Supporting Engagement and Conversations with Fishing Communities Around New Opportunities Amid Shifting Ocean Conditions

CLIENT NEED

The Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust (MBFT) is seeking support for communicating the results from a The Monterey Bay Commercial Fisheries: Status & Trends Report describing fishing trends in the Monterey, Moss Landing, and Santa Cruz regions from the past 40 years, and using community feedback to co-create an action plan that will support a thriving commercial fishing industry across the region.

STRATEGY

Strategic Earth is supporting MBFT with sharing key findings with their community and gathering fishing community feedback from the Trends Report via a virtual webinar and in-person visioning workshop. The webinar presented high-level outcomes, answered audience questions, and seeded interest in workshop participation. The workshop, which took place in Moss Landing, lead fishing community members (e.g., fishermen, harbor district staff, seafood business owners, local government officials, and researchers) through a facilitated dialogue to understand their needs and priorities around infrastructure and a revitalized seafood economy.

KEY RESULTS AND OUTCOMES

Strategic Earth provided facilitation support for the virtual webinar and workshop. To do so, Strategic Earth developed an annotated agenda and summary of webinar engagement, and provided feedback on presentation content and flow as part of the webinar planning process. For the Moss Landing workshop, Strategic Earth provided a logistical roadmap, facilitation plan, and workshop report that documents the fishing community’s input on priority infrastructure investments, outlines potential community sustainability plan outcomes, and ultimately helps build trust and alignment among industry, government, nonprofit, and community partners.