Top photo: NOAA stock assessment At first glance, the FY26 appropriations minibus looks like another chapter in Washington’s slow erosion of federal investment in science, climate, and environmental protection. NOAA research gets cut. EPA funding slips. The Department of Energy loses ground. For anyone who cares about oceans, climate resilience, or renewable energy, it is […]
Let’s Get a Few Things Straight Full disclosure before I write one word… While there’s been a LOT going on with striped bass the last couple of years, I haven’t really been involved. I no longer have a seat at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission table, and I’m no longer associated with any particular […]
Rep. Mary Peltola’s reputation as an advocate for fishing and Native Alaskan fishing communities was never more evident than with the introduction of her Fisheries Improvement and Seafood Health (FISH) Act in June 2024. At a time when more and more legislation is introduced to do nothing more than “send a message” about the sponsor’s […]
One of the things I talked with Joel R. Johnson, president and CEO of the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, during our recent Waterside Chat was the potential for a national marine sanctuary in the marine portions of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. On February 29, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released for public comment draft […]
I recently got back from Washington, DC. I’ve gone there on many occasions, lobbying for change such as the Salmon Solutions Planning Act, addressing the depletion of Snake River salmon and how to remedy it, shoring up the Endangered Species Act so we have a critical regulatory backstop to prevent the extinction of species such […]
This piece is reprinted with permission from the latest edition of the Wild Oceans Horizon newsletter. Last year, the Pacific Fishery Management Council recognized that increasing climate variability and changing ocean conditions could adversely affect West Coast fisheries and communities and began Fishery Ecosystem Plan Initiative 4 to incorporate ecosystem information into council decision-making. A […]
Jean Flemma, co-founder of the Urban Ocean Lab and director of the Ocean Defense Initiative, joined the Network for an online Waterside Chat on July 19, 2023. Jean is a long-time policy hand and, as host Tom Sadler described her, “important and very wise counsel on ocean policy”. Their conversation covered a range of issues […]
Fisheries don’t collapse all at once. Instead, they telegraph their distress with signals that may be subtle at the start, but grow more insistent as stocks decline. Often, at least in the case of migratory stocks, the first sign of trouble might be a contraction of the fish’s range. On the East Coast of the […]
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