did not develop overnight. She can trace her family’s watermen roots in Maryland back over 200 years. In high school, her interest in marine sciences led her focus to the eastern oyster. The oyster has connected many aspects of life in the bay, from cultural to economic to ecological, for hundreds of years. This led Imani to study Marine Biology in college and pursue a career in aquaculture. Like many other African American families, Imani’s and her family have been engaged in the stewardship of the Chesapeake for generations.

The legacy of Black maritime history in the Chesapeake Bay is frequently, and often intentionally, overlooked. African Americans have been crabbing, fishing, sailing, and managing the waters since the arrival of colonists to what would be called Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. Building boats, forging metal oyster tongs, Black people have made long lasting and widespread impacts on the waters and cultures of the Chesapeake Bay. Some of the first African Americans to legally be considered citizens of the United States were “Black Jacks”, watermen and oyster fishers from the Chesapeake Bay Region. These Black Jacks possessed a Seamen’s Protection Certificate, granting them American citizenship around 70 years before the Emancipation Proclamation. From harvesting to packing, African Americans across the Chesapeake Bay mastered highly specialized skills that frequently made them more adept sailors than most white sailors. Along with harvesting oysters for sale in markets, African American watermen planted shellfish for later sale at the market, creating some of the first “aquaculture” seen in the region.

However, commercial aquaculture as it is known today wasn’t introduced into the Chesapeake Bay until the 1990’s. Aquaculture is the cultivation of aquatic organisms through breeding, raising, and harvesting in controlled environments. Following the major population declines of oysters from diseases, overfishing, and environmental changes in the bay in the late 20th century, aquaculture was introduced as a way to support the demands of the oyster industry without destroying wild fisheries. Through shellfish leases, watermen have the ability to farm shellfish, most commonly oysters, in sections of a body of water. In the 1970’s, nearly a third of leaseholders on the Nanticoke River in Virginia were Black men. Today, aquaculture is the fastest growing food industry globally. However, aquaculture accounted for only 7% of the United States’ total domestic production of seafood in 2022. In the Chesapeake Bay, the industry is overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly male.

Oyster tonger. Wicomico River, Maryland, 1941. // Credit: Reginald Hotchkiss, Library of Congress

Together with wild-caught harvest, aquaculture attempts to create a more sustainable way to utilize fisheries. Seafood is central to the economy and culture of the Chesapeake Bay region, but without change there could be no population left to fish. The growth of the aquaculture industry is key to maintaining healthy wild fisheries, especially in the Chesapeake Bay.  “Sustainability for me is when both areas, environmentally and economically, are balanced,” says Imani. “Then, that’s when we really have sustainable industry. Aquaculture falls into that because the ultimate goal is to play to both, feed into both.”

This sustainability, in practice, prioritizes economics and ecology while omitting the importance of people. Cultural sustainability, or keeping the traditions and heritage alive of populations, has fallen by the wayside. In Maryland, Imani can only name one aquaculture farm that is owned by an African American. She can name none owned by women. Of the 11,244 licensed captains employed in the United States, only 6.7% are Black or African-American. African Americans have championed traditions of stewardship and connection between the people and the water, but this isn’t reflected in the region’s current demographic of aquaculturists.

Imani wanted to make a change. In 2020, she founded Minorities in Aquaculture (MIA). “I didn’t start MIA to be this big thing,” says Imani. “I just impulsively was like ‘I have never worked with another woman of color in my space’ and I wanted to expand on that.” The mission of MIA is to educate minority women about the benefits provided by local and global aquaculture in order to promote a more diverse, inclusive aquaculture industry.

Like the discovery that Imani had herself, MIA wishes to bring more women of color in the industry. “We are trying to build a successful pipeline and bridge between aquaculture and the groups that are unrepresented in the industry using [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] DEI tactics.” As of MIA’s 2023 annual report, the organization has supported over 200 members globally, raised over $200,000 in support for program funding, as well as fully funding internship positions in the aquaculture industry for 17 women of color since 2023. When only 15% of nearly 60 million full-time workers in the aquaculture industry globally are women, these internship positions allow for more stability and support when entering the workforce.

Now a masters student at the University of Maryland’s Horn Point Laboratory, Imani is adding academia to her list of oyster experience. In her studies, she personal experience of the aquaculture industry to the discussion while highlighting the voices of minorities. The miscommunications between what is realistically beneficial to aquaculturists, whether intentional or not, create more issues for the industry as a whole. Imani says, “What’s important here isn’t necessarily important in another sector, it isn’t viewed in the same way. For all of us to get on the same page we have to understand each other’s value systems.” To better understand these value systems, MIA conducted a 2023 survey of the experiences regarding women, women of color, and the LGBTQIA+ community in aquaculture. Of the over 140 respondents, 77% report struggling to remain in the industry long-term because of a lack of financing or grants. This census aims to unite interests of minorities in aquaculture in setting a baseline for understanding what it means to be a minority in aquaculture and inform future advocacy.

As Imani continues her work with MIA, her graduate research informs the organization’s mission. “It’s been an experience of understanding the different nuances of academia and how they are different from the sectors I have been in aquaculture. But also, I have been really intentional about the research I’ve been doing,” says Imani. Through her research collecting oral histories, Imani is compiling the first account of Black maritime history in the Chesapeake Bay since the 1990’s written by a member of the community. “I didn’t want to just do a lab project that was on my advisor’s list of projects that he wanted to do. My research is the only social science based project at Horn Point right now. It’s really looking at the historic involvement of African Amerians in the Chesapeake Bay commercial fisheries, trying to figure out the domino effect of how we went from being one of the most predominant demographics in fisheries for a very long time to now having only 12 living Black commercial captains still working.”

MIA founder Imani Black talks oysters with the women of the Billion Oyster Project in NYC. // Credit: Courtesy of Caroline J. Phillips and Jeannette Ralyea Watson, Minorities in Aquaculture.

Imani Black and Minorities in Aquaculture strive to connect people to science and industry, educating and promoting diversity and excellence while simultaneously changing the landscape of aquaculture as a whole. Further information about Minorities in Aquaculture and Imani’s research can be found at www.mianpo.org and on Instagram at @imaniiiblackkk.