By Bill Mott, co-founder and senior advisor to World Ocean Project (formerly The Ocean Project), and Suzanne Iudicello, principal at Iudicello and Associates, an environmental consultant firm to fishing organizations, government agencies and foundations.
Conservation advocates were largely the new kids on the dock when it came to fish and fisheries as reauthorization of the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MFCMA) was teed up in the late 1980s. Several organizations met in 1992 to create a coalition — launched as the Marine Fish Conservation Network in 1993 — focused on conservation-minded reauthorization; the first time mainstream environmental groups would have a large presence on the Hill. Their work resulted in some remarkable bipartisanship successes for conservation, as House Republicans and Democrats worked together to reauthorize the MFCMA and bipartisanship in the Senate sealed the deal.
Although not as familiar as endangered species conservation, wetlands protection, or mining and grazing reform, reauthorization of the rules governing the public’s ocean resources — including marine fish — engaged the same themes as these higher-profile issues: stewardship of public resources, harm to wildlife, conflicts of interest, industry resistance to regulation, the cost to taxpayers of free access to public resources, subsidies for their development and extraction, and, finally, the cost of bailout and restoration after the system fails. For the first time, these themes were raised in the context of public interest and public resources, rather than constituent casework.
The founding MFCN organizations published a National Agenda outlining their legislative priorities in early 1993. Original Steering Committee members included Ken Hinman, National Coalition for Marine Conservation (now Wild Oceans); Suzanne Iudicello and Dave Allison, Center for Marine Conservation (now Ocean Conservancy); Gerry Leape, Greenpeace; Carl Safina, National Audubon Society; and Mike Sutton, World Wildlife Fund. They secured support from several charitable foundations, led by the Pew Charitable Trusts. For the first time, starting in 1993, Magnuson Act reauthorization discussions were no longer limited to user groups.
In May 1993, the Steering Committee hired Bill Mott to direct the national campaign. He built a team that included a media coordinator, outreach coordinator, and two educators to lead the epic Fish Tour ’94. This crew covered 30,000 miles across the country in a rented van, targeting the districts of Members of Congress on key congressional committees, with a heavy focus on mobilizing non-coastal Members. Fish Tour ’94 visited town halls and a range of citizens’ organizations, including Lions Clubs, school groups, and many others. The team also met with media at each stop, and the novelty of fisheries issues reaching landlocked states generated considerable buzz throughout the heartland.
The Network also targeted key Senators in coastal states with an unprecedented media campaign, including full-page ads on the importance of healthy fish populations for healthy fisheries. In addition, the campaign invested in placing backlit platform advertising in several strategically-located DC Metro stations, where Hill staffers were most likely to see the messaging. Again, the novelty factor helped create a “fish buzz” on Capitol Hill. Finally, fish began to get some respect as critical members of marine ecosystems.
The Network printed thousands of column inches of education and advocacy material for Hill drops and visited every office at least a few times over the years. We redefined who had a voice in federal fisheries management, bringing the public into the conversations and advocacy around this major shared public resource. Back in the day when times were a bit different, the Network also helped to organize informal “Fish Drinks” on Capitol Hill after hours for Hill staff and members of the MFCN, which grew to include over 100 conservation, environmental, recreational, and commercial fishing groups from across the country. The Network generated extensive paid media coverage in dozens of local papers across the key districts and earned media coverage. We published opinion pieces in the New York Times and newspapers in key states. Ocean fisheries issues were finally becoming part of the national dialogue.
Eventually, the Network identified a champion for the fish in Representative Wayne Gilchrest, a Republican from the Eastern Shore of Maryland who introduced H.R. 4404 in the 103rd Congress. The Network also coordinated grassroots lobbying campaigns over the years, organizing fishermen and other advocates to come to Washington — from the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association to the Marine Lobstermen’s Association, as well as the Alaska Marine Conservation Coalition and Conservation Law Foundation. We filled the halls of Congress with teams of fishermen and conservationists, turning the heads of congressional representatives who had never seen fishermen lobby alongside anyone but themselves.
The Network used every tool available to reframe fisheries issues around fish and ocean health, and to remake fisheries management. We even lobbied the League of Conservation Voters to get ocean on their annual National Environmental Scorecard for the first time ever, by including a House vote on a key amendment in 1995. The following year, the Network achieved the only major conservation win of the Gingrich era.
MFCN achieved its mission when the reauthorization was signed by President Bill Clinton on October 11, 1996. In short, these organizations helped put the “C” for “Conservation” back in the Magnuson Act and changed the paradigm from fish for fisheries’ sake to one focused on the importance of fish in the ecosystem. Remember, fish are wildlife, too!
