Saving Seafood

Matching grants open for sustainable groundfish projects

April 17, 2018 — The New England groundish fishery is one of the priority targets of a new grants program by the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation to promote innovation in sustainable fisheries. through “effective participation by fishermen and fishing communities.”

The Fisheries Innovation Fund program, funded by NOAA and three private foundations, is set to award up to $950,000 nationally. Most of the grants are anticipated to fall within the range of $50,000 to $100,000.

The program, however, noted that priority for funding will be given to projects in one of four local fisheries — New England groundfish, West Coast groundfish, Gulf of Mexico reef fish and Gulf of Alaska halibut and groundfish.

The grants will require 100 percent matching funds from recipients. The NFWF said in its announcement that eligible recipients include non-profits, state government agencies, municipal governments, educational institutions and individual businesses.

To date, according to NFWF spokesman Rob Blumenthal, the Fisheries Innovation Fund “has awarded grants totaling over $20.3 million to 127 projects across 26 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.”

Those awards generated more than $22.5 million in matching funds from recipients “for a total conservation impact of $42.8 million.”

The three foundations joining NOAA in providing the overall funding include two with strong ties to environmental and conservation groups — the Kingfisher Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation — as well as the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation of Palo Alto, California, started by the founder of Intel.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

What Makes Healthy Reefs ‘Smell’ Good to Fish?

March 21, 2017 —  The following was released by the Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute:

What makes fish feel at home around healthy coral reefs and avoid degraded ones? Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute (UCI) Director Tony MacDonald has joined a research team dedicated to understanding the chemical cues that influence how fishes, corals and other organisms select a reef habitat.

The project is being led by the University of Delaware’s Danielle Dixson with the support of a $1 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Additional collaborators include Valerie Paul, a natural products chemist and lead scientist at the Smithsonian Marine Station and director of the Carrie Bow Cay field station in Belize; and Jay Odell, Mid-Atlantic marine program director at The Nature Conservancy in Virginia. 

Previous research by Dixson demonstrated that fish can tell the difference between healthy and degraded reefs, and that degraded reefs produce a chemical cue that repels fishes and corals.

The researchers will conduct surveys during high recruitment periods at the Smithsonian Institution’s Carrie Bow Cay research station in Belize and record the composition of the benthic communities (coral, algae, sand), as well as what fish and other reef creatures — and their predators — recruit to these communities. The data will provide a picture of what is different on high recruitment reefs and low recruitment reefs. Armed with this information, the researchers will perform chemical tests to determine the source of positive or negative cues.

MacDonald and Odell will focus on how the chemical cues data could potentially be incorporated in digital mapping tools that will help inform reef conservation management decisions and ocean planning. They will work with the researchers to determine how their work may be transferred to other regions, particularly in the Mid-Atlantic region. The UCI is currently leading the development of the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal (portal.midatlanticocean.org), a free, state-of-the-art mapping and information site focused on ocean areas from New York through Virginia. Odell serves as the technical lead on the Portal project, and was recognized by the UCI with a Regional Champion of the Ocean award in 2015.

“This is an exciting opportunity to work with a team of innovative scientists on research that could impact coral preservation around the world,” MacDonald said. “The data gathered through this project will be used to develop more effective marine management and ocean planning strategies.”

Research at the Carrie Bow Cay facility will take place beginning this summer. The project is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2019.

Workshop to help seafood businesses thrive and adapt

December 21st, 2016 — The need to transition to more sustainable fisheries has become an immutable mantra, and a February workshop at Salem State University may help New England seafood businesses sharpen their business focus and their approach to investors.

The three-day workshop, scheduled for Feb. 6-8, is being organized by Carmel, California-based Fish 2.0 as a primer for New England wild-caught seafood businesses — both established and start-ups — interested in making a bigger splash in the markets in which they operate.

The workshop, sponsored by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Massport, also may serve as a launching pad into Fish 2.0’s subsequent global business-plan competition, which seems a curious merger of television’s “Shark Tank” and a networking Olympics.

“Those who attend the workshop will have the opportunity to proceed into the global competition,” said Remy Garderet, Fish 2.0’s managing director. “It’s not mandatory, but we believe it will be in their best interests to do so. But if they don’t, we believe there is still stand-alone value from the workshops.”

The Salem State workshop is designed to provide participants with a polished business pitch for investors. It also will provide them with an entry-ready application into the global competition, which will pay cash prizes for the best business strategies and provide access to an international cadre of investors.

Read the full story at The Gloucester Times 

Moore Foundation Grants $1.2 Million to Monmouth U. to Support Progress on Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal

August 17, 2016 — The following was released by Monmouth University:

WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. — The Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute (UCI) has received a $1.2 million Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grant to continue the development of the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal (portal.midatlanticocean.org), a free, state-of-the-art mapping and information site focused on ocean areas from New York through Virginia. The funding will support the work of a project team consisting of researchers from Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and the Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis (CRSSA), The Nature Conservancy and the UCI.

The grant will enable the UCI and its project partners to add valuable new content to the publicly accessible site in 2016 and 2017, including interactive maps depicting fishing areas, oceanography, tribal ocean uses and a trove of data that will illustrate marine life distributions and trends throughout the East Coast in greater detail than ever before. The Portal was initiated under the guidance of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Oceans (MARCO) with previous funding provided by the Moore Foundation in 2015 and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2012 and 2013.

“We are deeply grateful for the vital contributions the Moore Foundation has made not just to the Portal project, but in improving the state of ocean planning in the Mid-Atlantic and other regions,” said UCI Director Tony MacDonald. “This technology will help policymakers and regulatory agencies make science-based decisions that promote healthy marine ecosystems and sustainable ocean use, as well as provide the public and stakeholders with readily accessible spatial data and the best information available about ocean environments and economies.”

Just as Google Maps and MapQuest contain data layers that depict the locations of businesses, transit stops and public places, the Portal offers a selection of over 200 layers depicting human activities and natural processes taking place at sea. The Portal has grown in importance as an ocean planning tool, particularly for its ability to illustrate where there are possible conflicts – for example, between a potential offshore wind site and shipping traffic – and compatible uses at sea.

The Portal has served as a key information source for a historic first-ever Draft Mid-Atlantic Regional Ocean Action Plan produced by a Regional Planning Body composed of representatives from six states, tribal entities, federal agencies and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council. In addition, it supports the work of MARCO, a partnership of the governors of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Virginia.

Under the current project funding from the UCI and the Moore Foundation, Rutgers has a leading role in the operational management of the Portal and in developing a plan to support the implementation of the Draft Ocean Action Plan and continued work by MARCO.

“The portal project has been a great demonstration of collaboration between Monmouth and Rutgers universities,” said Jeanne Herb, associate director of the Environmental Analysis and Communications (EAC) Group at Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. “Our work together is a model for how institutions that house unique skills and expertise can complement each other, and we look forward to building on this partnership for projects, programming and academic opportunities in the future.”

According to Richard G. Lathrop Jr., director of CRSSA, a major goal has been to make the Portal a central information hub accessible to all of the Mid-Atlantic’s stakeholders.

“This has entailed working with stakeholders to better understand their decision-making needs and policy concerns, as well as designing the user interface to be simple and user friendly, but still allow ready access to the incredibly rich data set,” Lathrop said.“Working with MARCO on developing the Portal has challenged the team here at Rutgers to expand our expertise in land use planning, policy and geographic information systems into the coastal and marine realm

The Draft Ocean Action Plan calls for the Portal to play an increased role in informing ocean management decisions such as siting offshore wind turbines, permitting aquaculture operations, and determining which fishing communities should be consulted when an area is being considered for sand extraction. An emphasis of the Portal team’s upcoming work will be to support the work and goals of the Draft Ocean Action Plan, which is open for public comment through Sept. 6 at boem.gov/ocean-action-plan.

The Portal team frequently offers tutorial webinars and is available to schedule training sessions for interested groups and individuals. To learn more, contact Karl Vilacoba at kvilacob@monmouth.edu.