The Seabird Trials: Book Launch

As author John Vaillant says, this book “has it all: heroes, villains, endangered seabirds, and the wild Pacific." Join us in launching the riveting new book by Briony Penn, The Seabird Trials: How a Scientist Took Big Oil to Court and Won. Penn will be in conversation with Upstart & Crow cofounder Ian Gill. This event is free, but please RSVP here as capacity is limited. In the aftermath of one of the deadliest oil spills in the Pacific, two friends — one Canadian, one American and both seabird biologists — were called up as expert witnesses to represent opposite sides of a landmark court case. Their friendship became one of the many casualties of the spill, along with 10,000 seabirds. The court battle charted the breakdown of the relationship between the two men through the tools of international corporate warfare: targeting vulnerabilities, manufacturing doubt, spinning false narratives of mitigation and — the ultimate weapon — discrediting the men’s love of the natural world. However, the final David and Goliath settlement of the 1986 Apex Houston spill set a new legal precedent for the global rights of nature. Orchestrated by the brilliant team of Canadian scientist Harry Carter and US prosecutor Valerie Lee, it was the first settlement in North American history to compensate for the destruction of wild animals, and it set the stage for the $2 billion settlement of the Exxon Valdez spill that followed three years later. The settlement led to the establishment of a successful 25-year experiment to encourage the surviving seabirds to return to their home nesting colony. Through the evidence presented in heated court debates, we learn that seabirds, and by proxy the scientists that study them, are critical early warning systems of the impacts of oil spills and climate change. This timely book charts the historic failure of scientific and legal institutions to solve the problems they were set up to solve, as well as the success of people who love the natural world and will go to extraordinary lengths to protect it. More about the author: Briony Penn is an award-winning writer, naturalist and environmental activist. She holds a PhD in Geography from Edinburgh University and a BA from the University of British Columbia. Her creative non-fiction includes Following the Good River: The Life and Times of Wa'xaid (Rocky Mountain Books, 2020), winner of the Victoria Butler Book Prize and shortlisted for a BC Book Prize, and Stories from the Magic Canoe (Rocky Mountain Books, 2019), which won the Jeanne Clarke Book Award. Her book The Real Thing: Natural History of Ian McTaggart Cowan (Rocky Mountain Books, 2015) won the BC Book Prize and the Hamilton Mack Laing Award for Environmental History. She lives on Salt Spring Island. More about the moderator: Ian Gill is an author, journalist, bookseller and non-profit leader who has been at the forefront of conservation economics, bioregionalism and Indigenous community development for more than three decades. He is a co-founder of Upstart & Crow. He lives off-grid in the unceded traditional lands of the hiškwiiʔatḥ, ʔaahuusʔatḥ, and ƛaʔuukwiiʔatḥ peoples off the west coast of Vancouver Island. More about Upstart & Crow: Upstart & Crow is a not-for-profit creative studio and literary incubator that champions writers, readers and stories, and the role they play in shaping our lives. We develop original programs, support artists and revel in creative projects focused on Literature In Translation, Climate Solutions, Poetry, Civic Dialogue, Community & Skills Building, all with the aim of elevating the role of literature and storytelling in our lives. Find us on Granville Island, Gibsons and online. Accessibility: The main studio of our shop is accessible for folks with mobility aids. There is a washroom on the main floor available for attendees. As part of disability justice and community care for the chronically ill, vulnerable and elderly, we ask that you refrain from attending if you feel sick. Questions: hello[at]upstartandcrow.com.