February 16, 2021 — Fishermen have been invited to be partners with the Biden administration on ocean policy and we are prepared to engage. Hard work, honest dialog and commitments to justice and equity will ensure that we remain at the table and not on the menu.

January’s executive order tackling climate change includes ambitious provisions that set agencies on a course to climate mitigation. Most importantly for America’s commercial fishing families, the order established two parallel processes to secure direct input from fishermen on, respectively the appropriate ways to conserve 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030, an initiative known as 30×30, and ways to make our fisheries more resilient to climate change.

Fishing communities are precisely where policymakers should look for durable ocean-based climate solutions. Here are some starting points.

Today’s ocean is increasingly industrialized and our coasts are more densely occupied than ever. The historic pattern of ocean and coastal development exacerbated by climate change has resulted in reduced protections for fish habitat and serial declines of functional working waterfront. The administration has the ability to reverse both trends.

The U.S. should strengthen existing fisheries habitat protection processes by requiring federal agencies to avoid, minimize and mitigate impacts to Essential Fish Habitat (EFH). EFH consultations are regularly conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), yet NOAA’s recommendations are routinely ignored by other agencies. Executive action requiring permitting agencies to incorporate NOAA’s EFH conservation recommendations into their decisions would significantly benefit fish habitat, fisheries and biodiversity.

Read the full opinion piece at The Hill