If you care about the oceans why you should care about fishing? Amanda Leland and Tom Lalley of the Environmental Defense Fund will tell. Much has been said about what is wrong with overfishing and how management efforts frequently fail. Drawing on personal experiences with sea urchins and a tale of red snapper, as well as years of research and listening to fishermen, we’ll learn how complex and unpredictable ocean wildlife and ecosystems actually are. Discover how this ocean environmental and economic problem can be solved, and what you can do to help. The Environmental Defense Fund offers us educational resources and a tool box for recovering groundfish that include cod, fluke, and haddock, pelagics including tuna and swordfish, and schooling fish: herring, sardine and mackerel. By sharing the catch with less waste and more profit, fish and fishing communities both survive.
Online Radio Show Dives into Catch Shares
By Tom Lalley | Bio | Published: March 15, 2010
Amanda Leland and I were guests on Moir’s Environmental Dialogues the other day. The host, Rob Moir is the president and executive director of the Ocean River Institute. Rob has had an illustrious career as an educator, scientists and environmental activist and wanted to hear from EDF about catch shares. This is an important time for fishing as a new catch sharespolicy gets underway.
· Rob Moir
Posted March 16, 2010 at 2:02 pm | Permalink
Amanda and Tom, you were great, spot on. The entire Episode, in particular Amanda’s description of what catch shares were doing for Alaska Halibut Fisheries, more profit, less bycatch, was downloaded and listened to by Senator Begich (AK) while he was traveling to Boston to open the New England Seafood Conference. The catch-share program benefits me and seafood lovers with fresh, not frozen, halibut to eat far from Alaska. Senator Begich is in conversations with Senator Snow promoting the Alaskan solution. She is indicating much interest in bringing better profits and less destruction to Maine.
Ocean Champions writes: “Sen. Snowe continues to hold an important position on the Oceans Subcommittee for passage of fisheries legislation, and she used that assignment to help shepherd through the Senate a reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. She played a leadership role in introducing S. 1701 (Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Amendments Act of 2011). She also sponsored S. 171 last Congress (Coastal and Ocean Observation System Act of 2009).
Other legislation Senator Snowe has supported includes: S. 46 (Coral Reef Conservation Amendments Act of 2011), S. 859 (Marine Mammal Rescue Assistance Amendments of 2009), S. 2852 (Renewable Energy Environmental Research Act of 2009), S. 174 (Ocean and Coastal Mapping Integration Act of 2009), S. 2859 (Coral Reef Conservation Amendments Act of 2009), S. 685 (Oil Spill Prevention Act of 2009), S. 173 (Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act of 2009), S. 170 (Coastal and Estuarine Land Protection Act of 2009) and S. 850 (Shark Conservation Act of 2009).”
