luukinen-salmon-fishing

Bryan Luukinen’s grandfather, John Tarabochia, fishing on a gillnet boat in the Columbia River.

If you really are what you eat, I’m sure I’d be a salmon or a trout. There is a picture of me at about four years old, standing in my parents’ front yard holding a catch of five rainbow trout and smiling a huge toothy smile. Growing up, my siblings and I loved fish – but especially salmon. The salmon is the backdrop and foundation of my family. My parents met while working in the fishing industry in Alaska and my dad learned the trade from my grandfather and many other local fishermen. Fishing allowed my dad to eventually pay for law school with the money he made fishing, which would be impossible today. If it weren’t for the salmon, my life would be drastically different.

My work at Duke has shifted my focus from the world of the fishermen who raised me and the species with which I am most familiar– salmon and rainbow trout—to the unfamiliar culture of fishing in the Elizabeth River of Virginia, where croaker, spot, red drum, and speckled trout are commonly caught. I never once gave a thought to contamination of the fish I ate throughout my childhood, but our work at the Duke Superfund Research Center is focused on contaminants in the river and in the fish, and how those contaminants impact fish and the people eating them. Through our research, we have talked with fishermen on the Elizabeth River to understand which fish they’re catching and whether they understand the fish consumption advisories in their area.

dans-er-photo-1

The Elizabeth River

What we learned from the fishermen is concerning – most of them don’t know about or understand the fish consumption advisories for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a persistent contaminant in the river. Women of child-bearing age and children should not eat any of the fish under a fish consumption advisory for PCBs, but some of the fishermen are sharing contaminated fish they catch with others, possibly children. How can we help fishermen change their behavior and only share fish with their children that don’t contain harmful chemicals?

Thankfully, there are great tools at our disposal – specifically the tools of environmental social marketing. Through the Nicholas School Executive Education program, my colleague Catherine Kastleman and I are learning about crafting environmental social marketing approaches to affect behavior change in the Intermediate Environmental Social Marketing Strategy course taught by Brian Day, a respected leader in environmental social marketing and environmental education. What is social marketing? Put simply, social marketing is using marketing approaches to influence behavior change aimed at doing societal good.

I’ve been around fishermen my whole life, but this course is providing me with the tools I need to analyze this audience objectively to assess their motivations and barriers to behavior change. It will help us to walk through the process of developing a strategy to effectively change behavior through social marketing techniques, and apply our research to protect public health. Thanks to the Exec Ed program, we’re bringing this strategy to communities so that they can eat their fill of safe fish without worry, and in good health.

 

written by Bryan Luukinen, Senior Program Coordinator, Duke Superfund Research Center

Bryan Luukinen is pursuing the Nicholas School’s Certificate in Environmental Communications