They manipulated the data when they claimed the seas would have no fish by the year 2048. What else did they manipulate?


HIJACKING FISHERIES MANAGEMENT

How Pew Charitable Trusts has co-opted the management process using paid-for science and a well-oiled media machine.

In late 2006, “Fisheries Face Collapse by 2048!” was the headline read and heard around the world – at least in the world of Washington, DC. It just so happens that Congress was debating the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act at that precise moment.

The press stories sighted a study led by Dr. Boris Worm of Dalhousie University. While objective observers might question elements of the study, it was the media hype that the Pew Charitable Trusts (“Pew” or “the Trust”) wanted out there as part of a carefully orchestrated campaign to influence the Congressional debate on the Nation’s primary fisheries law.

Dr. Worm, a regular recipient of funding from Pew, working with SeaWeb, a Pew-funded public research group that specializes in media campaigns, worked on the message and the timing to get as much media coverage as possible. They were successful. Big media loves a crisis, and when you have the money and the manpower it’s easy to plant a good fish tale.