Offering our innovations to the world

Jun 162012
 

Today, on the eve of the Rio+20 Earth Summit, Ecotrust is joining the Global Partnership for Oceans, backed by the World Bank and joined by major seafood buyers like COSTCO, international aid bodies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development, and other civil society groups such as Conservation International and The Nature Conservancy. The partnership will invest targeted funds into sustainable seafood harvesting and aquaculture initiatives, coastal conservation efforts and ocean pollution reduction projects. The aim is to deliver crucial innovation for the 6 billion people worldwide who will live on or near the coast by 2025.

Whole Earth

The Global Partnership for Oceans will invest in sustainable seafood initiatives and coastal ecosystems. NASA via Flickr.

 

So why is a regional organization like Ecotrust – one rooted firmly in the West Coast of North America – joining this partnership?

For the last twenty years, we’ve been experimenting with new approaches to building resilient and prosperous communities, economies and ecosystems here in our bioregion. Now, it’s time to take what we’ve learned to a global scale.

The need is great. Consider that the oceans already supply 350 million jobs, and that seafood products provide primary protein for 1 billion people every day.

In order to deal with these realities and the coming surges of population growth and climate change we need to take novelty worldwide. We believe that partnerships like this one are the best way to network good regional ideas and deliver the radical change we need across the globe.

At the top of the list are these three tools and sets of expertise that we’ll bring to the global partnership:

  • Impact investing in whole ecosystems.  Ecotrust has had success pooling investments from private and foundation sources, buying forestland, managing it for whole ecosystem health, and delivering steady returns from nature’s dividends to investors and communities. On 12,000 acres in Oregon and Washington bought by Ecotrust Forests, Ecotrust Forest Management is selectively logging multiple tree species, selling credits for carbon sequestered in standing trees and other plant material, nurturing wildlife habitat in exchange for conservation payments and protecting clean water in streams and rivers, with an eye toward water markets. Timber and land management jobs created in distressed communities allow us to leverage New Markets Tax Credits as well.  We’re now exploring similar investment approaches for marine ecosystems.
  • Community-based fisheries.  One of the proven ways to maintain healthy, well-managed fish stocks for the long-term is to involve local fishermen in management and support them with stable financing methods. People who live on the ocean and depend on its resources for a livelihood have the greatest stake in its health. Community fisheries groups have thrived all around the world and we’ve brought innovative financing mechanisms to some in the Northwest through the North Pacific Fisheries Trust. We’re now connecting the experience of isolated communities in conservation, financing and fish brand marketing through the Community Fisheries Network. That sort of networking and the solutions that evolve from it have applications worldwide.
  • Decision-support tools that integrate conservation with coastal economies. Marine protected area networks in California and Australia were enshrined into law this past week, showing a trend toward marine stewardship across the world. Ecotrust’s decision-support tools allow marine planners to compile data on myriad ocean uses into one mapping tool, and weigh the impacts of protected areas and other management changes on fishermen, recreational boaters, shippers and other ocean users. In California’s marine protected area process, our decision-support tools allowed planning groups to significantly reduce the impacts of protected areas on commercial fishermen. Competing ocean uses worldwide demand this integrated, state-of-the-art approach.

The contexts of regions worldwide are different, but we face similar vulnerabilities and challenges on a crowded, warming planet.  For instance, when envisioning sea-level rise, people typically see it swamping low-lying Pacific islands like Kiribati, which is already seeking higher elevation land in Fiji to relocate its people. But new projections also show potentially devastating consequences for Pacific Northwest communities in river deltas should seas rise an expected one meter. Some communities around Vancouver, B.C.  would be forced to relocate and its airport would be threatened. So the city has something to learn from Kiribati (prounced KiriBAS).

Last fall, Kiribati president Anote Tong joined us in Portland for a convening of 50 other regional leaders from around the world. We asked the group: how can we foster resilience in the face of huge global change? Tong noted that his country had already lost a lot of its resilience. But in the quest to get it back, the country had offered up a massive marine protected area — 160,000 square miles — that he hoped would serve as a sanctuary for marine species in these turbulent times. He called it Kiribati’s gift to the world and it has since been declared a World Heritage Site.

We have nowhere near this sort of magnanimous offering to the world. But in this same spirit, we offer up our tools and experience to a new global partnership, part of the global experiment in scaling regional solutions for resilience.

Do you love the ocean? Take the Ecotrust Ocean Day Challenge!

Jun 062012
 

Photo by Sandy Horvath-Dori

Friday June 8th is World Oceans Day, and the salty homes to 90% of the planet’s living biomass are in peril. Destructive coastal development, industrial agricultural practices, and exploitative fishing practices degrade the fisheries that currently feed millions of people globally and that support the livelihoods of 200 million people. Together, they threaten coastal and marine ecosystems that sustain 250,000 known species, sequester one-quarter of the carbon emitted globally, and provide spiritual uplift through scenic vistas, natural beauty, and recreation opportunities. Nutrient and organic pollution alters ecosystem structure, causes dead zones, and presents risks to human health. Climate change poses a range of risks, such as coral reef bleaching, ocean acidification, and sea-level rise, all of which will affect coastal and marine resources and the people and economies that depend on them.

In the face of these threats and challenges, we are encouraged by initiatives like the World Bank’s Global Partnership for the Oceans, and, closer to home, the progress being made to protect ocean ecosystems and the livelihoods that derive from them in places like California and Oregon. Here at Ecotrust, one way we seek to foster the resilience of our oceans is through the development of tools that help people make better decisions about the ocean. Many of these tools are built using open source software, because we believe in sharing ideas and making them easily adaptable and scalable.

So when an upcoming  workshop called for our thoughts on the following questions about new tools for ocean resilience, we thought, let’s ask all of you to chime in with suggestions.

Here, then, is the first-ever Ecotrust Oceans Day Challenge:

  1. What are the three most challenging problems facing the oceans that, if solved, are most likely to improve ocean health and biodiversity?
  2. What are examples of barriers to knowledge and data that exacerbate these problems?
  3. What would a successful tool look like that reduces these barriers?

Please submit your ideas here by 2 p.m. Pacific Time (9 p.m. GMT) on Tuesday, June 12th.

Ecotrust staff will then pick the top three responses, who will receive ocean themed prizes and recognition on our website. We will also take the three winning contributions into upcoming workshops and planning meetings, with full attribution, of course, and the opportunity to partner with us on any projects that result.

How Washington can support fishing communities

May 112012
 

Lately, national fisheries policy makers have left local fishing communities hanging.

At issue is how to ensure responsible community-based fishermen — without huge financial backing — remain fishing, as the nation downsizes the number of boats on the water to protect fishing stocks.

Fishing communities need clear guidance from Washington.

Last November, a bi-partisan, bi-coastal, and bicameral group of eight members of Congress wrote a letter to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), requesting that the agency provide guidance on the implementation of the National Catch Share Policy  to the regional councils that manage our nation’s fisheries. The National Catch Share Policy is guiding how the councils divvy up the allowable catch on fisheries across the country — from cod to halibut to West Coast rockfish — among different fishermen.

 In most cases, those shares go to boats that historically caught particular fish, but they are tradeable and often end up in the hands of the highest bidder.  The members of Congress asked for agency guidance on options to help local fishing communities adapt to catch share programs, including approaches to implement the community provisions in sections of national fisheries law that would enable fishing communities to form Regional or Community Fishing Associations that would help local fishermen retain fishing access and jobs.

 Congressman Mike Thompson (D-CA), who represents California’s 1st Congressional District along the state’s northern coast, reiterated some of this letter in a March 2012 article in Pacific Fishing Magazine, calling for agency guidance on the implementation of the same community provisions and for strategies to consider input from fishing communities at the earliest stages of catch share program development.

 NMFS finally issued a response (pdf) to the congressional letter this past March, but unfortunately it is a response with little substance.  NMFS points to other activities (for instance, their work on electronic monitoring) that are not relevant to the request for guidance on national fisheries law’s community provisions.

 They say they have taken “a number of steps,” but do not describe what those are or will be.  They cite work on community efforts for the Pacific Groundfish Trawl catch share program, but the Pacific Council, which manages Oregon,Washington and California waters, abandoned efforts to set criteria for Community Fishing Associations to participate in that program.  They mention the proceedings from a January 2011 Catch Shares & Commercial Fishing Communities Workshop, yet the main outcome there was several clear recommendations to NMFS to provide guidance as to how communities can go about becoming a Regional or Community Fishing Association — guidance that communities are still waiting on.

 In the absence of clear agency leadership on this issue, communities are beginning to define what the community provisions supported by national law mean for them.

 The Community Fisheries Network was launched last month by Ecotrust, the Island Institute of Rockland, Maine and 13 community fishing and development organizations on both the West and East coasts.  Network members have developed standards for the governance of community-based fishing organizations to, in part, enable those communities to qualify to hold catch shares and  maintain community access to fisheries.

 The network is also set up to share information among fishermen, fishing communities, scientists and others, in order to improve the stewardship of marine ecosystems, to build up local and regional fishing economies, and to bring renewed energy and vitality to waterfront communities.

 Individually, members have taken progressive steps along these lines, whether it’s establishing their own seafood brands, pushing for marine protected areas in local waters or successfully lobbying for small boats and artisanal fishermen in fisheries policy. As these efforts multiply across the nation, community-based fishermen will ensure that catch shares held by communities are a sound, lasting investment in the country’s working waterfronts.

 Now it is up to national policy makers to support these communities.

Will the country follow its ocean pioneers?

Mar 202012
 

Ten years ago, some fishermen in the 40-boat town of Port Orford, in southern Oregon, decided to take hold of their future. They were beset by fishery closures, outcompeted by larger trawl fleets and frustrated by fishery management councils controlled by well-endowed industry interests.

So they began working with scientists, Ecotrust and other groups to develop a marine stewardship plan for the area immediately off Port Orford and the land-based watersheds that feed it. They hatched plans to market their famous black cod and other local fish through a story of stewardship. And they eventually proposed Oregon’s first marine reserve, in the highly productive waters around Redfish Rocks reef, just off the port. Redfish Rocks was officially protected by the state in 2012.

Fisherman Aaron Longton, 50, has been instrumental in Port Orford’s stewardship efforts, serving on the board of the Port Orford Ocean Resources Team and leading the nascent Port Orford Sustainable Seafood brand. And this February, he and his fishing colleagues earned a moment in the spotlight in Ocean Frontiers, a new documentary about cooperative ocean management across the country. Alongside problem-solving coalitions in Massachusetts, the Florida Keys and the Mississippi River basin and Gulf of Mexico, Port Orford’s approach to nurturing ocean health was held up as a guiding ethic for the new National Ocean Policy.

With the policy’s draft implementation plan still under development (the initial comment period is open until March 28th), we asked Longton how he and other ocean pioneers might influence it.

Fisherman Aaron Longton, in Port Orford

 

Is it true, as the film suggests, that there’s a movement going on in marine stewardship all over the country?

There’s no question. It’s grassroots, bottom-up, and happening all over the place. It’s coming from smaller boats and those who don’t have a voice in marine councils [which manage fish stocks across the country].

I’ve never heard the story told so well over such a broad area. It’s all over the country, all over the political spectrum – it’s not a socialist plot. That’s very valuable, in that it appeals to all kinds of audiences. You saw ag interests in the Mississippi basin and all the chemical companies initially convincing farmers to put all those fertilizers on their field. Nobody challenged it before. Now it’s starting to get challenged and farmers are using less and putting in wetlands and prairie strips. The farmers should feel good about that and they’re saving money and maintaining production levels.

What was your reaction being part of the film’s story?

I was proud to be a part of it. It was great to see on film those efforts here and elsewhere to find that sweet spot of sustainability. We’re giving as much attention to ecology as we are to economics. There’s only one thing that’s certain in Port Orford or anywhere: there will be change. So let’s heal the wounds of the past and move forward.

Where does that approach to fishing come from?

I grew up in Roseburg, Oregon which is a timber town. My dad was the general manager of a particle board plant owned by Permaneer. At the time, it was the biggest in nation. He never even considered that we would ever run out of anything – oil, fish, timber, whatever.

I remember the first time I flew over the timber country. It was 1980,  just before the explosion of Mount St. Helens and my cousin took me up to see it in his airplane. We flew over the Coast Range, which is private timberland and the clearcuts were huge, 100 to 200 acres at a time. There was lots of erosion and exposed slides. It was an ugly picture to see from above. I’ve hunted and fished and done all types of forestry work and was totally aware of the amount of logging. But I’d never seen it from above. That woke me up.

It’s the same thing in any industry, whether logging or fishing:  if you have to have 100 percent of the resource to sustain the industry, it’s not sustainable. Somewhere you have to have areas that are unlogged or unfished to keep diversity going. And who knows, a cure for cancer might come from some microbe out there in the protected area.

You’ve been trying to infuse this ethic into a new seafood brand, Port Orford Sustainable Seafood.

We’re hoping our track record differentiates us.

The average fish at the supermarket – it’s a mystery fish. If the guy behind the counter tells you something about where it’s from, it’s more than likely he’s making it up.  You hear a lot of “Snapper,” but there’s no such thing as snapper in the Pacific. We’ve got 46 species of rock fish off the Oregon coast – none of them are Snapper. So we’re doing an anti-Snapper campaign, labeling our fish to the individual species – we feel that’s really important. Because as things become overfished, using one name for everything becomes a way to mask that.

Are the economics starting to change for you all, because of stewardship?

Because we’re paying more to boats in buying for Port Orford Sustainable Seafood, it’s boosting prices across the board on the docks down here.  Some other tourism outfits are exploring options, doing kayak tours to Redfish Rocks, our marine protected area. Charter boats are taking people out to fish and there’s good money for that. And people are looking at recreational diving here as well. We’ve brought science money to do research. And we’re looking at microprocessing alongside the new science research facility here:  after you’re done aging that fish, scientist, send it over to me and I’ll get a fillet.

The biological reward of setting aside a marine protected area at Redfish Rocks, we’re not going to see that for some time. That’s because of the long lifespan for the rockfish species that occur there.

Redfish Rocks used to be fished a lot – it was a good place in summer because it was in the lee of the headlands. People who primarily fished that area took a 10% to 20% hit in income when it was declared a protected area. Not too many people would say ‘Take a fifth of my income away.’

But there’s a flip side: you gain in marketing, you gain through ecotourism, gain through science, and we’re also getting questions answered to find that sustainability sweet spot. That’s priceless, in that it helps us avoid a potential crisis.

Does the “movement” named in the film energize the National Ocean Policy process — there was only a small call to action in the film?

I hope so. There’s a lot of competing interests — wind and wave energy, sea- and land-based aquaculture, cultural fishing practices. You start doing mapping and you realize there are no voids out there in the ocean.

Those that are in fishing have to step up and protect their livelihoods. We have to designate fishing areas, as much as non-fishing areas. And we need a national policy to hash out agreements as to what goes where.

You know the most advantaged groups financially will have more clout and political power. So we have a lot to lose.

Do fishermen fear another level of regulation?

It’s reasonable to fear things coming down from the top. But that’s all the more reason to engage. Everybody with their interests has to step up and validate themselves. I like the idea of renewable energy but it’s going to take a lot of trial and error and gobbling up a lot of real estate to do it. I think it’s essential and important to do this right. We can’t have runaway development on the ocean.

We stand a lot better chance of coming to reasonable compromises if we can sit down in the same room and think proactively. That’s the way to less heartburn and the only way to have your say. I really think that is what Ocean Frontiers is all about.

Rally behind national ocean plan

Feb 192012
 

From the Oregonian, 2/19/2012

From Astor’s fur trade to the heyday of salmon canneries, from container terminals to futuristic wave energy buoys, saltwater has always knitted the Northwest economy together. In the Pacific Northwest, ocean-related activities contributed nearly $1.8 billion and 26,700 jobs in Oregon and $7 billion and 103,500 jobs in Washington in 2009.America as a whole is no different: the nation’s ocean economy is valued at $138 billion/year and supports 2.3 million jobs.

Yaquina Bay mouth, Newport, OR Photo: Sam Beebe

Simply put, the health and resilience of the marine environment is crucial to maintaining a diverse suite of economic, social and environmental benefits that we all depend on.

But management of our marine environment is still parceled out into competing fiefdoms of federal agencies working to implement at least 140 laws governing fisheries management, offshore energy, and marine conservation. That deeply complicates the monumental tasks facing ocean managers in tackling resource depletion, regulatory constraints, coastal development, and climate change. These threaten coastal livelihoods and the national economy that are tied so closely to ocean health. Lack of funded, coordinated ocean governance decreases our ability to focus on threats such as ocean acidification, the corrosive effects of which already seem to be hurting the Northwest’s shellfish populations.

The National Ocean Policy for the Stewardship of our Ocean, Coasts, and Great Lakes, released in July 2010, attempts to replace the problem of competing management with a new style of collaborative management. It builds on the work of two separate national commissions — the independent Pew Oceans Commission and the congressionally established U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, appointed by George W. Bush — both of which called for a comprehensive and unifying policy. It was founded on sound science and a year-long public engagement process that included people from many sectors — fishing, science, recreation, transportation, conservation and more.

Critics say that the policy would be onerous to an already freighted federal bureaucracy. But the truth is quite the opposite. Rather than adding new legal burdens, the National Ocean Policy does not replace or override existing statute or alter the jurisdiction of any agency. Instead, the policy is meant to ensure that all government agencies that play a role in ocean-related work — from fishing to shipping to offshore energy and coastal development — work from a single playbook: the National Ocean Policy. Such coordination will better protect our marine environment and the millions of jobs it supports.

Now, over a year after this policy was established in 2010, the National Ocean Council has released a draft implementation plan that will enable the policy to make real progress in the water. This is a big step forward for implementing the National Ocean Policy, and it will eventually lead to some serious action on issues such as the need to better manage salmon across their entire Pacific Northwest ecosystem, for the benefit of the fish and the wide range of people and animals that depend on them. In addition, as the demands on our ocean spaces rapidly multiply, this policy will help to guide sound regional planning to prevent incompatible use of our seas.

Given how central the marine environment is to sustaining Oregon and the Northwest’s way of life, the implementation of this policy is an important move toward addressing the challenges of managing our marine resources so that we can leave a healthy ocean for future generations to inherit.

Now is the time for our state and federal agencies, tribal governments and elected leaders to support the implementation of the National Ocean Policy.

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