Watch the Network’s Inaugural Waterside Chat with Linda Behnken

Watch the Network’s Inaugural Waterside Chat with Linda Behnken

The Network’s new Waterside Chat online discussion series connects people who depend on healthy oceans and fisheries with the issues that directly affect them and their communities. In each edition, Network Deputy Director Tom Sadler talks with guests about current ocean policy and fisheries management topics and what policy decisions mean for people’s livelihoods, communities, […]

Biden Administration Requests Public Input on the American Conservation and Stewardship Atlas

Biden Administration Requests Public Input on the American Conservation and Stewardship Atlas

At the end of December, the Biden administration released the first annual progress report on the America the Beautiful initiative. The report highlights steps the administration has taken during the past year to support locally led and voluntary efforts to conserve, connect, and restore lands and waters across the nation. Read the progress report factsheet […]

The Wild Steelhead Coalition’s Call to Arms

The Wild Steelhead Coalition’s Call to Arms

“As fish runs have fallen year after year, we all crowd onto the few rivers that still remain open and pointlessly argue online about who is to blame for the situation. The baseline has kept shifting downward until today when we have reached an undeniable inflection point where hype has finally run up against heartbreaking, […]

Can Science-Based Policy Address Bering Sea Seafood Challenges?

Can Science-Based Policy Address Bering Sea Seafood Challenges?

This piece comes to us from fisherman Alexus Kwachka of Kodiak, Alaska (photo above, bio below) and is the latest installment in the Network’s National Seafood Month series. The natural world is the ultimate source of our food, our drinking water, the very air we breathe, and everything we create for our consumption. In short, […]

Salmon are Integral to California’s Coastal Economy. We Must Not Lose Them.

Salmon are Integral to California’s Coastal Economy. We Must Not Lose Them.

This is a perilous moment for California’s salmon and the communities and businesses that depend on them. As has been widely reported, and as many experts have agreed, the endangered Sacramento River Winter-run Chinook Salmon, which spawns solely in the Sacramento River and its tributaries, could be facing total annihilation this year. But it’s also […]

Navigating Toward Healthier Oceans and More Productive Fisheries Requires a Climate Change Response in Management

Navigating Toward Healthier Oceans and More Productive Fisheries Requires a Climate Change Response in Management

By Linda Behnken and Kevin Scribner, MFCN Policy Council co-chairs For the two of us, climate change is top of mind. It impacts the way we do business, the way we think about the ocean resources we depend on, the way we see our communities surviving into the future. We’re going to have to adapt; […]

Network Responds to Climate Change Executive Order

Network Responds to Climate Change Executive Order

During the first weeks of the new administration, President Biden issued Executive Order 14008 on tackling the climate crisis at home and abroad. This order initiated efforts within 60 days to collect input from fishermen, regional ocean councils, fishery management councils, scientists, and other stakeholders on how to make fisheries and protected resources more resilient […]

AFFTA Report Offers Recommendations for the Health and Sustainability of America’s Marine Fisheries

AFFTA Report Offers Recommendations for the Health and Sustainability of America’s Marine Fisheries

Top photo by John McMurray As the Biden administration and Congress begin to tackle the challenges of fisheries management, especially the impacts of climate change, they will find recommendations and actions for federal fisheries management and marine conservation efforts in a new report released by the American Fly Fishing Trade Association (AFFTA). The Network’s National […]