I've been blogging less, traveling more, and taking on some exciting new responsibilities which I'll be sharing soon. But in the mean time, I'd like to point readers to the work of my brilliant friend and former colleague Michael Conathan. He's sharp, articulate, and has tremendous experience working on U.S. oceans policy. In 2006 when I served in Senator Bill Nelson's office, Mike was the Knauss Sea Grant Fellow on the Senate Commerce Committee. Perhaps our greatest accomplishment that year was contributing to the long-overdue reauthorization of the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act--the primary law governing marine fisheries management in the U.S. Michael recently joined the Center for American Progress as the the Director of Ocean Policy and they are very lucky to have him on board. He's also writing a terrific column called Fish on Fridays which I've been following over the past weeks. Here's a sample from March 11 entitled Waking from the Gluttony:
A strong case can be made that fishing is America’s oldest profession. Europeans were using parts of what is now Atlantic Canada as seasonal fish camps as far back as the early 15th century—even before Columbus confused the Caribbean for the shores of India.
Many fisheries scientists were sure there was no way humans could make a dent in the seemingly endless abundance of fish in the ocean as late as the middle of the 20th century. But our fishing industries were already well on their way to proving them wrong. It now seems that the problems facing our fisheries are as plentiful as cod once were on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and throughout the Gulf of Maine.
We now live in a world where overfishing is far too prevalent. To stem this tide, regulators impose tighter and tighter restrictions on fishermen,* in the face of fundamental disagreements among harvesters, regulators, and conservationists about how many is too many.
Our oceans are in real trouble and we critically need experts like Michael who understand more than the biology and trophic interactions beneath the surface. He notably includes the people and policy, as well as the science and has the experience on and off the Hill to be practical toward progress. In short, I encourage everyone to make Fish on Fridays
part of their weekly reading. These columns are also posted at Climate Progress
where you can participate in the comment threads.
