DANSILVIA.COM
A BLOG ABOUT OMAHA & NEBRASKA
Stephanie Bradley checks out some of the inhabitants of the Scott Aquarium at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo. Bradley, in her role as Director of Fisheries in Transition for the World Wildlife Fund, provides education to fisheries around the world to help promote sustainable fishing practices. Nebraska native encourages sustainable fishing It’s about a 1,300-mile drive from Omaha to the Atlantic Ocean near Wilmington, North Carolina. Heading the opposite direction, it’s about 1,700 miles to the Pacific Ocean near Monterey, California. So, can Nebraskans have an impact on the oceans from their centrally located, landlocked state? Stephanie Bradley, an Elkhorn resident and 1997 graduate of Burke High School, thinks so. Bradley is the Director of Fisheries in Transition for the World Wildlife Fund – United States (WWF-US), a charitable organization focused on wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. She has been a part of WWF since 2011, operating out of her home office in Elkhorn since 2014, despite the distance from the seven seas. “Our team was always pretty spread out and we had figured out how to work together virtually really well,” Bradley said. “Then, with COVID happening, everyone has had to figure that out. Everyone now knows what it’s like to be on Zoom. Because so much of our work involves working with other countries, we have just always had to communicate virtually with our colleagues.” At WWF-US, Bradley leads the Fishery Improvement Project (FIP) team. FIPs draw together multiple stakeholders including governments, fishers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), academics, and supply chain companies, to improve fishing practices throughout the world. FIPs focus on providing information and training to fisheries on best practices. A fishery is defined by several factors: the species of fish, the method by which it is caught, and the location. “There's quite a community now of people who implement fishery improvement projects,” Bradley said. “There's currently around 160 of them worldwide, of which about 30 are led by WWF. We’ve had a lot of uptake over the years, which has been great.” Working with the WWF has taken Bradley across the globe to places such as the Bahamas, Ecuador, and Thailand. Seminars were conducted in person. However, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Bradley and the WWF to develop online courses. That effort was underway even before the pandemic hit as a way to further grow the initiative. “We wanted to get the training out to more people, more easily,” Bradley said. “We ended up working with a company (SweetRush, a San Francisco-based business) that specializes in online training programs. We developed the content in partnership with several other NGOs that we work with in the sustainable seafood space.” Those training courses are now available to fisheries around the world. In fact, anyone can access the seven online courses on the WWF website. “Engagement has been good so far,” Bradley said. “We’ve received some positive feedback and some suggestions for additional modules. I think that means people find it useful.” So how can Nebraskans do their part to support sustainable fishing practices and a healthy ocean in general? Dr. David Manning, an Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, offered some insights. “We may feel far away from the Gulf of Mexico, but our actions in Nebraska’s watersheds are connected to these ecosystems and fisheries downstream. Our impact on water quality here in Nebraska can be felt miles away, because streams and rivers carry more than just water to the ocean – they hold dissolved materials that come from the land and move them to the ocean like a giant conveyer belt,” Manning said. “Some of those materials, especially nitrogen and phosphorus, are important for aquatic plant (algae) growth, but when their concentrations are too high, they cause algae to cycle between booms and busts. Once the algae go bust, or die and break down, the microorganisms that eat the dead algae suck all the oxygen out of the water, creating a dead zone in coastal oceans like the Gulf of Mexico where the Mississippi River drains into it.” “That a lack of oxygen, or hypoxia, can be detrimental to fish populations living near the Gulf coast. We are connected to the Mississippi by the Platte and Missouri Rivers, so we really can’t mind our own business when it comes to farm runoff and other pollution from Nebraska’s rivers.” Manning explained that the largest sources of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in the Missouri River watershed are manure, and farm fertilizers. Combined, these two sources are estimated to contribute 60% of the total nitrogen and phosphorus that is transported by the Missouri River downstream. “Fortunately, there are many ways to reduce our impacts, such as promoting water infiltration into soils, instead of directly running off into streams,” he said. From West Coast Work to Midwest Living When Bradley began her career with the WWF, she worked in a small office with two coworkers in Palo Alto, California. When those colleagues departed for new roles, it made sense for Bradley to work from home. It made more sense to do that from her hometown of Omaha rather than absorbing the higher cost of living that goes with the West Coast. “It was just so expensive. We wanted to be near my family, so we moved back to the Midwest,” Bradley said. “I’m still performing the same role, but I just do it from Omaha.” So, she packed up with her husband Austin, a lawyer, and their then two-year old son. She was also pregnant with her daughter at the time. Bradley had moved to the West Coast in 2006 for a job as a Fisheries Research Manager for the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program. That followed graduation from Duke University, where she earned a Master of Science in Coastal Environmental Management. The Seafood Watch program works to improve the sustainability of global fisheries and aquaculture by helping businesses and consumers make better seafood choices. “We produced pocket guides that explained what seafood is better to eat based on the impact that the fishing is having on those species in the ocean,” Bradley said. “It was a great step into the sustainable seafood movement where I met so many of the colleagues that I still work with today. Plus, Monterey is beautiful.” The experience with the Seafood Watch program helped inform Bradley’s work with the WWF, said Dr. Larry Crowder, one of Bradley’s professors at Duke. “At the Seafood Watch program, the approach to sustainable fishing is really trying to influence seafood consumers,” said Crowder, now the Edward Ricketts Provostial Professor and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. “If consumers know which species are sustainable, they can choose to buy those sustainable species, which will create some market pressures for fisheries to operate in ways that are more sustainable.” East Coast Education After graduating from Burke in 1997, Bradley made the decision to attend college over 1,300 miles from home at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. The Marine Biology program at the school, located on the Carolina coast, drew her there. “That amazes me looking back. I was a very, very shy, timid person,” Bradley said. “I just knew that I wanted to do this and that's where I needed to go. It was nerve-wracking. I remember my parents driving me to North Carolina and dropping me off. I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I'm so far away and I don't know anyone.’ I got lucky and developed really good friendships from the start. Those people were North Carolina natives. On breaks, they would take me home with them.” Following graduation from UNC-Wilmington in 2001, Bradley took a job as a Research Analyst with the Cadmus Group, a consulting company that works in energy, water, and transportation among other things. The job involved environmental consulting, but not truly in the areas in which Bradley was most interested. “I worked there, but it wasn't on the marine side. It was more on groundwater type of stuff for the Environmental Protection Agency,” Bradley said. “I wasn't loving it because it wasn't really my area of interest.” Bradley recognized that the positions she wanted contained a mix of science and management, many of which required a master’s degree. She returned to North Carolina to earn a graduate degree at Duke, which included a significant amount of time at the Duke University Marine Lab in the coastal town of Beaufort, NC. “That is still, hands down, one of the best years of my life,” Bradley said. “One of the main things that we talked about was fisheries and seafood and how destructive fishing practices are and all the bad ways that fish are caught.” Bradley had found her passion. “I thought ‘oh my gosh, I need to do something about this.’ This is what I need to focus on,” said Bradley, who did her master’s research project on the effective management of Blue Crab, one of the largest fisheries in North Carolina. “Beaufort is a small town in North Carolina, right on the water, and the Marine Lab, it's one of the biggest things in Beaufort. A lot of the classwork really applied to our work on the water. That experience helped me recognize that the ocean conservation space was where I wanted to be.” Crowder said Bradley’s passion for the ocean and wildlife was evident early on. “It was clear that Stephanie was one of the very best students in her cohort,” said Crowder. “From the time she left Duke, she’s really been entirely invested in sustainable seafood. First, doing the legwork to inform consumers, then working with those fisheries to help them improve their game. Stephanie has done everything you could hope for from a student at Duke to not only advance her career, but also advance the cause of sustainability and conservation.” Now Bradley wants to share that passion. "I don't think people realize the impact that their choices make on the ocean. We're landlocked. We don't have any impact on the ocean, right? But litter and runoff flow into the rivers. That ends up in the ocean and hurts the animals that live there, the habitats that are there," she said. "Food choices have an impact as well. Don't purchase fish at a restaurant or in the supermarket that are endangered (such as Atlantic and Southern bluefin tuna, totoaba, and freshwater eel)."
0 Comments
Maureen Beat, the author of Letters to Lucky, will display her work at the Illustrators of Children's Books exhibit beginning on Sunday, May 1 and running through Sunday, June 5. The exhibition will take place at the Sunderland Gallery (inside the Cultural Center) on the campus of St. Cecilia Cathedral, 3900 Webster Street in Omaha. The event kicks off with a reception on May 1 from 1-3pm. Gallery hours are Noon-4 pm. Closed on Monday.
Beat will display 18 pieces including 17 prints from Letters to Lucky. One of her favorites from the book is “Lost and Scared.” “I like it because I painted it with such a vivid cobalt blue and the light from the street lamp focuses on her,” she said. “That is the premise of the book: a little dog that was terrified before she was rescued and was completely transformed into a gentle, loving dog in the neighborhood.” The 17 signed 16” x 20” archival prints of the illustrations from the book will be for sale. The original watercolor of the Letters from Lucky cover will also be on display, but not for sale. Other artists on display include Lisa Pelto, Jeramie King, Ted Koozer, Cherri Yost, Lisa Smith, Tom Kerr, and Paula Wallace. “I am looking forward to the Opening Reception on May 1st and meeting the other artists, networking, attendees as well my friends and family,” Beat said. “I know that this exhibit will be geared toward families so I hope there will be many children there at all of the receptions.” |
AuthorI am a professional communicator with experience in journalism, public relations, marketing, advertising, and technical writing. I strive to tell the great story regardless of the medium. Archives
April 2022
Categories |