Managing Sustainable Fisheries from Wisconsin to Alaska | National Working Waterfronts Podcast

August 30, 2022

Tune in for Part II of our Sustainable Fisheries program!

In this episode, host Ashley Bennis continues to explore the Nation's resilient and sustainable commercial fishing industry. Since fishing communities have such a high dependency on natural resources for their livelihood, this industry is constantly being challenged due to the fluid and ever-changing nature of the environment. A combination of natural, social and economic elements has created labor shortages and put a strain on the industry but has also led to diversification of the types of individuals getting involved and a variety of new programs around the country that encourages youth participation. Two special guests from Alaska and Wisconsin agreed to sit down and offer a rare glimpse into two vastly different regions of the country and the diverse perspectives that contribute to sustaining commercial fisheries for future generations. Paula Cullenberg was the Director of the Alaska Sea Grant College Program until 2018 and is a commercial salmon fisherman in Bristol Bay with her family. Mark Duffy is a Game Warden in Wisconsin and member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians.

Show Transcription
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Ashley Bennis

Ashley Bennis is a Michigan native that grew up in Metro Detroit and received her Bacherlors of Art from Wayne State University. Bennis began volunteering with nonprofits in the city and became very involved in the community revitalization happening there through coordinated public outreach and education efforts. She earned her master’s degree in Urban Design and Planning with a specialty in Environmental Planning from the University of Washington in 2016. While there she worked as a Research Assistant with the Institute for Hazard Mitigation, Planning and Research, an interdisciplinary team focused on helping communities plan for hazard events. The purpose of her project was to improve visual representations of FEMA’s revised floodplain maps to help with their usefulness and effectiveness for residents in flood prone areas. In the winter of 2018, she joined Texas Sea Grant as a planning specialist with the Community Resilience Collaborative, a partnership of Texas Sea Grant and the Texas Target Communities program in Texas A&M University’s College of Architecture. Her primary responsibility is to provide technical assistance to Coastal Bend and Rio Grande Valley coastal communities in land use planning and hazard mitigation.