The Ethical Pearl Consumer

[Slraep]

To me it looks more like a heartfelt tribute to the Amanita muscaria mushroom - it gives off a "beautiful (?!) but deadly" vibe that will surely be the hot trend next season...

Oh man, that is so F-U-N-N-Y. (Besides star gazing, I love mushroom hunting!) Fly agaric! Beautiful but deadly vibe....(I can't stop laughing).

Slraep

 

[Josh]

Amanita Muscaria is not that deadly, I'm proof. Native Americans used them in rituals for thousands of years right? Uh oh, I guess this thread is going the way of the degraded.

 

[Valeria101]

Amanita Muscaria is not that deadly, I'm proof.

You didn't!

 

[gravityalwayswins]

I agree with Barbie - I often wish there was a way to purchase things directly from the producer and split the difference of what I'd pay retail - the producer gets more money and I benefit, too. Obviously it's not a large-scale solution, as producers can't work efficiently with consumers en masse, but still... I, too, dream of calling Josh and offering a few days' labor in return for purchasing opportunities.

 

[Slraep]

Amanita Muscaria is not that deadly,....

If you eat a lot of them raw, you might wish you were dead though.

Slraep

 

[Caitlin]

Amanita Muscaria, like datura, is not for amateurs.They are both very toxic. These are not do-it-yourself herbs, although there have always been first peoples and other experts who know how to use them properly-though they may still make you vomit and cramp.

There have been some really interesting books on the use of amanita muscaria...does anyone remember "The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross" by John Allegro (1970)? If you have you will be familiar with the idea that culture and religion grew out of the highly sexualized vocabulary of the mushroom and hundreds, maybe thousands, of words are based on the root words for mushrooms and their various male and female body parts. The book was controversial when it came out and caused a huge uproar, mostly of rejection. Interesting though.

 

[Josh]

Gravityalwayswins, What are you waiting for?

Yeah, I agree Caitlin (about Datura too). My adventurous college years did have me try a weak A.M. tea which was definitely altering but in the context (no religious or cultural framing) pretty much without worth beyond just a new experience. Everything in moderation (including moderation) though. At Berkeley I took a plant class about the indigenous plants of CA (freakin' amazing I have to add) and learned that you can taste anything in the natural world in CA, provided you don't swallow it. I had my mouth go numb once with poison hemlock but other than that the lesson I learned after countless hiking (and tasting) in the CA wilds was that nothing really tastes like anything. Kind of a let down really. The truth is that we live in a pretty bland world.

 

[CortezPearls]

Thanks Pattye and Steve for getting what I was talking about. I don't have an evil-take-over-the-world-plot-to-make-all-farmers-impossibly-rich-while-running-retailers-into-the-ground sort of thing in mind, just something that keeps people in business, that's all.

Sounds like you want the FAIR TRADE GEM deal. It could work, but first you have to get rid of the TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS (read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons).

The problem of Tahitian Pearl farmers is so similar to that of Mexican Shrimp/Calamari Fisheries: a given resource becomes profitable, then everyone jumps into the wagon, overproduction ensues so prices drop and then we must produce more in order to make the money we made before, and the circle continues until a resource is depleted (or an industry destroyed). In the meantime, in order to cut costs, quality is reduced.

It is a Human Tragedy.

 

[CortezPearls]

Caitlin that was brilliant and thanks for beating me too it.
It's important as well that people understand that on some Tahitian pearl farms, like mine, the fish populations near the farm have actually increased and returned to pre-human inhabitation levels. The oysters collect fouling which includes all sorts of different organisms from algae to oysters to crabs to anemones, etc. There is a variety of fish for every kind of fouling so the food is distributed throughout the different groups of species, keeping the natural balance that nature prefers. I wish I could better describe to the world how positive Tahitian pearl farming can be to the ocean, the oysters, the people, etc.

I agree with Josh. If done properly and with respect for Nature (this includes respecting the oyster, its environment and the pearl itself) a pearl farm can actually help. Nobody fishes in our farm because we have custody of the water, and many species -once abundant- have returned. The pearl oysters were depleted and now they are abundant once again. We are a safe haven for many forms of marine life.

Socially speaking, you can give back to your community as well. Most of my workers are Yaqui, and some have been with us for 16 years now...why? because they love it here!!! good job, nice pay, good treatment, excellent view and plenty of fresh air. It is a tough job, not an easy one (summers with temperatures exceeding 49 Celsius/120 Fahrenheit; winters with temperatures as low as 5 C) and strenuous... but they don't want to leave. We have reunited "old foes" (Yaqui vs Pearl Oyster) and now make them work together. No feuds here

We have also become a local "Touristic Hot-spot", and a Cultural option at that (we don't sell alcohol...we are an educational option).

But all of this is costly. It is always easier & more economically rewarding (on the very short-term for the ethically/morally impaired) to pay miserable wages, produce crap and dump everything into the environment without any respect for Life. But then again...what happens when you look into the mirror each morning? Can you look into your children's eyes???

That is the Question...and I guess many people cannot shave nor have any children. I just hope they never come to my country to ruin it all.

 

[Valeria101]

Hm... it does sound like there is an answer to the original question of the thread shaping up!

 

[Valeria101]

Sounds like you want the FAIR TRADE GEM deal. It could work, but first you have to get rid of the (read: TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS).

Common tragedy, since Aristotle (the oldest reference for this argument).

How did / would you rate the odds of a Fair Trade label at solving that problem?

 

[CortezPearls]

Hard to say at the moment...perhaps there are no "real world" solutions because this is a really big planet filled to the rim with people, most with very different ideas (or none at all-this is really disturbing) on how to solve problems.
But the best you can do is TRY. If you fail, at least you tried...and the thing that Josh would have to do is to act locally: get friends, other farmers, talk to them, and convince them to start doing things differently. He/they will not stop the "Wan-it-all" farmers, but he/they will -hopefully- be able to differentiate and extricate themselves and survive until the others are self-destroyed. That is what they always do...they destroy themselves, and in the process they destroy the market, the environment and the communities that depend on the resource.

The Fair Trade Gem Option would help people choose to support farms that operate ethically, give them that edge they need in order to survive until things change

 

[PearlA]

>and the thing that Josh would have to do is to act locally: get friends, other farmers, talk to them, and convince them to start doing things differently.


In the last few months that I've been reading (and reading and reading), certain little quirky factoids have become lodged in my brain. One of them involves Josh, and it's the first thing I think of whenever someone mentions him or his farm. It's the detail about how he stopped the high-pressure-blast cleaning of the oysters, not only on his farm, but in his general area as well (atoll? neighboring farms? I'm not sure about the correct geographic phrasing, but my point was that he got it changed elsewhere as well, beyond his own farm). It is literally the "Josh fact" that has lodged itself in my brain, and I think that's a good thing.

(I must say I'm also very impressed by things you've said as well, Mr. McLaurin. You yourself are indeed an excellent selling point/advertisement for your pearls. I mean that with complete sincerity, and I do hope to have some of your pearls in my future.)