Taking over the fishing regulations of a nation involves vanity and corruption - Part 5.

The following is a six part series to be published daily. It was written by the Southern Kingfish Association, LLC, 15 Garnett Ave.. Saint Augustine, Fla. All Rights Reserved (Phone: 904.819.0360). and has been provided by the American Alliance of Fishermen and their Communities.

A coup d'état is a sudden and decisive action in politics, especially one resulting in a change of government illegally or by force. In Conquest of the Ocean, you will see that this phrase disturbingly describes how the current national policy on fishing might have been established. BUT JUDGE THAT FOR YOURSELF.

Today we present The Florida Connection. Tomorrow and lastly, The New York Connection.

FLORIDA CONNECTIONS - Up to Their Necks

In 2003, Marine Policy issues took a dramatic turn with the publication of the now famous letter by Myers and Worm titled "Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities" which appeared in the journal Nature and "Predator Diversity Hotspots In The Blue Ocean" in PNAS This was a carefully orchestrated media release of a highly controversial theory which claimed that 90 % of the large fish were gone since the advent of industrial fishing. This theory drew strong criticism including more than 30 critical responses from the marine scientific community most of which dealt with the fallacy of projecting biomass from catch per unit effort (CPUE) in a single fishery.

At the bottom of the page was the statement "This research was part of a larger project on pelagic longlining supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts." Pew, of course, claimed that the work had been peer-reviewed, but in fact most of the reviewers had a conflict of interest due to their financial relationships with Pew. By this time, Pew was awarding grants totaling $180 million/yr from 3.8 billion in assets and more than 300 non-profit organizations were receiving funds from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

In May 2003 the New England Aquarium and Pew released the Ocean Fisheries Action Statement signed by 50 renowned marine scientists calling for the immediate end to overfishing. However, since most of the signatories were Pew fellows, the statement was not seen as unbiased.

This was the year that Andy Rosenberg published "Managing to the margins: the overexploitation of fisheries," "Multiple uses of marine ecosystems" and he joined the UBC Fisheries Science Centre Intl Board of Advisors, a position which he has held to the current time. In June, Rosenberg went on tour to discuss the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy findings including an interview with NPR's Living on Earth Radio Show. He, Ransom Myers and others all remarked on the similarities of the two commissions recommendations. Then, in July, the Pew Oceans Commission released its report "America's Living Ocean: Charting a course for Sea Change".

Lubchenco presented testimony to the Pacific Fisheries Management Council, on the science of marine reserves. Lubchenco et al published "Ecological criteria for evaluating candidate sites for marine reserve" and "Application of ecological criteria in selecting marine reserves and developing reserve networks," along with at least four other papers on marine reserves.

By the end of the year, The Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation abruptly leaves the New England Aquarium and becomes a program of The Pew Institute for Ocean Science (PIOS) in partnership with The Pew Charitable Trusts and the University of Miami Rosenstiel School for Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS). According to their website, the Rosenstiel School is one of the world's foremost institutions for research on coral reefs, aquaculture techniques, and commercially important fisheries. It runs the Center on Sustainable Fisheries and works closely with two neighboring institutions: NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory and the Southeast Fisheries Science Center.

It is also where NOAA houses their Center for Independent Experts and in fact all of these institutions are located within a few hundred yards of each other.

Dr. Ellen Pikitch who by then was the Director of the Pew Fellows Program and Pew Institute of Ocean Science (PIOS) at RSMAS in Florida together with Babcock released a report with Oceana titled, "How Much Observer Coverage Is Enough to Adequately Estimate Bycatch?" In this report they argue that 20% coverage is enough for common species, but at least 50% is required for rare species. Pikitch also presented "Environmental Sustainability, Ocean Issues, and the Millennium Development Goals."

In February 2004, Rosenberg Lubchenco, Panetta and others held a joint press conference to announce the formation of the Joint Oceans Commission Initiative to carry out the recommendations of the two earlier commissions and to be directed jointly by none other than Rosenberg and Lubchenco.

In April 2004, the U.S Oceans Commission released their much anticipated report "An Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century," One of the recommendations was somewhat of a surprise.

"The commission report suggests an ocean trust fund much like the Highway Trust Fund administered by the Department of Transportation. The fund would come from money from leases for offshore activities, such as oil and gas exploration and recovery. Rosenberg says that future permitted activities, such as bioprospecting, wind farms and aquaculture, could join the list as they develop."

This was a recommendation that the oil companies had long lobbied for because it ultimately ties coastal state revenues to offshore development activities and gives the states a vested interest in removing obstacles to leasing which could accelerate permit approvals.

The Pew Charitable Trust re-organized as a public charity. At the same time, they funded the Lenfest Oceans Program which was begun by Pew with $80 million in assets and $30 million in grants per year. Lenfest began awarding grants to the Canadian Science centers and nearly $400,000 of that money went to programs run by scientists at Dalhousie (including Myers & Worm).

Rosenberg became the Senior V.P. of Marine Resources Assessment Group (MRAG) which was given a contract from Lenfest to assess US fisheries recoveries plans initially supported at about $200,000. Rosenberg later became the President of MRAG Americas.

In 2005 Lightening struck twice for Myers and Worm, helped along by a little media magic from Seaweb. They published a paper in Science, called "Global Patterns of Predator Diversity in the Open Oceans." Using data from long line fishing vessels again, they pointed to overfishing and climate change as the cause for up to a 50 per cent decline in biodiversity.

According to a news interview of Worm: "To get that message repeated throughout the world, Dr. Worm and Dr. Myers partnered with SeaWeb, a non-profit organization that uses strategic communications techniques to advance ocean conservation, located in Washington D.C. Upon learning of Worm and Myers´ newest paper, SeaWeb began working with them to promote the paper and its message in the media.

Dr. Worm says the key to working with media is preparation, to make it easy for journalists to get the story. "Most of the coverage we received, the reporters never actually talked to us, because the press release was sufficient. In two-and-a-half pages, all the information was there, and we provided interview clips."

To produce this professional on-air interview, the researchers approached Findlay Muir, a videographer with the Centre for Teaching and Learning. They also scouted locations for a video shoot, selecting Chebucto Head as the appropriate backdrop. An interviewer with SeaWeb posed questions remotely from Washington, with both researchers responding and elaborating on their work while Muir did the camerawork. As soon the journal's publication embargo had passed, SeaWeb distributed the interview material by satellite to its media contacts worldwide. The coverage benefited from having a visual aspect - the story was picked up internationally, by over 90 TV stations.

In 2005, Rosenberg completed a report for Oceana called "Bycatch in U.S. fisheries, a National Analysis" and Rosenberg, for that year Oceana listed annual revenue and support at more than $14 million.

Lubchenco and others presented a "Scientific Consensus Statement on Marine Ecosystem-Based Management." The Consensus was signed by 217 academic scientists with relevant expertise and published in COMPASS. In addition, Carl Safina, A Rosenberg, R Myers, and others published "U.S. Ocean Fish Recovery: Staying the Course" in Science and Rosenberg et al published "Implementing ecosystem-based approaches to management for the conservation of ecosystem services." and "Combining control measures for more effective management of fisheries under uncertainty; quotas, effort limitation and protected areas." Pikitch, Babcock et al Published "A perspective on the use of spatialized indicators for ecosystem-based fishery management through spatial zoning" and added "Marine Reserve Design and Evaluation Using Automated Acoustic Telemetry."

In 2006, the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative Task force (including Rosenberg and Lubchenco) released its report, "From Sea to Shining Sea: Priorities for Ocean Policy Reform," presented as a national ocean policy action plan for Congress. Included in the recommendations were plans to strengthen NOAA and "Establish an Ocean Trust Fund in the U.S. Treasury as a dedicated source of funds for improved management and understanding of ocean and coastal resources by the federal and state governments." Also, "securing additional funding to support management, science, and education programs that are the foundation of robust national ocean policy." Reportedly, the Joint Initiative has identified $750 million in funding priorities that would be used for research, management and education programs. They have been issuing report cards annually grading progress on achieving their goals.

MRAG also released its report "Rebuilding U.S. Fisheries: A Summary of New Scientific Analysis" by Rosenberg AA, Swasey JH, (both of MRAG) and co-authored by Bowman M., Director of the Lenfest Oceans Program who funded the study. According to the report, "The Program was established in July 2004 by the Lenfest Foundation and is managed by the Pew Charitable Trusts."

An MRAG second phase report "A Review Of Rebuilding Plans For Overfished Stocks In The United States" by John Wiedenmann, MRAG Americas, and Dr. Marc Mangel, of the University of California, Santa Cruz which went even further in recommending an end to overfishing and it too was "initiated and supported by the Lenfest Oceans Program."

Rosenberg et al published "Resolving mismatches in U.S. ocean governance", "Designing marine protected areas for migrating fish stocks", "Regional Governance and Ecosystem-Based Management of Ocean and Coastal Resources: can we get there from here?" and "Rebuilding US fisheries: progress and problems." While at the same time he was co-PI for "The development of a public private partnership for advancing ocean policy in Massachusetts," funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and was simultaneously working on a grant for "Comparative Analysis of Ecosystem-based Management Initiatives Around the World" funded by the Packard Foundation.

Worm et al published the highly controversial "Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services," in which they claimed that "This [loss of biodiversity] trend is of serious concern because it projects the global collapse of all taxa currently fished by the mid-21st century (based on the extrapolation of regression in Fig. 3A to 100% in the year 2048). This outrageous claim has been repeated literally of times and a google search of fish 2048 now yields over 1 million retrievals.

This was also the year that Congress reauthorized the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act under heavy pressure from NGO's to set catch limits and end overfishing at all costs. Lubchenco published "Can marine reserves or other forms of no-fishing zones help us solve problems facing the oceans today?" Pikitch et al contributed a letter in Ecology Letters called "Global estimates of shark catches using trade records from commercial markets".

Pikitch also presented the report on Environmental Sustainability of the Ocean recommendations to the United Nations (after serving on the Task Force for two years.). Although the presentation was part of the Millennium Project commissioned by the UN Secretary General and supported by the UNDP the Pew Logo and maps by Pauly and others from the Sea Around US Project at UBC were prominently displayed.

Task Force Recommendations
• Implement ecosystem-based fishery management
• Eliminate destructive fishing practices
• Establish network of marine protected areas
• Restore depleted fish populations

They demanded that "Global fisheries authorities must agree to eliminate bottom trawling on the high seas by 2006 to protect seamounts and other ecologically sensitive habitats".

This was the year that Robert H Campbell (Pew Chairman of the Board) received over a half million in annual compensation and stock options as a Director of Cigna Corp.

In 2007, The Worm lab transitioned from the Myers Lab. Upon the death of Ransom Myers, Worm became head of the Worm Lab at Dalhousie.

Robert H Campbell (Pew Chairman of the Board) received nearly $700,000 in annual compensation and stock options as a Director of Cigna Corp. Over at UBC, Pew support for the Fisheries Science Centre exceeded $15 mill with most of those funds coming after the Sea Around Us Project was initiated.

This was the last year that Andy Rosenberg served on the FSC International Advisory Council having completed a 6 year term begun in 2001. Lenfest funded "Setting Annual Catch Limits for U.S. Fisheries" a largely MRAG study in which Rosenberg et al codified how the Regional Fisheries Councils would comply with the re-authorized Magnusun Act. Rosenberg et al also published "Four ways to take the policy plunge: How should researchers best interact with policy-makers for maximum benefit to society?".

Babcock and Pikitch et al published "Comparison of harvest control policies for rebuilding overfished populations within a fixed rebuilding time frame."