Of all the myriad harms modern society is inflicting on our oceans, overfishing is right up there with climate change itself as one of the biggest threats to both marine ecosystems and the billions of people who rely on seafood as a major source of nutrition and income.

The authors of the new book, “Sea Change: unlikely allies and a success story of oceanic proportions”, argue that there is a proven policy that has been working around the globe to rebuild fish populations while also creating sustainable and economically just commercial fisheries.

My guest today is Sea Change co-author, Jamie Workman.  Jamie is an activist, author of multiple books, a speechwriter to U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, and an all around raconteur.

Jamie and I covered so much ground (or water??) that I am breaking our conversation into two parts.

In part one, we go deep on the devastating impacts of overfishing and why he believes that a collaborative, rights based approach is the path towards recovery and sustainability.

In part two, we’ll get into other aspects of his work, including  so-called water credit trading systems,  his experience as a wildland firefighter and how that shapes his work on bringing more fire (and chainsaws) back to forests, and whether we should, in his words, “Own The Wild”.

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