David Benton.
With what environmental organization are you affiliated?
I'm executive director of the Marine Conservation Alliance, based in Juneau, Alaska.
What does your organization do?
MCA is a nonprofit organization established by the Alaska seafood industry that promotes sustainable fishing. America has an increasing appetite for healthy seafood, but we must be sure that fishing preserves species and their habitat for future generations. Alaska produces over half the nation's catch, and the Alaska/North Pacific region has the best record in the country on conservation: There are no overfished stocks of fish, marine habitat is protected, and ecosystem concerns are taken into account.
We're proud to represent, promote, and live by what is now referred to as the "Alaska Model" of fishery management -- good science, careful monitoring, and strict enforcement. Alaska has made it a practice to set catch limits well below what scientists tell them is sustainable. We are constantly looking for ways to improve conservation, while maintaining strong fishing economies in our remote part of the world.
What are you working on at the moment?
In the next few weeks, Congress will vote on a rewrite of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the 30-year-old law that governs our nation's fisheries. The stakes are high, especially for working fishing communities. Do we, as a nation, have the will to take what is good about our seafaring heritage and make it work in the 21st century? Can we balance both conservation and fishing? Or are we going to regulate working fishing towns out of existence to become just more tourist traps around the coast? We believe we have shown that you can have environmentally sustainable marine fisheries and maintain the culture and economy of fishing if you tackle issues from a local perspective with creative solutions. We are promoting our success story in the North Pacific -- science-driven decision making -- to be Congress' guide.
Photo: iStockphoto
The MCA also works closely with a variety of fishing organizations and communities to ensure the health and well-being of other wildlife that are closely tied to the sea. We're working to protect, for example, the short-tailed albatross and the North Pacific right whale.
We're also working on marine debris cleanup around Alaska's coasts. With roughly 33,000 miles of coastline, this is no small task -- it's become one of the largest beach cleanup efforts in the nation.
How do you get to work?
That depends. Sometimes, I drive my rusted-out 1989 Toyota pickup over the bridge to the office. Sometimes, I take a skiff, if I am coming in to town from the lighthouse we are restoring -- that can be a wet ride in Southeast Alaska.
What long and winding road led you to your current position?
I came to Alaska in the mid-1970s and started working for Friends of the Earth on marine issues. I moved on to work with a number of fishing groups, local governments, and Alaska Native organizations including one called Nunam Kitlutsisti (roughly translated, it means "Protectors of the Land" in Yupik, an Eskimo dialect). There I met a fellow named Harold Sparck, who lived in Bethel, Alaska, and who inspired me to reach higher and not take no for an answer. Harold got me good and hooked on marine conservation. I got to know a lot of folks in the villages, and they taught me a way of looking at stewardship that has stuck with me to this day -- blending conservation with respect for the way of life in Alaska's remote communities.
Eventually, I went to work for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game where, by some strange twist, I became the state's international fisheries negotiator. I held that job for roughly 14 years, working on behalf of the state on virtually every fisheries treaty now in force in the North Pacific. That job took me all over the world, from Moscow to Tokyo to New Zealand and the U.N. I also served on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council for nine years.
What this experience taught me is that the world would be a poorer place if we lost the way of life that fishing and the ocean have provided us and our coastal communities. Whether it is in a remote Eskimo or Aleut village in Alaska, the working waterfront of towns like Kodiak or Sitka, or the fishing ports in New England, there is a richness to our history and culture that cannot be replaced.
Where were you born? Where do you live now?
I was born in California and spent most of my childhood in the desert. I live in Juneau now; it's wet.
What has been the worst moment in your professional life to date?
Getting a fax from the governor saying the Canadians had "borrowed" one of the Alaska state ferry boats in protest of our position on salmon treaty talks. It turned out that some Canadian fishers had blockaded the harbor and were holding the ferry hostage. I was the lead negotiator for Alaska on the salmon treaty talks, so I spent several hours trying to sort things out. Needless to say, the governor wasn't too pleased with the situation.
What's been the best?
When the United Nations adopted the worldwide ban on high-seas driftnets. They were one of the most destructive fishing practices ever employed, and I had been working along with a lot of other folks to get them banned.
What environmental offense has infuriated you the most?
I will probably get shot for this, but it's the tendency of some environmental activists to stretch the truth or distort the facts to try to make a worthwhile case. They lose all credibility, and it sets back meaningful environmental progress every time.
Who is your environmental hero?
What's your environmental vice?
Beer.
How do you spend your free time (if you have any)? Read any good books lately?
I am working with a nonprofit to restore a lighthouse. It's a great way to relieve stress.
Kite Runner was the last good book I read, along with a lot of mindless sci-fi.
What's your favorite meal?
Huevos and strong Mexican coffee on the zocalo in Oaxaca.
Which stereotype about environmentalists most fits you?
Burned-out do-gooder.
What's your favorite place or ecosystem?
I love the ocean in all its many personalities.
If you could institute by fiat one environmental reform, what would it be?
Biodegradable plastics that turn to nontoxic substances in six months or less. Our marine-debris beach cleanup program has already removed hundreds of thousands of pounds of plastics that end up in Alaska from all over the world.
If you could have every InterActivist reader do one thing, what would it be?
Take a moment every day to look around you and appreciate the world, and do one small act of kindness.
David Benton, Marine Conservation Alliance.
Alaska Man Standing
What have you found to be the best incentives to alleviate large numbers of bycatch in ocean fishing? Do large fishing boats wind up with a higher percentage of bycatch than smaller-scale fishing operations? -- Angela Mallard, Telluride, Colo.
Bycatch control and reduction is an important conservation goal. In Alaska we have employed several different strategies to control and reduce bycatch. Some of these include bycatch caps where a fishery shuts down when a specified amount of bycatch occurs in a fishery. In other instances, we have required retention of all catch of certain species, forcing harvesters to look for ways to catch only the fish they want. Individual bycatch quotas can provide an individual harvester with incentives to minimize unwanted catch in order to maximize the catch of desirable species.
Interestingly, bycatch is not vessel-size specific. In some fisheries, larger vessels actually have lower bycatch rates than smaller vessels. In other fisheries, it is the other way around. It is important to develop bycatch controls tailored to the specific conditions of the fisheries. The bottom line, though, is to measure the amount of bycatch, put in place limits on the rate or amount, and then enforce the rules.
What sort of debris do you find most while doing your coastal cleanups? What's the most unusual thing you've found? -- Name not provided
We find everything under the sun. The biggest volume seems to be old fishing gear. We are taking a lot of samples to determine where it's coming from. Our preliminary look indicates that a substantial amount comes from Russian waters and is very old. Watch for more information on this when we get our marine-debris website up and running.
The oddest thing to me was a shopping cart from Brazil. Go figure.
Alaska has done a fabulous job designating protected areas on land. Partly as a result, most of Alaska's land-based animals exist in fairly healthy populations. In contrast, Alaska has few designated protected areas in the marine environment, and the majority of Alaska's endangered species are marine animals. Marine protected areas have proved effective in many areas of the world, and they often benefit commercial fishing. If Alaska is to be perceived as a model for marine conservation, isn't it time that we get busy establishing a network of marine protected areas that equals our land-based conservation system? -- Brad Meiklejohn, Eagle River, Alaska
Alaska has done a reasonably good job on land, but you miss the mark about what constitutes sound conservation practices in the marine environment. What works on land doesn't always translate into success if applied in the ocean. The marine environment is much more dynamic, especially in the Arctic and subarctic, where our marine environment is subject to forces often on a global scale. Drawing lines on a map often won't address the problem.
For example, many of the marine species you refer to are highly migratory, and the conservation problem arises from areas outside Alaska. A case in point is the short-tailed albatross, a highly endangered seabird. Driven to near extinction by hunting on their ancestral nesting islands off Japan, these birds now have only one nesting site, on the side of an active volcano. Marine protected areas will not do them any good. New nesting sites on more hospitable islands will. Our group is actively working to help in the efforts led by Japanese scientists to establish additional nesting populations. This is just one example. Endangered whales (decimated by whaling during the past century), some seabirds (pesticides, loss of nesting habitat), and sea otters (predation, changing ecosystem characteristics) all require conservation action but MPAs would not address the root issue.
Having said that, place-based conservation areas are appropriate in some instances. In the North Pacific, several of the terrestrial conservation units have marine waters within their boundary, thus affording some general protections to marine species. More to the point, though, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council has set aside nearly 400,000 square nautical miles to protect marine habitat and important species. This is a huge area.
Can more be done? Of course it can, if additional actions are needed. Management agencies like the council are continuously looking at the need for additional conservation measures including new or adjusted MPAs. But in our view, action to establish such measures needs to be driven by science, address specific conservation issues, have clear goals with measurable benefits, and have a sound monitoring and enforcement plan.
Most importantly, we have very healthy populations of fish in Alaska, and that is due to conservative management guided by science. Remember, there are no overfished stocks of fish in Alaska, where over half the nation's seafood is harvested.
What's your favorite seafood meal? Are there any types of seafood you avoid because you're concerned about overfishing? -- Name not provided
Salmon, halibut, crab -- you name it and we eat it! The best thing about Alaska seafood is that it is wild, it comes from the clear waters of the North Pacific, and it's sustainable. No overfished stocks up here.
I do avoid species like orange roughy and blue fin tuna because I am concerned about overfishing. Same with farmed fish, especially salmon. There are just too many potential problems.
I'm mindful that it's best to eat local wild or organically farmed fish if possible. I'm aware that our local Californian fisheries are really stretched. So I'm wondering, do you think I should buy Alaskan fish down here in Los Angeles, or not? And if not, what do you suggest? -- Ysanne Spevack, Los Angeles, Calif.
By all means you should buy Alaska fish if you can get it. And, believe it or not, flash-frozen or frozen-at-sea products are really good. Sometimes "fresh" really isn't. Check with your grocer or the restaurant before you buy. Good bets are halibut, salmon (my favorite is troll-caught king salmon from Southeast Alaska), king or snow crab (which should now become more available to the consumer because the fishery went from a derby fishery to a quota fishery), and smoked fish products. If you feel adventuresome and it's available, try smoked blackcod.
A friend of mine, a naturalist in Alaska, recently told me that he thinks that overfishing of the Bering Sea fishery is the greatest environmental disaster happening that nobody seems to be paying any attention to. How do you respond to that? -- Name not provided
I wish I could show you a graphic I have about the levels of fish harvesting in the U.S. waters of the Bering Sea, but the file is too big to send here. But to put in perspective, overfishing limit for the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands in 2005 was around 3.5 million metric tons, and the catch was around 1.9 million metric tons. The overall biomass was roughly twice the overfishing limit.
What that means is that there are several buffers built into the harvest levels to ensure that overfishing does not occur. The NPFMC has a long track record of setting harvest levels at or below the levels recommended by the scientists. And it works. No overfished stocks, large areas of habitat protected, ecosystem considerations taken into account. We use hard caps, careful monitoring, and strict enforcement to make sure that what the scientists recommend, and the target levels set by the managers, are not exceeded.
I would recommend you go to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council website and look up the overall harvest levels there, as well as other information about how good management works.
We've heard a lot about the effects of climate change on Alaska's glaciers and tundra, but what (if any) effects have you noticed thus far to the marine environment? -- Name not provided
I personally think this is the big question. There is no doubt that ocean conditions are changing. Whether or not those are short-term phenomena or a long-term change remains to be seen. But harvesters are reporting that species are moving north, ranges of species are changing, and weather patterns seem different, as well as changes in ice cover in places like the Bering Sea.
One thing our organization is doing is developing a cooperative research program to bring state and federal scientists together with harvesters and other industry experts to look at a number of pressing fishery conservation issues. One thing we are looking at is the possibility of using fishing vessels as platforms of opportunity to carry oceanographic monitoring equipment. It could be an efficient and effective way to gather temperature, salinity, and other data from a wide area of the ocean for relatively little cost. I'm excited about this new program, and hope we can make a solid contribution to better understanding the marine environment.
Since the technology exists to dramatically extend the life of hydraulic fluid or lubricating oil, why don't we require implementation of the "best available technology" to prevent the generation of this waste at sea? I know some of the cruise ships were dribbling oil out the back and got caught and fined. The waste oil is a problem and does not have to be if we could start adopting cost-effective new technologies to prevent pollution. -- Chuck Mitchell, Center Harbor, N.H.
I agree with you. And a lot of fishing operations now recycle their oils. It's illegal to dispose of this stuff in the ocean and violators must be punished.
Do you see Alaska moving from being a red state to a blue one? -- Angela Mallard, Telluride, Colo.
Haven't a clue. I have always pondered what would have happened to Alaska if the Czar had not sold it. Look what happened with some of the other Russian provinces when the Soviet Union fell apart -- they get to print their own money. Of course, some folks think we do that with the oil dollars anyway.
Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) [UPDATED]
A video interview with Bill Moyers
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