How faith helped diffuse Bay crisis
Documentary on MPT details Tangier Island conflict

OWINGS MILLS, MD: For more than 200 years, fishing has been the lifeblood of the Chesapeake Bay's Tangier Island, off the coasts of Maryland and Virginia, and for decades, it has been the source of conflict - often violent - between the fisherman and environmentalists. On Saturday, November 3 at 5:30 p.m. Maryland Public Television airs a new documentary which chronicles how the battle over crabs, oysters and their habitat came to a head and how a college student's thesis on faith-based conflict resolution infused hope and healing into a situation that many had considered hopelessly deadlocked.

While their lifestyle may seem simple to outsiders, islanders fiercely protect it. Yet, watermen have long been criticized for damaging the very ecosystem upon which they rely for their survival. Scientists and environmentalists claim that pollution, over-harvesting and runoff have destroyed sea grass beds, causing harvests to plummet.
When a group of environmentalists took up residence on the island almost 12 years ago, the stage was set for conflict between the two groups. Many islanders thought the environmentalists' regulatory proposals were attacking their livelihood and saw them as the enemy.

"I think some of the environmental groups themselves would like to see the watermen off the bay altogether," waterman Nanner Pruitt says in the program. "They see watermen as a threat, that they're just out there to take and take and take."

In 1997, Susan Drake walked right into the raging firestorm. Drake, who had worked on environmental treaties for the U.S. State Department, came to Tangier after hearing about an arson attack on a shed owned by the regional environmental group and about a spiritual revival that had swept the island in 1995. Drake believed that the conflict might prove an ideal testing ground for her thesis that conflict in faith-based communities requires faith-based resolutions.

Although many islanders mistrust outsiders, Drake's persistent appeals to their faith eventually had a positive effect. Her approach impressed islanders, who invited her to speak at a joint service of two island churches. Citing the second chapter of Genesis, Drake told them that obedience to the earth-keeping, fruitfulness and Sabbath principles would ensure the preservation of the environment and maintain the integrity of the bays' fisheries.

"On the one hand, the waterman is praying, 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,' and the next minute throwing bottles and beer cans and whatever overboard," Drake says. "Through this unique stewardship approach, I think that many of the watermen understood and saw for the first time the linkage of their faith to their livelihood and their everyday life out on the water."

This approach struck a chord. "She's opened a lot of the watermen's eyes to the fact that we need to stop throwing our trash in our water, we need to keep our oil cans on the boat," Pruitt says.

The program doesn't paint an idyllic picture. Yet while it acknowledges that there are still hurdles to overcome, Chesapeake Watermen: Between Heaven & Earth illustrates how Drake has paved a path for compromise that many thought was impossible to find.
Chesapeake Watermen is produced by Wisconsin Public Television which is a service of the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board and the University of Wisconsin-Extension.

Maryland Public Television is a not-for-profit, state-licensed public television station which serves the citizens and communities of Maryland and beyond through a variety of broadcast and nonbroadcast activities.

For more information on this and other MPT on- and off-air programs, visit mpt.org.

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