Last year, with support from The Nature Conservancy, I hit the road in a converted cargo van and drove the entire coastline of the continental United States to recruit members for the Shellfish Growers Climate Coalition (SGCC). The SGCC is a national group of shellfish businesses united to advocate for federal climate policies that will secure a future for shellfish and the livelihoods and communities that depend on them. Through ethnographic methods like participant observation, interviews, and focus groups I built rapport in communities across the country, grew Coalition membership by over 70%, and learned about the challenges and opportunities of growing shellfish amidst a changing climate.
The shellfish industry in the U.S. is a diverse collection of individuals, communities, and organizations that span every imaginable cultural, geographic, and socioeconomic spectrum. The range of climate impacts on the industry is similarly immense- from changes in ocean chemistry and temperature in the Pacific Northwest to storm activity in the Southeast. Throughout my trip, however, significant patterns emerged out of apparent dissociation, which offer the industry a constructive way forward in the face of a largely distressing atmospheric outlook.
Despite having a variety of histories, personalities, and politics, shellfishers are bonded by a common value and a shared experience- dependence on shellfish resources and sea level rise. These facts provide a common experience upon which to build unconventional relationships and new alliances, allowing the shellfish industry to more effectively organize and advocate for itself in the face of an existential threat.