Mike Roberts (pictured) has been a fisherman in Louisiana for over 35 years. In 2011 he attempted to legitimately enter the BP AGM with a proxy share to address the board about the impacts of the Gulf of Mexico catastrophe, but he was refused entry. Mike Roberts: “I’m a multi-generational commercial fisherman. I have 5 children and 17 grandchildren and I live and work in Baritaria Bay.” “We live inland, but we have this vast estuary between where I live and the Gulf [of Mexico], and that’s mostly where we do all our work. Being commercial fishermen, we’re kinda territorial, and that’s where I work. Photo: Bryan Parras
“Getting BP to divest from what ultimately ends up being irresponsible investments because it makes the public look the other way is one of the most responsible things that activists can do. “BP needs to be held to account as a corporation. It can't be allowed to put a fresh coat of paint over itself – put itself in a museum, put on a shiny coat and walk away. “BP’s crimes, whether they are in the tar sands of Canada, in Azerbijian, or in the Gulf Coast, need to be addressed head on. “It’s your responsibility as a concerned citizen, as a citizen who cares about the role of corporations that so dominate our income and our lives and dominate the lives of others, that we hold the company to account, make sure that it pays for its crimes and make sure that we hold it in check, regulate it, restrict it, rein in its operations and not allow it to create a false impression of a socially and environmentally responsible company when we know the opposite to be true.”
“A friend of mine called the morning that the oil started to come in – actually to come inside the waters, and said that I had to hurry up and come see this, that I wouldn’t believe it. “I had grown up with oil and gas all my life – I’ve probably seen a hundred oil spills in my lifetime, and so I wasn’t expecting it to be that severe, because I thought I’d seen it all. “I got in the boat, with my wife, one of my grandsons and a friend, and I took off down the Baritaria Bay. What I saw when I got there absolutely floored me. It was like a tonne of bricks just fell on me. It was immense. “I couldn’t get out of the oil all day. I just rode and rode and rode in oil. Being a fisherman, we think we’re tough. It made me weep. I didn’t want my grandson to see that. “It was a really tough day for me, not unlike a death in the family. I had not wept for thirty years before that. The last time I felt that kind of emotion was when I lost my father.
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