Seas and Earthlings: Argos documents “the little history that humanizes big problems”
Journalists Jérômine Derigny and Cécile Bontron in front of an excerpt from their report on overfishing in the Gulf of Guinea, exhibited during the One Ocean Summit Brest, February 10, 2022. © Géraud Bosman-Delzons/RFI
Text by: Géraud Bosman-Delzons Follow
7 mins
This collective of freelance photographers and journalists is a pioneer in media coverage of climate change and its consequences.
Extracts from their work are exhibited in Brest (Brittany) on the occasion of the One Ocean Summit.
Beautiful and sad at the same time.
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From our special correspondent in Brest,
The string of triangular panels stretches along the promenade of the Moulin Blanc, between the Océanopolis center in Brest and the marina.
This is moreover the only black point of this exhibition, so you might as well get rid of it without delay: its location, at the far end of the harbor of Brest when it should have been displayed at the Ateliers des Capucins, where a twenty Heads of State will meet today.
A bit, ultimately,
like
Guernica
at the UN
, which reminds those who are going to discuss its continuation or its end of the ravages of war.
Be that as it may, on the tripods erected like Moai, the texts and photos are stunningly aesthetic.
It serves all the better a more ambivalent message, sometimes invigorating, sometimes anemic.
A bit like the state of the planet in 2022. Good deeds are legion, but there is still so much to do.
This is essentially what this
Amer project
denounces , which brings together the work of a dozen journalists and photojournalists, all independent, on the theme of the monopolization of the oceans.
They went to Indonesia, where mountains of plastic waste end up in 100% of fish stomachs analyzed in Bali;
in the Bering Strait (Alaska) where the melting of the ice allowed a 150% increase in maritime traffic;
or even in Senegal where the sardinella is fished more than reason and right, threatening stocks and, indirectly, an entire economy, causing impoverishment and emigration, at the risk of young lives.
In short, everywhere where man passes and where nature passes away.
Photo taken by Guillaume Collanges, from the Argos collective, in Joal, Senegal.
© Geraud Bosman-Delzons/RFI
"They don't understand the problem"
We join Cécile Bontron, journalist-editor, Jérômine Derigny, photojournalist, sitting in the cold wind near the panel showing their work on Chinese fishing boats off the coast of Gabon, when the latter raises straight up: "
I was listening to the people commenting on the panel.
It raises questions!
The journalist's mission, to tickle the critical mind and stir up consciences, has been successful.
These “
reporters committed to sustainable development issues
”, as they define themselves
on their site
, are not at their first attempt.
Gathered in the collective Argos, these feathers swarm in the vast panorama of the French press.
All-round.
"
Our work on the overfishing of Chinese boats in Gabon has found its way into both
L'Humanité Dimanche
and
Le Figaro Magazine
".
The first, a magazine version of the communist daily, published the story through the prism of modern slavery that reigns aboard these lawless ships.
As for the second, flagship of the conservative press, retained the angle of overfishing.
Two aspects, social and ecological, of the same deleterious practice.
Thus, in addition to being a good operation from a financial point of view - the sinews of war for freelancers, who are paying the price for their independence -, it is also an excellent editorial coup since a wider audience is affected, some or his political opinion.
For this trip, Jérômine Derigny and Cécile Bontron went to Gabon for a month.
Their mission: to climb, with the help of
Sea Shepherd
, which lends its boats to the Gabonese army for fishing inspections, on Chinese boats under the Sino-Gabonese flag.
Who come to illegally rake the funds of the territorial waters.
Not everything went as planned.
“
We were blocked without explanation by the Gabonese government, which did not let us return.
They thought we were going to work on the elections, a year later.
After a week of waiting, we had to go to São Tomé to catch the boat.
»
On board, it's the discovery of a world where sailors are hardly better treated than fish.
“
Not only do they destroy the oceans, but they also destroy the men who are on them,
testifies Cécile Bontron.
We were able to identify modern slavery that no one had ever identified.
No passports on the three boats visited.
They are filthy boats, there are cockroaches, they sleep huddled together, the toilets have no doors and overlook the deck while the guys collect fish.
They don't have a day off.
The conditions are horrible.
But that is not the responsibility of the fisheries inspector.
»
Also marked by this experience, Jérômine will not forget either this giant turtle, brought back into the meshes of a net which should never have picked it up.
Photo taken by Jérômine Derigny, from the Argos collective, aboard a Chinese fishing boat in the Gulf of Guinea.
On the small map, the ocean is shown in blue, to better assess the place it occupies.
Gabon (misplaced) is the red dot.
© Geraud Bosman-Delzons/RFI
Professionals, the two journalists went to confront the representatives of one of the Chinese companies in Gabon.
Confrontational interview?
“
In fact, they don't even see the problem.
We talked about passports, fish.
The papers are at the company's premises, that's normal, and 90% of the fish caught in Gabonese waters are sent to China, that's normal.
Everything is normal, there are no subjects
,” Céline is still surprised.
When Argos revealed climate refugees
Argos was born from an observation: "
Three photographers met at the same demonstration and found it ridiculous to take the same photo when we could take three different angles [the prism of a news story] and cover it in its entirety on environmental subjects.
The very first, in 2004, was on global warming.
At the time, twenty years ago, the effects of climate change were not so obvious.
Or rather were not treated with the same acuity.
And if science was less affirmative than today and more contested, including within it, it was already alerting to the phenomenon.
“
We thought about the impact he had on men and women.
It was the first time that
".
The work, again over several years, will find its (good) place on the walls of the French Embassy and the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen during the COP 2009.
Climate refugees, grabbing of the seas... Are there only dramas to show in anthropogenic action?
"
With Climatic Refugees, which showed the problem,
answers Cécile Bontron,
people said to us: 'ok, but what do we do?'
In a subsequent series, Empreintes, we focused on energy transition solutions.
» New world tour.
United States, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, but also Bangladesh and Burkina Faso, environmental common sense is not only a question of economic or technological development.
Bitter, contrary to what its name suggests, is a clever mix of the two.
The plastic in Indonesia, for example, which is burned to remake a floor, also serves as a means of payment for this compassionate doctor of his penniless clients.
Or of this diver who struggles to protect corals in Polynesia while raising awareness among children in educational marine areas.
“
Awareness should not trigger eco-depression in people who see this.
You have to be in balance.
That people also say to themselves “ok, there are things to do anyway on all scales and at all levels
”, believes Cécile Bontron.
► Listen again:
Eco-anxiety: when global warming worries
The values of Argos are based on "
our common sensitivity to the environment, on the importance of long-term work, and of producing subjects on a human level, that is to say telling the life of ordinary people, the peasant as the small fisherman.
Because the little story makes it possible to humanize the big problems
”.
Those too, who know climate change best to experience it on the front line.
And who are therefore holders of a wealth: information.
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