Biblical Earthkeeping and Conflict Resolution

Tangier Watermen's Stewardship for the Chesapeake
Tangier Island, Chesapeake Bay, VA

The 650 watermen (an old English term referring to one who fishes, crabs and oysters) of Tangier Island, Virginia, in Chesapeake Bay, trace their ancestry back to Cornwall England and, because of their remote location, still speak with an Elizabethan accent. The church is the center of community life, and 80 percent of the people consider themselves conservative evangelical Christians.

Tangier's economy is based almost entirely on the blue crab fishery, which government officials say is suffering from over-harvesting, too much fishing gear in the water and pollution from farms and urban areas. Proposed fishing regulations led to bitter conflict between environmentalists and watermen. In 1995, conflict erupted on Smith and Tangier Islands over a blue crab regulation that ended in the burning of a shed owned by the regional environmental group called the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF).

The Evangelical Environmental Declaration calls for followers of Christ "...to work for the reconciliation of all people in Christ, and to extend Christ's healing to suffering Creation. God's purpose in Christ is to heal and bring to wholeness not only persons, but the entire created order."

Susan Drake Emmerich spent three years with the watermen in an attempt to put those principles into practice. In conversations with watermen in their boats and crab shanties and with women in the crab processing houses, she discovered that their most pressing concern was the threat to their existing way of life. She also discovered that watermen and women of faith believed that there is a scriptural foundation to steward the environment and its creatures, including the fish.

This provided a bridge for the community to understand and accept environmental stewardship ideas promoted by the regional environmental group, which they had considered secular and threatening. The community developed the Tangier Watermen's Stewardship Initiative, which included local government, school and church leaders and citizens.