Jamie Workman joined host and Marine Fish Conservation Network Executive Director Tom Sadler for an online Waterside Chat on January 8, 2026. Jamie is an author, advocate and communicator whose work has focused on water and our relationship with it. His books include Heart of Dryness and the new Sea Change: Unlikely Allies and a Success Story of Oceanic Proportions.

In a wide-ranging discussion, Jamie and Tom talked about:

• How Jamie’s reporting helped stop a Disney theme park because there wasn’t enough water available
• How catch-share systems make fishing safer and encourage long-term stewardship
• Why such rights-based approaches to fisheries can build trust and confidence among people who would otherwise be fighting with each other, providing a model that can work in many places where people compete for scarce, depletable resources
• How scientists, advocates and fishermen can move from an adversarial to a symbiotic, collaborative relationship

And of course, much more!

ABOUT WATERSIDE CHATS:

Watch Waterside Chat videos or subscribe to the podcast.

The Marine Fish Conservation Network’s Waterside Chat series connects people who depend on healthy oceans and fisheries with the issues that directly affect them and their communities. Each episode the Network’s Deputy Director Tom Sadler talks with different guests about ocean policy and fisheries management topics. He engages them in genuine and thoughtful conversations about what policy decisions mean for people’s livelihoods, communities, recreation, and coastal ways of life.

Join the Network's email list to learn about future Waterside Chats.
 

Tim Bristol joined host Tom Sadler and the Marine Fish Conservation Network for an online Waterside Chat on March 4, 2025.

Tim is SalmonState’s executive director, and he has had a long career in environment conservation, having worked for Trout Unlimited in Alaska, the Alaska Coalition, the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, and the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition. He is a recipient of the Alaska Conservation Foundation’s Olas Murie Award for outstanding professional contributions to conservation.

Tim and Waterside Chat host Tom Sadler talked about Tim’s conservation journey, his work with SalmonState, the campaigns SalmonState has going on, and what the next few years with a new congress and administration may entail. They covered:

• Why fishing with his father — and a childhood close to infamous Superfund site Love Canal — directed Tim towards conservation
• How recognition of the recreational value of forests helps us move away from logging-first and towards a mix of uses, including tourism, water quality, Native Alaskan subsistence AND logging
• How SalmonState, as a group of communicators, connectors and conveners, brings together abroad swath of communities, salmon markters, indigenous communities, commercial fishermen and more
• The importance of illustrating stories in a way that’s evocative — “The showing rather than telling is critical”
• Why bycatch is a massive threat to Alaska salmon, and why restraining it is not an easy problem to solve
• The importance of the Tongass, America’s “salmon forest”, whose economic value for fishing far outstrips the value that would be realized from logging or road-building
• Updates on mining activity that threatens Alaska salmon runs, including new uncertainty under the current administration

And of course, much much more!

ABOUT WATERSIDE CHATS:

Watch Waterside Chat videos or subscribe to the podcast.

The Marine Fish Conservation Network’s Waterside Chat series connects people who depend on healthy oceans and fisheries with the issues that directly affect them and their communities. Each episode the Network’s Deputy Director Tom Sadler talks with different guests about ocean policy and fisheries management topics. He engages them in genuine and thoughtful conversations about what policy decisions mean for people’s livelihoods, communities, recreation, and coastal ways of life.

Join the Network's email list to learn about future Waterside Chats.
 

Author, filmmaker and Tight Line Media CEO Kris Millgate joined the Marine Fish Conservation Network and host Tom Sadler for an online Waterside Chat on January 29, 2025.

Kris is an Emmy-winning multimedia journalist who started Tight Line Media in 2006. She hosted Time OUT(an outdoor TV news segment) for seven years, then created East Idaho Outdoors magazine in 2014.

Her first book, My Place Among Men, was published in 2019. The sequel, My Place Among Fish, was published in 2021 alongside the debut of her salmon film Ocean to Idaho. Her third book, My Place Among Beasts, was published with her wildlife film, On Grizzly Ground, in 2023. You can learn more about these and her other projects and order your own copies at: https://www.tightlinemedia.com/

Among many other topics, Kris and Tom talked about:

• How she became an outdoor journalist despite shyness and a childhood fear of people with beards
• How she spent a summer in a camper following salmon from the ocean to their spawning streams in Idaho
• The physical toll migration takes on salmon -- and on a filmmaker following them
• The difference between a situation that makes you uncomfortable and one that's actually unsafe
• The one thing everyone does when they come face to face with a grizzly
• Why it's so important to capture all points of view on a topic as controversial as dam removal in the West
• Why storytellers need to meet people where they are, understanding that they may take in information in different ways via different media
• Her newest project, Sage Wisdom West, which follows sage grouse in the high desert, "a fantastic landscape that sustains perhaps more wildlife than the mountains"

ABOUT WATERSIDE CHATS:

Watch Waterside Chat videos or subscribe to the podcast.

The Marine Fish Conservation Network’s Waterside Chat series connects people who depend on healthy oceans and fisheries with the issues that directly affect them and their communities. Each episode the Network’s Deputy Director Tom Sadler talks with different guests about ocean policy and fisheries management topics. He engages them in genuine and thoughtful conversations about what policy decisions mean for people’s livelihoods, communities, recreation, and coastal ways of life.

Join the Network's email list to learn about future Waterside Chats. 

The Wild Steelhead Coalition’s Brian Bennett joined host Tom Sadler for an online Waterside Chat on November 14, 2024, making his second appearance on the program. Brian is the Wild Steelhead Coalition‘s communications and social media manager, produces the organization’s podcast, “The Adipose,” and assists with other communication and advocacy efforts.

Among many great topics, Brian and Tom talked about:

• Wild Steelhead as Pacific coast icon and watershed health indicator (the fish spawn in climate zones ranging from from high desert to temperate rainforest)
• The work of the Wild Steelhead Coalition and the Now or Never Campaign
• The need to build a robust army of wild steelhead supporters as devoted to preserving the fish as they are to catching them, particularly as the climate changes around us
• How a wild steelhead is a rainbow trout that goes to sea to feed, and how the fish return not just to the same stream to spawn, but to the same spot in the stream
• How wild steelhead populations are at 3% of historical levels in Washington state, due to warming waters, habitat loss, harvesting and more
• Why a big pink salmon year in the Pacific means fewer wild steelhead in Idaho
• How steelhead have been around for millennia and have been able to adapt to many environmental changes, but they have not been able to adapt to the genetic impacts of hatchery-raised fish
• How rainbow trout start going out to sea as soon as we remove dams and other obstacles, making stream trout a genetic bank for the species
• How the species and the industry need us to create a long-term plan for survival in the face of climate change
• Why if you’re in the fishing space, whether as a consumer, fisherman or brand, you have a responsibility to conserve the species

Also in this episode: The Adipose podcast, with the Linda Mapes interview mentioned in the Chat taking place on October 02, 2024.

The Marine Fish Conservation Network's Waterside Chat series connects people who depend on healthy oceans and fisheries with the issues that directly affect them and their communities. Each episode the Network's Deputy Director Tom Sadler talks with different guests about ocean policy and fisheries management topics. He engages them in genuine and thoughtful conversations about what policy decisions mean for people’s livelihoods, communities, recreation, and coastal ways of life. Join the Network's email list to learn about future Chats. You can also watch past Chats and subscribe to the podcast on the Network's website.

Kate Masury, executive director of Eating with the Ecosystem, joined the Marine Fish Conservation Network for a Waterside Chat on October 16, 2024. Among many topics, Kate and host Tom Sadler discussed:

• Eating with the Ecosystem, the work they do, and how they are a nonprofit that started as a food gathering
• Their place-based approach to sustaining wild seafood
• How bribing people with delicious seafood is a good way to get them to the table
• Working with members from all parts of the local seafood supply chain
• Why one of the best things you can do for sustainability is to eat a variety of ocean species
• Why you’re connecting directly with the oceans when you’re eating local seafood, and why it’s better for people to choose seafood from their local area
• Creating a Roadmap for Climate-Resilient Seafood Supply Chains
• And of course, much more

The Marine Fish Conservation Network's Waterside Chat series connects people who depend on healthy oceans and fisheries with the issues that directly affect them and their communities. Each episode the Network's Deputy Director Tom Sadler talks with different guests about ocean policy and fisheries management topics. He engages them in genuine and thoughtful conversations about what policy decisions mean for people’s livelihoods, communities, recreation, and coastal ways of life. Join the Network's email list to learn about future Chats. You can also watch past Chats and subscribe to the podcast on the Network's website.

Colles Stowell, founder and president of the One Fish Foundation, joined the Marine Fish Conservation Network for an online Waterside Chat on May 30, 2024. Colles and host Tom Sadler discussed:

• How our seafood system has changed from mostly local or domestic to mostly imported in a few short decades
• How we've become so dependent on an industrialized food system that we don't know where our food is coming from
• The power of One Fish Foundation's Know Your Fish dinners, which connect seafood consumers with the people who catch their food and start people on the path to owning their relationship with seafood
• How One Fish Foundation goes to schools, including bringing a lobster trap to a kindergarten class
• Why "good, clean and fair" should be a sustainable-seafood mantra
• The important role of chefs in the seafood conversation
• How consolidation in the seafood-distribution industry hurts local fishermen
• And much, much more!

IN THIS EPISODE:

• One Fish Foundation 

MORE ABOUT COLLES:

Colles Stowell's love of fish, fishing and food started early. From the Louisiana bayous of his youth, he moved on to New Hampshire's lakes and rivers and trout streams, world-class salmon rivers in Canada, and bonefish flats in the Bahamas. Along the way, he discovered a passion both for local seafood and for writing.

Stowell's journalism career includes writing for The Boston Globe, United Press International and New Hampshire Public Radio. He began covering sustainable fisheries and seafood in 2011, and he now focuses on issues ranging from privatization of our oceans to the devastating impact of the proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, Alaska.

Of the One Fish Foundation, Colles says, "Starting the Foundation is the confluence of my career and personal passions. My deep-seated interest in fisheries and in striking the right balance to support well-managed fisheries, transparent, local seafood systems, and healthy oceans for future generations drives One Fish Foundation."

ABOUT WATERSIDE CHATS:

Watch more Waterside Chats or subscribe to the podcast

The Marine Fish Conservation Network’s Waterside Chat series connects people who depend on healthy oceans and fisheries with the issues that directly affect them and their communities. Each episode the Network’s Deputy Director Tom Sadler talks with different guests about ocean policy and fisheries management topics. He engages them in genuine and thoughtful conversations about what policy decisions mean for people’s livelihoods, communities, recreation, and coastal ways of life.

Join the Network's email list to learn about future Waterside Chats 

Mark Titus joined the Marine Fish Conservation Network for a Waterside Chat on March 26, 2024. Mark's journey from fly-fishing guide in Alaska's Southeast to founder of Eva's Wild is a story of passion for salmon and the future of the planet. Mark wrote and directed The Breach and The Wild, two influential films about salmon and the fight to protect Alaska's Bristol Bay. His third film, The Turn, shines a light on the "twin-towers of imperative action" for salmon survival: permanent protection of Bristol Bay and removal of the lower four Snake River dams.

Mark and host Tom Sadler sailed through a wide range of topics, including:

• How a Snoopy rod & reel led Mark to a life of salmon
• How he started at the bottom of the film world to learn how to create his own movies
• Why he considers our destruction of salmon habitat as a breach of our contract with nature (hence the title of his first film)
• Ongoing threats to salmon habitat in Alaska, including more litigation over Pebble Mine and toxic mining chemicals leaching into waters in Canada and flowing into the U.S.
• How Eva's Wild, his salmon-distribution company, grew out of a food truck that accompanied his film screenings and featured wild Alaska salmon
• How the company gives part of its profits to Indigenous-led efforts to protect and restore salmon habitat, supporting a sustainable economy based on a regenerative resource
• The words of Indigenous leader Billy Frank Jr., who said, "As the salmon go, we go"
• And, of course, much more!

In this episode:

• Connect with Eva's Wild: https://evaswild.com/pages/connect
• Links to Mark's projects, including YouTube links for The Breach and The Wild: https://linktr.ee/markdtitus

Watch more Waterside Chats or subscribe to the podcast: https://conservefish.org/resources/waterside-chat/

The Marine Fish Conservation Network’s Waterside Chat series connects people who depend on healthy oceans and fisheries with the issues that directly affect them and their communities. Each episode the Network’s Deputy Director Tom Sadler talks with different guests about ocean policy and fisheries management topics. He engages them in genuine and thoughtful conversations about what policy decisions mean for people’s livelihoods, communities, recreation, and coastal ways of life.

Join the Network's email list to learn about future Waterside Chats: https://conservefish.org/join-our-email-list/

SalmonState's Melanie Brown joined the Marine Fish Conservation Network for an online Waterside Chat on January 23rd, 2024. Melanie fishes commercially in Bristol Bay in Alaska, the fourth generation of her family to make a living on the water. In her role as outreach director at SalmonState, Melanie builds spheres of influence to address marine policy challenges. In a conversation that started with a poem and ended with a song, Melanie and host Tom Sadler talked about:

• The status of the Pebble Mine fight, which now moves to a federal district court, though Melanie hopes for an eventual legislative solution
• How she was born into a fishing family, with her great-great grandfather still fishing when she started at ten years old (she got her permit from him when he retired) and her children following her
• Her work with SalmonState, which grew out of Trout Unlimited's original organizing against Pebble Mine and now covers other issues in the Bering Sea and waters around Alaska, particularly bycatch
• How the Pebble Fight brought together sport fishing interests, commercial fishing interests and Alaska's First People  around protecting Bristol Bay
• How mining development in Canada threatens U.S. waters, because "everything flows downstream"
• The status of Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization, plus the work to derail a late Trump administration rule that would open 28 million acres of land to mining and oil & gas exploration
• How wild salmon and other species including caribou play a big role in feeding people in Alaska, particularly the state's First People

And much, much more!

Mentioned in this Episode:

• SalmonState: https://salmonstate.org/
• Help keep protections in place for over 28 million acres: https://www.alaskalands.org/take-action
• About the Magnuson-Stevens Act and its bipartisan tradition: https://conservefish.org/healthy-oceans/magnuson-stevens-act-upholding-a-legacy-of-success/

Watch more Waterside Chats or subscribe to the podcast: https://conservefish.org/resources/waterside-chat/

The Marine Fish Conservation Network’s Waterside Chat series connects people who depend on healthy oceans and fisheries with the issues that directly affect them and their communities. Each episode the Network’s Deputy Director Tom Sadler talks with different guests about ocean policy and fisheries management topics. He engages them in genuine and thoughtful conversations about what policy decisions mean for people’s livelihoods, communities, recreation, and coastal ways of life.

Join the Network's email list to learn about future Waterside Chats: https://conservefish.org/join-our-email-list/

Kevin Scribner joined the Marine Fish Conservation Network in December 2023 for an online Waterside Chat with host Tom Sadler. Affectionally known as "Scribfish" by friends and colleagues, Kevin is a fisherman, poet, and advocate known for his eclectic and wide-ranging interests related to marine resource issues. Kevin and Tom covered a lot of ground (and water), including:

• How "if you are what you eat", Kevin has become a salmon many times over
• How salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest are hurt by bad management practices on dry land ("What runs off the land is how the land talks to the water")
• How to work with landowners in a market-based program to improve their practices and help them earn a "Salmon Safe" designation
• How this model can be applied to other species and other places, which is why he's recently been working with fishermen in Japan and Hawaii
• How using local resources to solve local problems can help keep food systems (and people!) working during times of duress
• Why you have to be a dreamer and an optimist to keep fishing

Listen to the full conversation to hear about these topics and much more!

Mentioned in this Chat:

https://salmonsafe.org/
https://wavefoundation.org/
https://localcatch.org

Watch this Chat on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQhJjuhgs_4
Watch more Waterside Chats or subscribe to the podcast: https://conservefish.org/resources/waterside-chat/

The Marine Fish Conservation Network’s Waterside Chat series connects people who depend on healthy oceans and fisheries with the issues that directly affect them and their communities. Each episode the Network’s Deputy Director Tom Sadler talks with different guests about ocean policy and fisheries management topics. He engages them in genuine and thoughtful conversations about what policy decisions mean for people’s livelihoods, communities, recreation, and coastal ways of life.

Join the Network's email list to learn about future Waterside Chats: https://conservefish.org/join-our-email-list/

Joel Johnson, the President and CEO of the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, joined the Marine Fish Conservation Network and host Tom Sadler for an online Waterside Chat on Friday, September 22nd.

The foundation is a leading voice for U.S. protected waters, working with communities to conserve and expand those special places for a healthy ocean, coasts, and Great Lakes. The foundation safeguards species and the places they call home, and preserves America's maritime history.

* More about the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation: https://marinesanctuary.org/

* Watch more Waterside Chats/subscribe to the podcast: https://conservefish.org/resources/waterside-chat/

The Marine Fish Conservation Network’s Waterside Chat series connects people who depend on healthy oceans and fisheries with the issues that directly affect them and their communities. Each episode the Network’s Deputy Director Tom Sadler talks with different guests about ocean policy and fisheries management topics. He engages them in genuine and thoughtful conversations about what policy decisions mean for people’s livelihoods, communities, recreation, and coastal ways of life.

Join the Network's email list to learn about future Waterside Chats: https://conservefish.org/join-our-email-list/