Diane Regas

Saving Sharks: EDF Supports Cuba-Mexico-U.S. Partnership

Thu, 26 May 2011 20:33:41 +0000

By EDF Blogs

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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Restoring the Ocean to Abundance: Ending Overfishing with Catch Shares

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:12:30 +0000

By Daniel Mckenzie

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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Stemming the Tide: EDF’s ongoing efforts in the gulf

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:52:24 +0000

By EDF Blogs

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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Obama to Announce Final Recommendations of Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force and Creation of a New National Ocean Council

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:34:54 +0000

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.

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NOAA Chief Promotes Transparency in Science Regarding BP Oil Disaster

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:37:21 +0000

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.

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Nobel Prize Winning Economist–Did She Really Take a Side?

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:25:44 +0000

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 [...]

Catch Share Options Include Community Fishing Associations

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:32:12 +0000

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 [...]

Is the Debate Over?

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:52:49 +0000

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, [...]

High Country News Reports on the Successes and Challenges of Catch Shares

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:03:02 +0000

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, [...]

Selecting Sustainable Seafood: The Challenge for Consumers

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:43:53 +0000

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 [...]

New National Fishing Policy Announced Today Focused on Catch Shares

Tue, 19 May 2009 19:28:15 +0000

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 [...]

President Bush Announces Largest Protected Area on Earth

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:53:57 +0000

By EDF Blogs

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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Special Insider Briefing: Reversing the Collapse of the World's Oceans

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:25:52 +0000

By EDF Blogs

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