The Ocean Champions
Radio: Bio of the Ocean Champions
March 12, 2006
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The founders of Ocean Champions are longtime ocean advocates David Wilmot and Jack K. Sterne, who are also the lead authors of a groundbreaking new foundation-sponsored report, "Turning the Tide: Charting a Course to Improve the Effectiveness of Public Advocacy for the Oceans." Their in-depth effectiveness study reveals that the ocean conservation community has focused on policy rather than politics, and at a cost. Electoral politics is a fundamental aspect of our nation’s political process and the keystone to policy success, yet the ocean conservation community is not a factor in the electoral arena. The report’s primary conclusion is that the ocean conservation community needs to “participate fully in the political process” to be more effective. Full participation means working directly to elect good candidates and defeat bad ones.
Wilmot has a proven history of management, fundraising and political success. In eight years as the executive director of the Ocean Wildlife Campaign, he built this coalition of six national and international organizations into the leading voice for the conservation of large ocean fishes and was instrumental in designing and running campaigns that led to important legislative and public policy victories. Successes during his tenure at OWC include the passage of a law banning shark-finning in all U.S. waters and the establishment of an international recovery plan for north Atlantic swordfish that has already brought the fish back from severely overfished status. While leading the OWC, Wilmot also served as executive director of National Audubon Society’s Living Oceans Program for two years, where he managed a staff of twelve and an annual budget of $1 million. Prior to leading the OWC, Wilmot was with the National Academy of Science’s National Research Council, where he worked on cutting edge ocean policy issues and served as study director for several ocean projects. He has a Ph.D. in Marine Biology from the University of California, San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Sterne is a lawyer and activist with over fifteen years of experience in ocean conservation, public lands, fisheries, and other environmental issues. Both in solo practice and as a staff attorney at Trustees for Alaska, he represented a wide range of national, regional and local conservation organizations in federal environmental litigation for more than eight years, achieving an impressive winning record. Sterne was the primary oceans attorney at Trustees, where he co-counseled the precedent-setting Steller sea lion litigation, which many credit with producing the most significant changes in fishery management practices since passage of the Magnuson-Stevens Act in 1976. His expertise extends far beyond the courtroom, however, as he has significant experience lobbying and representing conservation organizations before public bodies like the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and in Congress, and has handled much of the media, policy, and political work associated with Alaska oceans issues. He has a J.D. from Lewis and Clark Northwestern School of Law in Portland, Oregon.
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