Featuring:
Diane Regas, senior vice president, programs, EDF
Amanda Leland, vice president, oceans, EDF
Brett Jenks, president & CEO, Rare
Steve Gaines, dean, Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, UCSB
Caesar Munoz, partner from a Belizean fishing community

Billions of people depend on seafood for sustenance, and half the world’s fish are caught in small fisheries in the developing world. Most of these are overfished, and some are in peril of collapse. Very real tragedy looms if we do not act now to restore them to health and abundance.

The good news is: we can do it.

Please join us for a progress update on Fish Forever, a global initiative led through a partnership between Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Rare and the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB). We will highlight our initial successes with local partners in Belize and discuss strategies to achieve our long-term goal of empowering thousands of the world’s poorest coastal communities to sustainably manage their own fisheries, improve livelihoods and build coastal resilience to climate change.

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Featuring:
Fred Krupp, President, EDF
Diane Regas, Senior Vice President for Programs, EDF
Vickie Patton, General Counsel, EDF
Elizabeth Thompson, Vice President for U.S. Climate and Political Affairs, EDF President, Environmental Defense Action Fund (EDAF)

President Obama made an historic climate policy announcement in a speech at Georgetown University on June 25th. Join us to discuss what it means for carbon pollution rules and energy policy.

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Featuring:
Diane Regas, Senior Vice President, Programs, EDF
Amanda Leland, Vice President, Oceans, EDF
Martha Piper, Senior Vice President, Strategy & Growth, Rare

One billion people depend on fish as their primary source of protein, and half the world’s fish
is caught in small fisheries, primarily in the developing world. Overfishing is hurtling these areas
toward catastrophe: Almost all of the world’s fish stocks are fully exploited or over-exploited.
If these fisheries crash, the human toll and ecosystem repercussions will be enormous.

Please join Amanda Leland of EDF and Martha Piper of Rare to learn about our new
“Fish Forever” campaign aimed at restoring our oceans to abundance through innovative
approaches in partnership with communities in Asia and South America. The effort supports
our bold new goal with the World Bank to achieve sustainable management of half the world’s
fisheries in the next ten years.

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Featuring:
Dan Grossman, Regional Director, EDF Rocky Mountain Office
Diane Regas, Vice President, EDF Oceans Program
Pam Baker, Director, Gulf of Mexico Strategic Conservation Initiatives
Dr. Robert H. Hueter, Director, Center for Shark Research, Mote Marine Laboratory

Sharks are essential to healthy marine ecosystems and coastal economies in the U.S., Cuba, and Mexico, yet their numbers are dwindling to dangerously low levels.

Listen to EDF experts Diane Regas and Pam Baker, and Dr. Robert H. Hueter from Mote Marine Laboratory, as they discuss the new tri-national alliance to restore these highly migratory animals using catch shares, EDF’s proven approach that provides incentives for fishermen to work toward conservation.

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Featuring:

Dan Grossman, Regional Director, EDF Rocky Mountain Office
Diane Regas, Vice President, EDF Oceans Program
Bill (Bubba) Cochrane, Fisherman

Decades of overfishing have emptied the ocean of fish — jeopardizing seafood supplies and the livelihoods of local fishing communities, and fundamentally altering the health of ocean ecosystems.  EDF has done pioneering work on an innovative market-based approach to managing fisheries called catch shares, which is yielding dramatic increases in fish populations, reductions in wasted fish, and more stable fishing jobs.

Join EDF’s vice president for oceans and one of the many fishermen we work with as they discuss the transformative change we’re accomplishing in U.S. waters — and how we’re beginning to spread the benefits of catch shares to Latin America and the Caribbean.

Listen to this discussion:

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Featuring:

Elgie Holstein, Oil Disaster Response Coordinator
Paul Harrison, Coastal Louisiana Program Leader
Diane Regas, Vice President, Oceans Program

Environmental Defense Fund has worked in the Gulf Coast region for decades—restoring critical wetlands, pioneering sustainable fishing, and developing productive partnerships with conservationists, businesses and state and local governments.

What can be done to prevent similar tragedies in the future? What is EDF fighting for in the Gulf and in Washington?

Listen to this discussion:

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Diane Regas, Vice President - EDF Oceans Program

I am eagerly anticipating an event at the White House this afternoon; I am headed over for the official announcement of the Final Recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force.  I hear that the President will sign an Executive Order to implement the recommendations later this week and create a new National Ocean Council.  Once that’s done we will have a new policy to protect our oceans while making use of their abundant resources, and the structural changes in the government designed to make that policy a reality.

Some will probably look at this as a government re-organization, and ask, “When do those re-organizations matter?”  You might be tempted to answer “never”, but that’s not true.  When President Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency the result was cleaner air to breathe, cleaner water to drink and greater safety from toxic pollution for everyone in this country.  None of those results happened overnight—some of them even took decades.

Today’s announcement by President Obama’s advisors could have the same positive impact on our oceans as Nixon’s EPA announcement had on our health and environment.  And like getting cleaner air and water, much of the work Obama has laid out for the oceans will take decades.  The leaders of this effort—especially CEQ Chair Nancy Sutley, Drs. Jane Lubchenco and John Holdren—will be able to look back decades from now and take credit for an important turning point for the oceans.

Because of their vision, the new National Ocean Council will take on the biggest problems our oceans face:  how do oceans and coastal communities adapt to climate change?  How do we restore ecosystems so that the oceans are healthy and produce healthy seafood?  How do we address practices on land that are polluting the oceans, creating vast dead zones?  How do we protect the fragile Arctic from the ravages of climate change?

I hope you are as eager as I am to see progress—I want these problems solved tomorrow.  But solving big problems right takes longer than that, so I applaud the Administration for taking the time to get the science right, and for creating a place at the table for important stakeholders like commercial and recreational fishermen and native communities.  The plans announced today mean every region of our oceans will finally get an integrated, comprehensive blueprint for how to get the most out of the oceans—and make sure the oceans are healthy in long run.

When our children and grandchildren head out to catch their dinner from an abundant ocean and can take their catch home to a house powered by sustainable ocean energy, they’ll have the National Ocean Council to thank for it.

Diane Regas is VP for Oceans at the Environmental Defense Fund and was one of the original co-chairs of the Subcommittee for the Integrated Management of Ocean Resources in 2005.

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Bob Dylan once sang that "you don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows."  But if you're the part of the federal government charged with conducting scientific studies of the biggest environmental disaster in the nations history, and what you say profoundly impacts millions of people's lives and the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico, then you probably DO want a weather man to say which way the wind blows.

Meanwhile, everybody – me included – is growing more and more outraged at the scale of this disaster.   We want information about what’s really happening out there: where’s the oil? How much is there? What’s the toxicity? How will the ecosystem respond?

Caught in the middle is NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco.  She has the unenviable task of conducting scientific studies in the middle of this mess and she deserves credit for promoting government transparency in the science around the disaster.  As soon as results were validated Tuesday, NOAA communicated and released to the public data from the recent scientific mission of the R/V Weatherbird II that tested Gulf water.  This was an important step to build public confidence in the government’s handling of the disaster.

Crisis situations like the BP oil disaster remind us all that the public has a right to know what’s going on. While I—and I’m sure many others—are frustrated that many of our questions haven’t yet been answered, transparency in the results gives me confidence that we are getting the full story.

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When Nobel Prize winners speak, people tend to listen. Recent economics prize winner Elinor Ostrom was cited “for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons.” The governance of the commons is exactly the problem we face in fisheries—in the United States and the world.

This week Dr. Ostrom has been quoted in the catch shares debate in New England—and the quotes did not sound to me like the work that Dr. Ostrom has done. So we at EDF asked her what she thought. Here is what she said:

“I am quite distressed to find that I am being characterized as supporting or opposing particular policies to manage fisheries in New England. To be clear, I have not taken a side in this debate.

“Fishermen and fishing communities all over the world are facing loss of the ocean resources that they depend on. What my work and the work of other scholars shows above all is that the issues involved in managing natural resources are complex. A range of approaches have worked in different places and under different circumstances.

"I have not yet had the opportunity to study the “sectors” approach in detail, and so do not have a view on how it is likely to perform. What we can be confident of is that reducing overfishing and achieving sustainability for the long run will require good-faith effort, hard work, and cooperation among local communities and government authorities.”

Community Fishing Associations are a good idea.  It might surprise you to hear that from Environmental Defense Fund.  Sara Randall and Nate Grader got our position wrong, but their exploration of Community Fishing Associations (CFAs) got a lot of other things right, and those other things are worth paying attention to.  Randall and Grader take a look at what CFAs might accomplish, and some of the structural and regulatory challenges that face these new systems.  They conclude that CFAs can provide a way to promote sustainable fishing. We agree.

Community Fishing Associations–if designed well–can successfully address fishing community concerns about maintaining traditional access for fishermen by “anchoring” quota in a community.  We see CFAs as a prime example of the flexibility and creativity allowed under catch share systems to address not only conservation and economics, but a wide range of social values.  That is why EDF is working with fishermen, scientists and managers in New England to implement "sectors," a form of catch shares based on cooperatives, and we are working to advance CFAs in New England and the West Coast.

Catch shares are not “one-size-fits all.” There are several viable options to designing catch shares, ranging from IFQs, to community-held quotas like CFAs, to area-based management approaches (also known as Territorial Use Rights Fisheries or TURFs).  We would call all of these options–properly designed–“catch shares.” 

Whatever you call them, all of these approaches need a scientifically-determined catch limit, allocations to accountable entities (e.g., individuals, cooperatives, communities), and monitoring and enforcement to ensure fishermen are staying under their allocations.  Contrary to Randall and Grader’s assertion that we just need to get the Total Allowable Catches (TACs) right to end over-fishing, fisheries need TACs set right and a well-working mechanism to make sure that the TAC is actually met.  TACs alone have a relatively poor track record in fisheries management. 

We want fisheries management to work; that’s why we have urged NOAA to create a level playing field for various fishery management alternatives, and then make sure every plan measures up.  A level playing field means holding all fisheries management plans accountable for getting results:  improved conservation, improved science and better economic conditions.  It’s the results that matter!

As originally posted on Grist.org

In the current issue of Science twenty-one leading ocean scientists declared a truce—it’s as if Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner agreed to stop the chase for a day. The paper was authored by many of the biggest names on all sides of the debate on ending overfishing—Boris Worm, Ray Hilborn, Andy Rosenberg and Chris Costello. So what are the terms?

First, they agree on what I will call a “Goldilocks” catch level (You know—not too hot, not too cold, but just right.) If we fish too much, then fish get smaller, catch levels eventually go down and lots of species end up on the road to ruin. If we fish too little, we can keep the fish in the oceans healthy, but fish for people goes way down. Fishing just right would mean aiming to catch about 20 percent of ocean fish every year. At that level, fish would be bigger, the long term catch would be stable at a high level, and the news for ecosystems—whales, dolphins, and turtles—would be good too; at least 90% of species would be at healthy levels-which is quite a bit better than we are doing now.

The second part of the paper is where the scientists waded into the hot debate on what management works to get to the Goldilocks level. The scientists looked at the big ocean places that are making progress and asked managers what worked. The first thing they found was that most places use a mix of approaches for the mix of ecosystem types-so there is not a panacea. Pretty much everyone will agree to that.

What comes out on top, though? It comes down to effectively implementing caps on catch levels using two key tools: reducing the Total Allowable Catch and putting in place catch shares. (You can look at their table where a solution was identified in at least five of the ten fisheries, and was usually ranked an “essential” part of the solution.) This is strong stuff!

There are lots of questions yet to answer—like why is it that a catch share program always had a reduced allowable catch level? Is the theory right that catch shares make it easier to set the catch level properly? And what makes it possible for enough stakeholders to agree to close off areas of the ocean? What are the keys to community co-management, which seems to work in small-scale fisheries? I expect that the scientists will go back to their corners and duke out those questions. I can’t wait.

The latest issue of High Country News has a good story on one type of catch share program—for crab in Alaska. I found Matt Jenkins’ take on catch shares balanced and engaging—he covers the benefits of catch shares and fairly points out some of the challenges this fishery has faced.

Among Alaska crab fishermen, safety, economic stability and resource sustainability have all improved. And while crew pay has doubled, there are fewer crew jobs than there were. Jenkins also explains why crew members are finding it is a lot harder to work their way up from deckhand to captaining their own boat. (Some of the design mistakes in the crab program, I am glad to say, are not allowed under the current fisheries law.)

The good news is that well-designed catch shares have been and can be designed to protect community and crew interests too. The red snapper catch share in the Gulf of Mexico and the halibut and sablefish catch share in Alaska are good examples of how catch shares have improved economics and resource sustainability while at the same time enhancing the stability of fishing communities. 

And other new ideas are being tried out across the country, including limiting consolidation, devoting a part of the quota to conservation or to address community concerns, creating community quota banks, and creating loan funds that can help keep quota in local communities. (Interestingly, the design of the crab program was determined by a special Act of Congress which helped lock in some serious problems—and the design did not include some of these creative options.)

Catch shares are already proving that they can end the race for fish and prevent – and even reverse – the global collapse of fisheries.  Catch shares present a new opportunity for fisheries at a time when many ocean fisheries and the communities that depend on them face a steep decline. As more fisheries move to catch shares, careful and creative design solutions will help improve catch shares for all the stakeholders.

Making sustainable seafood choices at the fish counter and at restaurants are daunting tasks for most people, even for experts such as New York Times food writer and cookbook author Mark Bittman. In his recent article, Bittman acknowledges the challenge of being a seafood consumer interested in both taste and environmental ethics.

“The buying has become a logistical and ethical nightmare,” Bittman states.

I'm glad that Bittman refuses to give up either eating fish or factoring sustainability into what he buys.  He tries to keep his selection of sustainable seafood simple with a few rules of thumb focused on staying away from the most troubled fish stocks.

When we all demand sustainable seafood, I think it will help support some of the tough decisions that need to be made to get the oceans healthy again.  Scientists tell us that the two best solutions are protecting the sensitive places in the ocean and managing the fish we catch properly through catch shares fishery management.

It is absolutely amazing that all the fisheries in the world are either fully fished at capacity or have been fished to collapse.  Yet strong evidence published in the journals Science and Nature show that catch shares end, prevent and even reverse the collapse of fisheries. In addition to ending overfishing and rebuilding fish stocks, well designed catch shares provide economic stability for fishermen and fishing communities.

Fortunately for the environment, fishermen and consumers alike, support for catch shares management continues to gain momentum and is being considered in all coastal regions of the country. The new NOAA administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco is demonstrating unprecedented support for studying, implementing, and funding catch shares management. Just yesterday the House of Representatives appropriations committee included a big increase in the budget to make catch shares happen.

With continued support from fishermen and even consumers, this momentum and support for catch shares can lead to a new era for fisheries management that protects our oceans and make eating seafood all the more enjoyable.

Diane Regas is Associate Vice President for EDF's Oceans program. 

The top government official for the nation’s fisheries today took a giant step in the right direction for the U.S. fishing industry and the oceans.  At a speech in Boston, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that she was creating a task force to develop a new policy on catch shares to ensure that they are fully considered when fishery management councils amend management plans. 

Recent scientific studies have shown that catch shares perform dramatically better than conventionally-managed fisheries.  The bottom line is that the new policy is likely to dramatically increase the number of fisheries managed by catch shares and that’s great news for the oceans and fishermen.

In her speech, Dr. Lubchenco said that NOAA would move “forward to implement more catch share programs” and that “all of the (fishery management) councils will see increases in their allocations in the 2010 (budget) request” for catch shares.  She also announced a new task force to develop a nation-wide catch share strategy.

Here’s the full text of Dr. Lubchenco’s speech this morning:

Comments by Dr. Jane Lubchenco at the Council Coordination Committee Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts – Tuesday, May 19, 2009.

———–
Thank you, John and Jim. I greatly appreciate your warm words of
welcome. It’s a treat for me to be back in Boston and I thank you for
the opportunity. Boston holds a special place in my heart. I was here as
a grad student and young professor in the 70s – a time of stimulating
intellectual debate and a great era for sports fans – Bruins, Celtics
and, of course, the Red Sox. I am sorry I cannot stay for the game
tonight but Pat Kurkul and Paul Howard have graciously consented to
enjoy the game for me. Due to my new responsibilities as Administrator,
some of my pleasures need to be vicarious ones, but others are direct.
Being here today is a personal pleasure.

I have been anticipating the opportunity to talk with all of you since
the President first nominated me to lead NOAA. This group—the Council
chairs, the Regional Administrators and the Executive Directors of the
Councils—are the focal point for successful fisheries management in the
US. And that successful fishery management is closely connected to the
health of the ecosystems that in turn sustain life in the oceans. These
connections have not always been obvious, but they lie at the heart of
our ability to be successful.

In March, I was able to meet with the New England Fishery Management
Council to discuss its pending decisions about sectors. I was impressed
with the willingness of Council members to have open, frank and
respectful discussions about challenging issues, and to work together to
solve problems.

Today, with your support and your leadership, I believe that we have an
unparalleled opportunity to truly demonstrate that good, stable jobs,
stable fisheries and resilient ecosystems can be achieved together.
Fishing is an integral part of our cultural heritage and our coastal
communities. Fishing is also an important part of the global food
supply. The best possible fisheries management will be needed to sustain
that supply over the coming years. The challenges we face every day make
that a tall order.

My principle message to you today is that I, and the
team at NOAA, will be partners with you in finding every opportunity to
make the health of the oceans go hand-in-hand with the prosperity of
fishermen and the well-being of coastal communities.

I will be with you to help seek the resources you need to meet the
challenges ahead.

We will be partners in developing NOAA’s strategy to manage fisheries to
end over-fishing. To rebuild stocks. To improve the economics of
fishing, and to protect the ecosystems that sustain fisheries. These
goals are not antithetical; they go hand-in-hand.

As partners we will celebrate successes, and together we will seek out
and implement solutions to the problems that we find.

And, as a partner with you, I am committed to improving the transparency
of our science and the quality of our two-way communications. The
Councils provide stakeholders with an important and direct role in
managing the Nation’s fisheries. Making sure that NOAA provides clear
advice and support into that process is key. Just as important is making
sure that we are listening to the concerns and ideas that emerge from
the Councils.

Before I talk about specific priorities, let me share a little bit about
my background.

I was fortunate to grow up in Colorado where I developed a deep
appreciation for the land, the rivers and lakes — hunting and fishing
with my father, hiking and camping and sailing with family and friends.

I first became enamored with the oceans during a summer college class in
Woods Hole, Massachusetts. To a Colorado native, the newly discovered
life in the sea seemed exotic and endlessly fascinating. Little did I
realize at the time that life in the oceans is also essential to human
prosperity and well-being. My exposure to the oceans was love at first
sight and my life’s work was set in motion.

As a researcher, teacher, and vocal champion of good science, I have had
the opportunity to visit coastal communities around this great Nation:
the Pacific, the Gulf, the Atlantic and even the Arctic. I have been
struck by the extent to which Americans across the country and from all
different perspectives share common desires when it comes to oceans and
coasts. We want clean beaches. We want safe healthy seafood. We want
stable fisheries. We want abundant wildlife. And we want vibrant coastal
communities. What few people recognize is that these outcomes are
intertwined with each other and all require healthy oceans.

I believe the work of NOAA and the Councils in the next few years will
be an important part of realizing each of those aspirations.

I wish to highlight for you now areas where I see prime opportunities:
(1) catch shares, (2) tracking progress, (3) ecosystem approaches to
management, and (4) good communication.

NOAA and you are committed to meet the mandate of the Magnuson Act to
end overfishing by 2010. We know that annual catch limits are key to
achieving that goal. However, just having a good ACL does not mean that
it will be effective. It doesn’t mean it will be adhered to. Therefore,
I challenge you to put as much emphasis on how those catch limits are
met as you put on getting the catch limits correct.

Recent scientific analyses show us that fisheries managed with catch
share programs perform better than fisheries managed with traditional
tools. Even in the first years after implementation, catch share
fisheries are stable, and even increase their productivity. The
scientific evidence is compelling that that catch shares can also help
restore the health of ecosystems and get fisheries on a path to
profitability and sustainability. These results… these scientific
analyses… are why moving forward to implement more catch share programs
is a high priority for me. I see catch shares as the best way for many
fisheries to both meet the Magnuson mandates and have healthy,
profitable fisheries that are sustainable. Catch shares that are well
designed and thoughtfully prepared.

I applaud the many people on the Councils, fishermen and NOAA Fisheries
employees who have provided strong and creative leadership to make catch
share programs work. For example, Roy Crabtree described for me at last
night’s reception how the Gulf Council recently set up a catch share
program for red snapper. I understand that Chairman McIlwain and the
Council are working to add groupers and other fish to the system.

The fishermen were on board with the design of an ITQ system, and the system
passed overwhelmingly on a vote of the license holders. In the first
year, discards in the fishery decreased 70%, and the price on the dock
went up by about 25%. This inspiring example—and the efforts to make a
sector approach to catch shares work in New England are just two
examples of the kind of good work and results that truly inspire me. I
want to find ways to encourage more progress like this.

•NOAA is committed to working with the Councils to ensure we have the
necessary resources.

– As you know, in the proposed 2010 budget, we have identified $18.6M to
address the development of sectors in the New England groundfish fishery
to continue to assist their transition to a catch share management regime.

– The New England groundfish fishery has been managed primarily by
effort controls in the past. Going to catch shares will be a new
paradigm for managers and for the industry.

– The funds will be used to develop data systems and infrastructure to
support new reporting requirements, along with at sea and dockside
monitoring enhancements.

Rest assured though that NOAA is not focusing solely on New England at
the expense of other regions or fisheries. All of the Councils will see
increases in their allocations in the 2010 request.

The 2010 budget contains a $4M increase for Councils to implement annual
catch limits, and I am committed to making sure that money is well-spent.

NOAA also provides $1M to Councils annually specifically for catch share
programs, and is looking at potential for increases in that support in
future years.

In addition to that we are also working with the National Fish and
Wildlife Foundation to provide additional resources to Councils to help
break through any financial bottlenecks you experience in moving catch
shares forward.

To take full advantage of this opportunity, and the resources we hope to
make available, today I am announcing a new task force at NOAA to
develop a strategy to move forward on making catch share management more
available to fisheries in the United States. The goals of the task force
will be to:

1. Develop a new NOAA policy on catch shares that ensures that catch
shares are fully considered when Councils take up fishery management
plan amendments.

2. Make sure that Councils who want to move forward with catch shares
have the technical and administrative support to move quickly to design
a catch share system while empowering local fishermen to be part of the
process.

3. Make sure that catch share designs achieve the best possible
environmental and economic performance—supporting healthy ecosystems,
meeting annual catch limits, reducing bycatch and habitat damage and
enhancing economic performance.

4. Consider whether any organizational changes are needed within NOAA
to provide the best possible communication and support.

5. Provide advice to me on how to allocate resources to the Councils to
support this work, and how to create milestones so that we can evaluate
our progress.

I have asked Monica Medina to chair this task force initially. She will
be naming the members of the task force by the end of the month. This
will build upon the informal group NOAA has had on this. I have directed
her to consult fully with you—the council chairs, the NOAA leadership
and staff and the Council Executive Directors and to report back to me
by August 1.

I want to emphasize that while I know that catch shares need to be a
priority, I need your help making sure that we pursue this priority the
right way. I invite your engagement in this effort.

I am very pleased that today we rolled out the annual Status of Stocks
Report. The fact that we are reporting on the best single-year
improvement in the number of stocks rebuilt is a testament to you and
NOAA Fisheries’ efforts.

Four stocks were declared fully rebuilt: the northern and southern
stocks of monkfish, Atlantic bluefish, and Gulf of Mexico king mackerel.

Three stocks are no longer subject to overfishing, and three stocks have
increased in biomass and are no longer overfished.

And while we can claim success, this year’s report also shows the
challenges that still exist to end overfishing and to rebuild stocks:
three stocks have been found to be subject to overfishing and four
stocks have been determined to be overfished.

In all, 41 stocks are subject to overfishing and 46 stocks are
overfished. Some of these stocks are managed under international
agreements, and action by the international community is critical to
ending overfishing for them.

This Status of Stocks report is just one example of the absolutely
critical role that NOAA needs to play in providing the science to
support scientific decisions.

If we truly want to have the aspirations Americans told us they wanted
— clean beaches, stable fisheries, safe seafood, abundant wildlife and
vibrant coastal communities – we need policy and management decisions
that are based on a more comprehensive understanding of how ocean
ecosystems work.

We talk a lot about managing on an ecosystem basis, but we really don’t
have the fundamental understanding of ecosystem-based science to really
underpin those decisions. There is a huge amount that we don’t know
about oceans that is desperately needed to inform the kinds of
management decisions, especially in light of the dual challenges posed
by climate change and ocean acidification.

So one my goals is to create a mechanism for having more comprehensive
ecosystem-based planning that will take stock of the range of activities
that can coexist with one another to minimize conflicts, but also ensure
that the ecosystem remains healthy and can be recovered.

The final goal that I wish to touch on is communication. NOAA Fisheries
does world class science, and has a long, proud tradition of excellence.
The challenge we face is that we need to get much better at doing and
sharing our science in non-technical terms and in ways that inspire
confidence in the results. If we expect people to trust our decisions,
we need to be transparent about our science and make ourselves
accessible to those who will be affected.

Thank you very much.

Date:
Tuesday, January 6, 2009, 4:00 p.m. EST

Featuring:
David Yarnold, Executive Director
Diane Regas, Associate Vice President, Oceans Program, Environmental Defense Fund
Doug Rader, Chief Oceans Scientist, Environmental Defense Fund
Enric Sala, Scientist, National Geographic Explorer

President Bush announced the creation of three new marine protected areas that, combined, would be larger than California. These marine treasures include the Northern Marianas and the Central Pacific Islands, uninhabited havens for coral reefs, fish, sea turtles and migratory birds.

Hear from key scientists and EDF Oceans staff on the importance of these areas and how our advocacy efforts over two years, along with our partner organization – Marine Conservation Biology Institute – made this designation possible.

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A landmark study in Science magazine shows that the focus of EDF's Oceans program – a fisheries management system called "catch shares" – is the only management system that prevents overfishing. In fact, the study finds, catch shares actually reverse overfishing and return fisheries to abundance.

Date: Thursday, September 18, 2008, 2pm ET

Featuring:
David Festa, Vice President, West Coast
Diane Regas, Managing Director, Oceans program

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