The library classification data for The Outlaw Ocean suggests categories like Fisheries-Corrupt practices, Travel, Special interest, Adventure, True Crime. All of these seem correct and yet none of them seems right.
This is just over 400 pages long – with another hundred pages of notes (sources, readings, digressions) and more than ten pages of recommended reading. Based on four years of reporting and thousands of hours of interviews: each of these fifteen chapters reads like a condensed book. It took me more than six weeks to read, alongside other books (of course).
The idea behind my #ReadTheChange project for this year is to select a few books which I suspect will change my understanding of the world. Based on a personal recommendation from a trusted venue or reading friend, like the New York Times Book Review podcast. That’s how I learned about Ian Urbina’s reporting so I was anticipating a couple of the topics; I hadn’t anticipated how engrossing each of them would become for me.
Initially, I was concerned about my inherent resistance to learning about subjects which cut close to the heart; now I am concerned as to whether any other book I choose for this project will measure up to this one. In a couple of instances, had I known what the next topic would have been, I might have been tempted to skip it; once I’d begun reading, I couldn’t stop.
It’s clear that at least some of this compulsion is fuelled by curiosity, which is intensified via the writer’s experience of surprise. For instance: “Even though I had reported on quite a few grim industries over the years (coal mining, long-haul trucking, sex work, garment and glue factories), I was still stunned by the conditions on fishing boats.”
Yup, that’s right. At one point, he remarks on a study (from 2012, via the Philippine embassy in Singapore) which reports more requests from Filipino men to investigate trafficking off fishing vessels than requests from the women reporting from the notoriously abusive s*x and nightlife entertainment industry for women. So, what does that tell you about what you know about fisheries?
Perhaps more to the point: now that you do know, do you care?
This is a question the author posed as well, wrestling with the question of whether anyone really wants to read and know this: “Still, I clung to the hope that by my putting the information out there, other people might use it somehow to change things. Deep down inside, though, I wondered if these were legitimate motivations or professional delusions.”
He also wonders whether it’s fair to share these stories, which are often miserable, to ask questions which force survivors to revisit their trauma: “…I resigned myself to the idea that the only thing worse than telling a tale of abuse over and over again was not telling it at all.”
Along the way there are many opportunities to absorb facts and receive anecdotes. I learned, for instance, that the Great Barrier Reef grows at the rate of about a half inch each year (now occupying an area equivalent to the state of Pennsylvania, after about 600,000 years), that there are more species on two acres of that space than there are bird species on the whole continent of North America, and that it’s a zero waste situation (in which every organism’s waste plays an integral role in another organism’s survival).
But, actually, this book has virtually nothing to do with the Great Barrier Reef; this is just one of those along-the-way subjects, which surfaces in a single page’s contextual material, on another topic and another continent. So, I’m sharing this discovery more to demonstrate that the density of information has a wholly satisfying and almost overwhelming reach to it.
The supplementary material at the end of the book offers substantive suggestions for engaged readers to take their new knowledge forward, to enact change.
I could read on this topic for the rest of this year, but I’ve got a few library records earmarked for other issues to explore.
What are you reading that is changing your world?
I just posted on this book, thanks so much for suggesting it
The Outlaw Enjoy dervives from a series of articles Ian Urbina published in The New York Times in 2015. It was born in years of intrepid first hand investigations of what goes on in the wide open oceans once you get outside territorial rights.
He starts with a chapter detailing the terrible explotation of desperately poor rural Thai men recruited to work on fishing boats that often stay out to sea for years, being supplied by fleet ships which also take the catch. The men are often in debt bondage, beaten and used sexually by ship officers. Any possible legal protection they have ends once outside Thai Waters. The working conditions are very dangerous. Urbina spent time on these boats and lived in the filthy conditions the men endure. The fishing methods are very enviormentally destructive, they kill and throw out many more fish than they harvest.
Ever enjoy Chilian Seabass at a Lovely restuarant? Read the chapter about how they are caught and you might not have it again.
“The fish is also a favorite entrée in upscale restaurants in the United States and Europe, costing about $30 a fillet. But diners won’t find “toothfish” on menus. There, it is sold under a more palatable name: Chilean sea bass. Demand soared in the 1980s and 1990s after a Los Angeles fish wholesaler with a flair for marketing renamed the fish. The rebranding worked a little too well. The oily fish, rich in omega 3, soon came to be known on docks worldwide as white gold. Most scientists now agree that the toothfish population is dwindling at an unsustainable rate.”
Toothfish are found in southern artic waters. Fidhing in The southern artic is almost unregulated, there are laws limiting catches but they are very hard to enforce.
Urbina explains why ships are registered in third world countries with reputations for corruption.
Big ships worth millions are often purchased with loans, some from commercial banks and some from foggy syndicates of some sort. So How do you reposss a 200 meter freighter running Under a flag from The Sudan when the owners want to keep it? You hire a boat repo man! How this works is explained in a fascinating chapter.
Every chapter tells a story. There is a great deal to be learned in this very well written book. I have just hit a few highlights.
I’m so glad to hear that you found this worthwhile and affecting, Mel.
It was interesting to read about his difficulties gaining access to certain situations and how much personal risk he was at for revealing the truth of these situations.
I wonder how many people, of those who choose to/can afford to pay $30/filet really care about the plight of the workers who have supplied it. But, then, it doesn’t have to be about the $30. How many people refuse to pay more for a cup of fairly-traded/ethically-produced coffee and opt for slave-labour/child-labour produced beans instead?
The flag-raising and flag-swapping fascinated me. I think part of me is still sitting in a grade-school classroom, colouring flags and believing in an artificial kind of nationality!
Some of the scenes were just breath-taking, such tension while some parties attempted to uphold the law while others attempted to flee or curtail it. Even though I read more fiction than non-fiction, many times this felt like reading a thriller!
Yes, that’s so true…so many complementary topics, connected, but complicated and distinct. You’ve made me want to read it again, Mel!
This kind of reminds me of The Sixth Extinction in that there is one main focus overall, but many tangents and offshoots. Every chapter was so interesting, and I liked the fact that I could put the book down between chapters without losing momentum.
I love the tidbit about the Great Barrier Reef – ecosystems are fascinating!
Can’t wait to see what you choose next for this project.
The Kolbert book was moved onto display at the end of the aisle in the library (right near the 800s, where I spend a lot of time LOL) and I was very tempted, after your comment, to snatch it up. You will admire my restraint (or perhaps you’ll shout that I should go back for it, straight away) because it was a nice, fresh copy and seemed eminently readable.
Of all the reading projects, this is the one which I thought would be most challenging to choose for, but it’s actually really difficult to narrow the choices. My current read, I chose at the last minute, and I haven’t a clue what the next one will be. Anything on your shelves that you think would fit the bill?
Right now I’m reading The Nova Scotia Home for Coloured Children, which is a local story, but really not. Social justice and the environment are the two topics that pop quickly into my head – and there are so many books (and sub-topics) for both!
That’s definitely one that I would like to read too! And two of my pet topics as well.
A great project. I have been interested in this book for a while. Here in the Philippines masses are often said for workers on boats of all sorts. It is a hard life for all involved,
Well done for joining in with the #readingchange challenge. I am very bad at stepping outside my comfort zone, and even when I do it’s usually still fiction. It’s always good to open our minds to new worlds and ideas.
And, yet, one of the books that you recommended, a couple of years back now, Shirin Ebadi’s, is just the sort that makes me want to read more books like this. So you do read this kind of thing, at least sometimes!
That’s interesting: I can see why. There’s a lot of discussion about Filipino workers and companies here for sure. Indonesian, too. But he really does make a global issue of it and the question of law-making and enforcement does take it beyond the common nationalistic ways of thinking about human rights and environmental issues (because these areas are often beyond existing jurisdictions). I bet you could get a reading copy, based on your location, but I know you have an endless amount of reading already!
There are about a million Filipinos working on ships, masses are frequently said for them
I’m not sure if I’ve commented on this before, but I absolutely love your plan to read books that change your worldview. I’ll be honest that so much of fiction does this for me as well. Over and over again, the more books I read, the more i realize how lucky I am, in almost every single aspect of my life 🙂
It’s been one of the main motivations for my reading for a long time, but sometimes just saying something out loud bring another layer of intention to things, eh? I was just commenting on your post, earlier today, to echo the importance of also reading for entertainment too though. It’s a balancing act!
I love seeing people really trying to learn and change their lives through reading. I am making an effort to read more about other people’s lives that are close to mine, so have books about my city and its immigrants, and about the experience of young people of colour in the UK on my TBR. I have a lot of dead white middle class folk on the front shelf of my TBR so need to do some alternating from the shelves soon!
It does take an effort doesn’t it – as much as it would be convenient for it to “just happen”. LOL And, yes, I have a lot of those more-familiar narratives on my shelves too – and I’m doing what you’ve suggested – pulling from different sources (and depending heavily on the library) so that I am always reaching, or always TRYing to, at least…
What an excellent idea for a reading project! The trafficking revelation is a shocking one and not what you might excpect from that jacket and title.
There are so many different topics covered! I think that could be disorienting for some readers, who might expect a more conventional “discovery” arc centred around a central subject, but the other side of that is, if you don’t care for one chapter’s topic, the next one might be a perfect match.