Sea Change, Story of Hope Designing Healthy Oceans - Amanda Leland
About Amanda Leland
Amanda Leland, Exec. Dir Environmental Defense Fund, organization focused on climate change, healthy oceans, and more discusses her new book Sea Change, a true story about unlikely allies in pursuit of achieving sustainable fisheries. The book is a narrative of a real Gulf Coast fisherman and Amanda’s pursuit to help find a path forward that would enable fishermen to keep fishing and have a healthy, vibrant ocean for all of us.
Finding a Future for Sustainable Fisheries
Amanda discusses her background where the ocean played an important role and how she became associated with the Environmental Defense Fund. As a graduate student a the University of Maine she realized that she didn't want to write the epitaph of fisheries around the country. She wanted to help find a better path forward that would enable fishermen to keep fishing and have a healthy, vibrant ocean for all of us. She’s worked for EDF for 21 years. It’s been her job to find ways to better manage oceans. She discusses her book Sea Change, a true story about unlikely allies in pursuit of achieving sustainable fisheries. The book is a narrative about a real Gulf Coast fisherman and a discussion of what it means to find a path forward that enables fishermen to keep fishing and have a healthy ocean.
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00:00:06 Pam Ferris-Olson Today on the Wo(men) Mind the Water Artivist Series podcast on womenmindthewater.com, I'm speaking with Amanda Leland, Executive Director of the Environmental Defense Fund. Amanda oversees an organization with roughly three and a half million members. The EDF efforts are focused on climate change, healthy oceans, and other issues. Today, we will be discussing Amanda's new book Sea Change, a true story about unlikely allies in pursuit of achieving sustainable fisheries.
00:00:41 Pam Ferris-Olson Amanda Leland is the latest guest on the Wo(men) Mind the Water Artivist Series podcast on womenmindthewater.com. The podcast engages artists in conversation about their work and explores their connection with the water. Through their stories, Wo(men) Mind the Water hopes to inspire and encourage action to protect the ocean and her creatures.
00:01:04 Pam Ferris-Olson Amanda Leland is Executive Director of the Environmental Defense Fund. Amanda is at the helm of a nonprofit advocacy group with revenues of over $300 million. Amanda's interest in nature grew from time spent with her grandfather who taught her to love fishing. Amanda earned a master's degree in marine biology from the University of Maine and once worked as a marine mammal zookeeper. Today, we will discuss her new book Sea Change, a book she co-authored with James Workman.
00:01:40 Pam Ferris-Olson Welcome, Amanda. I appreciate that you made time to come on the Wo(men) Mind the Water Art of a Series podcast. Before we discuss the fishing industry, let's get a sense of who you are and what drives you. You credit your grandfather with helping you fall in love with the sea. Tell us a little bit about him and your fishing trips.
00:02:03 Amanda Leland Well first Pam, thank you so much for having me on your podcast. I love hearing about it and I love the connection to the ocean and inspiring artists and others to do more. So anyway, thank you for what you're doing.
00:02:16 Amanda Leland Yeah, my childhood was pretty much centered on the ocean. I grew up fishing with my grandfather. He taught me how to drive his boat. One time I remember we were out in his boat and the engine died and we were offshore and we came upon a pod of whales and I got to swim amongst the whales in the deep water. It was pretty amazing. But fishing was a big connector for the whole family. And it was a time to get out there and be together. That's a big part of, I think, what drives a lot of people to spend time. There's always the joke in my family, even today which is, “Are you fishing or are you catching?” And it gives a chance for family just to get together and have fun on the water.
00:03:05 Pam Ferris-Olson How exciting to see a pod of whales and actually swim with them. So what is it about the ocean that led you to do graduate work in marine biology? And how did you envision you'd use the degree?
00:03:18 Amanda Leland Yeah, it's a good question. So like again, oceans were my passion all through my life. If it wasn't in the summer, if I wasn't on a boat, I was at the beach. My life kind of revolved around being on, using, you know, engaging with the water. Um, I didn't really know that I would make a career out of it. Interestingly, I got pretty excited about when I became a marine mammal zookeeper. I got really excited about polar bears because I was actually a polar bear keeper. And I wanted to be a wildlife vet working on polar bears. I sort of said, “What else do I want to do?” And I shifted into a marine biology program and I got bitten by the bug. I never turned back and have had all kinds of different jobs and roles in the marine science, policy and conservation world over that time.
00:04:14 Pam Ferris-Olson During your years as a student, what were the major issues impacting the ocean? Did you ever think how you might tackle them?
00:04:23 Amanda Leland So in grad school in Maine, my research was focused on sea urchins. And in the Gulf of Maine sea urchins had been, there had been a lot of them, and then there were none of them. You know, in a very short period, they were overfished to localized extirpation, meaning I could swim underwater scuba diving for hours and never see a single urchin. Maybe in the decade prior, they were so abundant you could actually see them from aerial photography over the shallows of the water. So they went from a lot to nothing very quickly because of overfishing. And part of that was, part of doing that research, was I had fishermen actually on my research team.
00:05:09 Amanda Leland There were divers with me to do an active research project where we were trying to bring back populations where they'd long been gone. And I would go to these regulatory meetings to talk about the state of the science for the sea urchin fishery. And what happened repeatedly was fishermen would say to me, “If I don't take the last fish, someone else will. And I just felt like that was the most hopeless statement any human could actually say out loud, which is like, “I'm driven to do the thing that's gonna take away my livelihood.” The desperation in this moment is so high. And it's a downward spiral you can't get out of. So my research in Maine as a graduate student was what made me realize that I didn't want to write the epitaph, frankly as a scientist, of the failure of fisheries around the country. I wanted to help find a better path forward that would enable fishermen to keep fishing and have a healthy, vibrant ocean for all of us.
00:06:20 Pam Ferris-Olson It's a long-term battle that's for sure.
00:06:23 Amanda Leland It sure is, yes. It's generational, yeah.
00:06:27 Pam Ferris-Olson So when you took a job with the Environmental Defense Fund, also known as EDF, what did you expect your role would be there?
00:06:36 Amanda Leland So that was 21 years ago. I've been at EDF for 21 years. I think I've had nine different jobs here. So when I started at EDF I worked for a coalition of ocean conservation organizations which included Ocean Conservancy, NRDC, which is the Natural Resources Defense Council and EDF. And my job was to advocate around policy for how the government could look at and man better manage in an integrated way around oceans.
Most people don't realize that the oceans are like a highly fractured system of governance and states have some control. The federal government has some control. And then there's like a whole host of different federal agencies who do permitting and leasing and management and oversight in the ocean. At that point, there was no sort of cohesive plan and it was preventing good things from happening meaning like good progress from happening. So when I first joined EDF that's what I was doing. I was working on behalf of a coalition of nonprofits trying to ensure that the US had a coherent national ocean policy.
00:08:01 Pam Ferris-Olson So as Director of EDF, how much input do you have in selecting the issues the organization focuses on?
00:08:10 Amanda Leland So at EDF, as Executive Director of EDF, I oversee the whole organization. I lead our global mission work, which is all of our programs around the world. I oversee our fundraising and our administration and infrastructure. And so some days I wish I had less to do but I have a lot to do and I have a lot of influence. And I work closely with our Board of Directors, our CEO, and our donors, who are incredibly important to the success of the organization.
00:08:46 Pam Ferris-Olson Well, I wish for you that you had less to do because it would mean that the earth didn't need a lawyer. Right.
00:08:54 Amanda Leland Well, I will say I'm not the lawyer but yes, I agree with you.
00:08:58 Pam Ferris-Olson I think that's the tagline isn't it, of EDF? No, that's Earthjustice.
00:09:03 Amanda Leland Yeah, that is Earthjustice. So EDF, we think about ourselves as sort of the ambitious practical organization. So we find the ways that work, which is very resonant with the book that we're going to talk about later. Like finding the pathway that's going to make a difference and setting aside differences from the start so that we can actually have it. You know, an honest and decent conversation with each other, even if we don't necessarily agree from the beginning. So that's kind of how EDF shows up. And though we do, I don't want to undervalue the lawyers on our staff because they are incredibly important. And that is EDF's origin. Sorry, just to go back to the history, was in banning DDT. That's how EDF started in the late 1960s.
00:09:52 Pam Ferris-Olson That's very important. So let's switch now to talking about the book. I had the pleasure of reading the book. I know that the first half or so of the book is about a Gulf fisherman and the reader is given an intimate view of that man's love for fishing and the risks that he took to do the job. It's a compelling story and it underscores how fishing regulations at that time did little to help his bottom line or sustain the fishery or for that matter protect him. And one point that is very important in your book is the term catch share. Can you tell us what it is and why they should understand what the term is about?
00:10:43 Amanda Leland Yeah, happily. So I just, maybe going back to the earlier part of our conversation of what fishermen used to say to me when I was presenting my science at these regulatory meetings: “If I don't take the last fish, someone else will.” And I, you know, my personal drive to turn that around, which is to say, instead of a race to the bottom I was hoping for and looking for a race to the top.
00:11:10 Amanda Leland And what is catch shares, this term that you brought up, is really about enabling a race to the top in which fishermen, fishing communities, fisher people directly benefit when they undertake conservation. And so they reap rewards financially. They can catch more as the resource rebounds. And in, you know, 15 to 20 years ago, maybe more, yeah, yeah, 20 years ago, the US was in a pretty significant fisheries collapse all around the country. Like overfishing was rampant. It was on the front page of the news pretty consistently. And nobody, like at the time, it felt like it was an unsolvable problem.
00:11:56 Amanda Leland But what catch shares did was enable fishermen to, or incentivize fishermen to, want to conserve more now so that they could catch more later. And in that change, you see the resource rebound and the fish populations rebound in many parts of the country, including that story that you read about which is the fishermen of Buddy Guendon and get from Galveston, Texas. And this maybe just to be really even more specific about it, what a catch share is, it's like thinking about a pie. And you have how much you can catch each year is the pie as for the whole fleet of boats. And then each individual fisherman gets a slice of that pie. And they can count on that year after year as long as they follow the rules. And the pie grows bigger and bigger, and each slice then is able to catch more.
00:12:55 Pam Ferris-Olson I thought it was a very effective vehicle to introduce us and take us along on Buddy's boat and his life because we get a real personal stake by getting to know him and his issues. So Sea Change also offers examples of what happens when fishers, scientists, environmentalists, and regulators come together to listen to one another and seek workable solutions. It seems like a no-brainer to say you all need to sit down and listen to each other. Why is such a solution difficult to achieve?
00:13:33 Amanda Leland I think everybody brings their preconceived notions to really hard problems, right? It's not like overfishing didn't, it didn't just happen overnight. And so you can think that there's like time that leads up to a crisis. And as the crisis gets more and more pronounced, people get more and more dug in because there's pain associated with it. And so I think that makes it harder. In any problem, frankly, when you get to that level for people to sort of set aside their personal differences and their personal perceptions about: “How did we get here and who should we blame?” And actually have an honest conversation about what a path forward is that isn't about trying to figure out who to blame and is about ensuring that there's like alignment and understanding around what the different goals are from the different parties.
So I, this is to me, it's a lesson in life. It isn't just environmental issues but I think in environmental issues in particular, this is important and resonant. And I think it's beyond just fisheries. And even today, it's not like these efforts are not without controversy. They don't happen, you know, if it was easy it would already have been done. That adage, like I feel like I say that all the time. It takes a lot of work and listening to each other, mapping out a common path in which everybody can kind of see themselves in that future, and understanding that it may mean some very difficult times in the near term. Like that's what had to happen to move the commercial red snapper fishery from collapse to a healthy growing industry where they created jobs and community.
00:15:18 Pam Ferris-Olson So who's the audience you seek to reach with the book and what message would you like them to come away with?
00:15:27 Amanda Leland So the audience, I have a couple audiences that I think are really important. One is, I want the people who were involved in this effort 20 years ago to feel really good about their contribution to society. And some people call this the turnaround of U.S. fisheries, because now U.S. fisheries are the most, some of the most sustainable in the world, if not the most sustainable in the world. Like this is a remarkable change. And most people don't know about it. So one is just solidifying the history with and recognizing those people so that the people who've been on this journey for the last 20 years feeling really good about it, they're an important audience here.
00:16:08 Amanda Leland Another is decision makers who could look to or fishery leaders who could look to making these kinds of efforts play out in their own fishery. Because the story on this is not complete. There's a whole host and hundreds of fisheries around the world where this kind of reform could be very well applied. And that is happening but it could be more.
00:16:33 Amanda Leland And then last is, I feel like in today's world we get beaten by bad news all the time. And there's a story of, this is really a story of hope. You can put aside all the fish talk and you can find a story of hope that's really about humans. Humans listening to each other, working with each other and making a community together. And I think that that transcends, you know, all the specifics and is the story that I hope people take away.
00:17:11 Amanda Leland I also think that in the world of climate change and the need to urgently address the impacts of climate change, I think a lesson from this story, that I hope those in trying to work through solutions there take away, is that solutions that quickly help improve people's lives are the ones that last. The ones where we're asking people to, like, take the pain now and in some future year, far off into the future, things will be better. I think don't really stick. And I think there's a lot of power in that learning.
00:17:57 Pam Ferris-Olson Thank you. I like that message. So finally Amanda, as I do at the end of every one of my podcasts, I ask my guests to offer tips on how the audience can make a positive difference for the ocean. I realize that this is a big ask, so maybe you could focus on fisheries. What can individuals do to support sustainable fisheries?
00:18:20 Amanda Leland Yeah, so this is a good question and one that is achievable. So which is, you know, support the sustainable U.S. fisheries by buying delicious fresh or frozen seafood at the market. And you can make those choices. Some grocers do that for you and what they put out is all good choices. Others, you might need to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch app or website, and you can look up the fish and find out whether it's sustainable, sort of sustainable, on the path to becoming sustainable, or probably not a good choice. And I think that's really important because it ties the market and the consumer action with what the communities and the fishermen are trying to achieve.
00:19:18 Pam Ferris-Olson Okay, thank you. Amanda, it was good to have you on the show. I’d like listeners to know that I've been speaking with Amanda Leland, Executive Director of the Environmental Defense Fund and coauthor with James Workman of the new book Sea Change: Unlikely allies and a success story of oceanic proportions.
Amanda is the latest guest on the Wo(men) Mind the Water Artivist Series podcast. The series can be viewed on womenmindthewater.com and YouTube. An audio-only version and a transcript of this podcast is available on womenmindthewater.com, on iTunes, and Spotify. Wo(men) Mind the Water is grateful to Jaine Rice for the use of her song Women of Water. All rights for the Wo(men) Mind the Water name and logo belong to Pam Ferris-Olson. This is Pam Ferris-Olson.
