March 28, 2023 — Late in 2022, a group of industry people including fishermen and consultants volunteered to work on the idea of helping fishermen move away from fossil fuels. But rather than impose its ideas on fishermen, the group wants fishermen to guide the industry’s transition to a “Low-Carbon Fishing Fleet.”
Consultant Sarah Schuman – who crews on a Bristol Bay gillnetter – and fellow fisheries consultant Noah Oppenheimer of Maine, organized a steering committee to consider how to “support voluntary emissions reductions in the U.S. fishing fleet.” In February the group launched a website and offered fishermen a chance to participate in a survey.
“The project is a lot more demanding than I anticipated,” says Schuman, who is currently conducting survey interviews in Alaska. “We feel like we have to get this work done because government programs are being set up, and this week the White House released an Ocean Climate Action plan that is pretty bad. But on page 97 it specifically calls for programs to support the de-carbonization of the fishing fleet.”