Saving Seafood

Conservation & Environment

Chamber audience disagrees with marine reserve speaker

GOLD BEACH, OR (March 19, 2009) – Speaking on marine reserves, the Chamber luncheon speaker, Dave Lacey, South Coast organizer for the environmental group Our Ocean met a roomful of Chamber members who disagreed with his views.

Our Ocean is a coalition that works to preserve Oregon’s coastline. They are conservationists, scientists, ocean users, local leaders and business people from around the state working towards establishing marine reserves. The coalition’s members are the Audubon Society of Portland, the Coast Range Association, Environment Oregon, Natural Resources Defense Council, Oceana, Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition, Pacific Marine Conservation Council, and the Pew Environment Group.

Read the Curry County Reporter story in full

 

Deadliest Catch Star Keith Colburn to Testify Before Congress, Urges Protection For America’s Fish Basket

THE INTERNET (March 21, 2009) – Environmental groups (Alaska Wilderness League, Oceana and World Wildlife Fund) issued the following: Captain Keith Colburn, star of the Discovery Channel hit series Deadliest Catch, will testify before a joint congressional oversight hearing on Tuesday – the 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez spill – and urge Congress to protect Alaska’s most productive fisheries from oil exploration.

Each member of the two subcommittees holding the joint hearing will be presented with a jar of rocks collected last month from the shores of Prince William Sound, the site of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. Two decades after the accident, the rocks remain coated in oil. Dr. Jeffrey Short of Oceana, an internationally recognized expert on oil impacts to the ocean, will testify about lessons learned from the Exxon Valdez and the need for a science-based precautionary approach to protect fragile Arctic ecosystems from industrialization.

Read the Financial 24 news story in full

 

Crackdown on foreign fishing fleets backed

WASHINGTON, DC (March 21, 2009) – A bill that would help prevent depletion of dwindling stocks of fish by strengthening enforcement against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing has been endorsed by industry groups and the Coast Guard, which would be charged with enforcing its provisions.

Their testimony came Thursday at a House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing.

"Unsustainable fishing practices by foreign fishing fleets adversely affect stocks that migrate" between the high seas and U.S. waters, said Guam Delegate Madeleine Z. Bordallo, who introduced the legislation last month.

Read the Standard-Times story in full

 

LETTER: Captain Describes Concerns About Enforcement Actions and Behaviors

ROCKPORT, MA (March 21, 2009) – This is a letter I have sent to Dr. Jim Balsiger, acting assistant administrator of fisheries for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, after his column appeared in the Times last week.

Dr. Balsiger, thank you for taking the time to address the concerns of the fishermen of the Gulf of Maine.

I do agree that cooperative research is very important, but I feel that the issues of law enforcement and Coast Guard boardings are more critical and should be addressed first.

Read Captain Bill Lee’s commentary in full

 

Marine biologist with Pew ties to head fisheries

GLOUCESTER, MA (March 21, 2009) – Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist whose career path has followed the borders of academe politics, and foundation funding, has been confirmed — quietly, and after a long delay — to head up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The U.S. Senate confirmed the Oregon State University professor late Thursday by unanimous consent. No overt comments — and few pointed questions — were raised.

With an unannounced plan, Lubchenco takes her place as scientist cum laude in a Democratic administration that sees itself engaged in desperate struggle to bring humanity belatedly into a sustainable relationship with the natural world, degraded by human-induced global warming and overfishing, among other smudges.

Read the Gloucester Daily Times story in full

For additional coverage of this story, please see our main Lubchenco package

 

BLOG: Flexibility In Rebuilding – Southern Offshore Fishing Association

THE INTERNET (March 20, 2009) – Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass) and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) have introduced the 2009 version of the Flexibility In Rebuilding American Fisheries Act.  Now, before we all get too excited, bear in mind that essentially the same bill has been introduced and died in committee in both of the last two years.

That said, the bill is cause for some hope because it actually advocates using a bit of common sense and logic along with good science (as opposed to Pew Spew) in regulating our fisheries.

Read the commentary in full, from "The Way You See It" blog

 

 

Lubchenco’s Goals on Oceans and Climate

WASHINGTON, DC (March 20, 2009) – Jane Lubchenco, an ecologist focused on oceans and climate at Oregon State University, is now undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

She had been unable to speak with the press while her nomination was being weighed by the Senate but has now answered a few questions. There’ll be a lot more here from Dr. Lubchenco and other members of the Obama team on climate, energy and the environment — hopefully including answers to questions posed recently by Dot Earth readers. (John Holdren, the new science adviser to the president, has posted an interesting video message on his priorities.)

Read the New York Times story in full

 

Changing Climate: Ecologist now leads NOAA

WASHINGTON, DC (March 19, 2009) – Pity the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It has certainly suffered insults over the years, beginning in 1970 when President Nixon decided to tuck the newly formed agency inside the Commerce Department. Why? Because he was miffed at Walter Hickle, his man in charge of the Interior Department.

The oceans and atmospheric agency has grown over the years to make up 60% of the Commerce Department budget, and federal officials have resisted calls to make it a separate agency. Its multi-syllabic name commonly gets shorted to an acronym. But even the colloquial NOAA gets lampooned, as shorthand for "No Organization at All," or "National Organization for the Advancement of Acronyms."

The slights grew more serious during the presidency of George W. Bush. Scientists and policy wonks working on global warming or protecting rare and endangered whales and fish increasingly found their work questioned, delayed or altered because it ran afoul of official White House policy.

Read the Los Angeles Times story in full

 

Pioneering ecologist to head NOAA

WASHINGTON, DC (March 20, 2009) – The Senate gave its blessing late Thursday to key members of President Obama’s science team, including an Oregon State University ecologist who will be the first woman and first marine scientist to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Senate voted unanimously to confirm Harvard physicist John Holdren as Obama’s top science advisor and Oregon State ecologist Jane Lubchenco as administrator of NOAA, an agency that conducts much of the nation’s climate-change research, forecasts the weather and regulates commercial fishing. Lubchenco said she was eager to get started because of pressing burdens on the economy and the environment, including global warming, polluted coastal waters and severely depleted fish populations.

Read the Los Angeles Times story in full

 

New NOAA Chief Starts an Eco-Friendly Life in Washington

GRANTS PASS, OR (March 20, 2009) – EXCERPT: The new head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will not only be talking the talk on global warming, she will be walking the walk — eight blocks from the Metro station to her office. Former Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco had planned to rent a small apartment close enough to walk to her offices in the nation’s capital, but got sticker shock when she saw the prices — $5,000 for a one-bedroom apartment — enough to finance a large house back home.

So she settled for a little place in the Cleveland Park neighborhood near the Red Line station.  Lubchenco, whom the Senate confirmed for the NOAA job Thursday, has also signed up for the Zipcar car-sharing service to take the place of her Honda Civic hybrid back home in Corvallis. "I don’t see myself as a pioneer in this area, because I know a lot of people who are becoming more and more aware of their own carbon footprints," she said. One of the first things Lubchenco and her husband, fellow OSU marine biologist Bruce Menge, did for the new apartment was replace the incandescent lights with energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs. She was encouraged by how easy it was to find them in neighborhood stores. "It used to be the case that it was hard to find compact fluorescents," she said. "Now, in many places that’s all you can find. In a relatively short period of time there has been a very rapid transition. It’s not fast enough. But it really is happening. Especially when doing the right thing is also saving you money in the long run."

Read the Associated Press story in full