ProPublica’s Big Story: Wild Salmon

I’m always being asked what politics has to do with food.  My answer: everything.

Here is an example, courtesy of ProPublica and Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Enormous numbers of people depend on wild salmon for food and livelihoods.  If the salmon disappear or cannot be eaten, these people lose both.

• • This Billion-Dollar Plan to Save Salmon Depends on a Giant Fish Vacuum: Many endorse opening dams and letting fish coast the natural current as the best way to avoid extinction. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has other ideas. by Tony Schick, Oregon Public Broadcasting. View Story
  • The Fight of the Salmon People: Randy Settler’s family has spent generations fighting for their right to harvest salmon. But the federal government squandered its chance to recover the endangered fish before the onset of climate change. Now, Settler sees it all slipping away again. Tony Schick, Oregon Public Broadcasting, and Katie Campbell, ProPublica.
  • The U.S. Promised Tribes They Would Always Have Fish, but the Fish They Have Pose Toxic Risks: For decades, the U.S. government has failed to test for chemicals and metals in fish. So, we did. What we found was alarming for tribes. by Tony Schick, Oregon Public Broadcasting, and Maya Miller, ProPublica.
  • The Racism, and Resilience, Behind Today’s Salmon Crisis: Salmon have been endangered my entire life. Here’s what I didn’t realize until I started reporting. by Tony Schick, Oregon Public Broadcasting.
  • The Federal Government Is Finally Increasing Funding for Salmon Hatcheries. Tribes Say It’s Not Enough: Columbia River salmon hatcheries need billions of dollars’ worth of upgrades to withstand climate change. They’re getting $50 million. by Tony Schick, Oregon Public Broadcasting.
  • The U.S. Has Spent More Than $2 Billion on a Plan to Save Salmon. The Fish Are Vanishing Anyway: The U.S. government promised Native tribes in the Pacific Northwest that they could keep fishing as they’d always done. But instead of preserving wild salmon, it propped up a failing system of hatcheries. Now, that system is falling apart. by Tony Schick, Oregon Public Broadcasting, and Irena Hwang, ProPublica, photography by Kristyna Wentz-Graff, Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Salmon raise other issues besides their effects on indigenous populations.

• Salmon farming: see previous posts here and here.
• GMO salmon: here and here.

Nothing in food is simple.  Nothing in food is free of politics.