“Common Ground: Oregon’s Oceans,” a 30-minute documentary film, spurred a lengthy debate about ocean protection during a lecture in 182 Lillis Tuesday.
Karen Meyer, the director of the film and co-founder of Green Fire Productions, said she intended for the documentary to inspire a dialogue. Meyer is holding panel events around the state to discuss Oregon’s oceans. Joining her at the lecture were five expert panelists.
Before playing the documentary, Meyer showed a 10-minute “Sea Album,” displaying a compilation of ocean images from around the world. The audience of more than 100 people buzzed at the sight of the colossal 1964 tidal wave in Alaska, then chuckled when a girl from Queens, N.Y., watched a horseshoe crab on the coast and proclaimed, “I don’t like no arthropods.”
Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy was in attendance, and she commended the work of Green Fire Productions and Meyer for starting a much needed conversation.
“It’s my privilege to do a little bit to advertise and help this conversation,” said Piercy.
The documentary focused on the issue of creating marine preserves in order to combat the overfishing and habitat destruction of the West Coast. Throughout the film, colorful footage of coral and rockfish depicted the diverse ecosystems in Oregon’s oceans.
Craig Cornelius, a dive master on the coast, said, “There’s stuff out here you won’t see anywhere else.”
The documentary endorsed marine preserves within the three miles off the coastline where the state regulates the waters. With income from salmon and rockfish steadily decreasing, the issue of ocean regulation is gaining attention throughout Oregon.
Mark Hixon, a professor of marine biology at Oregon State University, cited the declining populations of rockfish as evidence of the need for marine preserves.
“These species are distributed so evenly over the West Coast slope that the entire area has to be protected,” he said.
The documentary included the opinions of fishermen whose livelihoods could be endangered by the strict rules of marine preserves. The effectiveness and necessity of marine preserves, and the role of stewardship for the ocean are ongoing issues currently facing much of the world.
When the discussion began, the panelists and audience members had a lot to say about the possibility of implementing marine preserves in Oregon.
“There’s more than one way to protect marine habitats,” said panelist Mike Graybill, manager of the protected wildlife area South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve.
Panelist Selina Heppell, from Oregon State University’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, explained that reserves come in many different sizes, depending on their goals, but that having a large network of reserves is better than having only one.
Panelist Onno Husing is a member of the Ocean Policy Advisory Council and the Oregon Coastal Zone Management Association, a non-profit with ties to the fishing industry. Husing said the documentary was misleading in depicting an unhealthy Oregon ocean. He said that the fisheries industry is a great story of change and proposed making a new “Common Ground” with the positive outlook of the work that is being done.
University student Tuula Rebhahn said the discussion was extremely informative.
“I think they had a good diversity of opinions on the subject,” she said.