Welcome to For Shore! 🌊

For Shore is a podcast about our coasts and oceans, hosted by Sea Grant. When you listen, you’ll hear from experts – including scientists, fishermen, community leaders, resource managers, and others – working on topics critical to Sea Grant’s mission. This first season features researchers that the Northeast Sea Grant Consortium funded to look into how coastal communities are potentially impacted by the introduction of new oceanic industries. Fishermen, in particular, are grappling with changes to their industry and the environment they work in. We’re here to have candid conversations that help make marine science and policy accessible and understandable to all - and that includes you. 

Sea Grant plays a unique role in bridging science and community engagement. 

To do so, we are a neutral entity. We value our non-partisan approach to our work, because it allows us to work with all communities, facilitate sometimes tough conversations, and bring people together to find solutions to difficult challenges. 

However, we’ll be vulnerable with you, and say that navigating some complex topics while remaining neutral can be hard. So please have some grace with us, and grace with each other as we listen and learn together. As we go, we might come up with more questions to pursue, and you might have some as well. Please reach out, we’d love to hear from you!  -  Feedback Form

Transcript

Welcome to For Shore!

Abbey Greene: Hello listeners. Welcome to For Shore, a podcast about our coasts and oceans hosted by Sea Grant. You'll hear from experts including scientists, fishermen, community leaders, resource managers, and others working on topics critical to Sea Grant's mission. I'm Abbey Greene, a Rhode Island Sea Grant extension agent.

Poonam Narotam: And I'm Poonam Narotam, a communication specialist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Sea Grant. This season features researchers that the Northeast Sea Grant Consortium funded to look into how coastal communities are impacted by the introduction of new oceanic industries. Fishermen, in particular ,are grappling with changes to their industry and the environment they work in. We are here to have candid conversations that help make marine science and policy accessible and understandable to all — and that includes you. 

But first things first, we'd like to introduce Sea Grant and the kind of work that goes on within our network. Sea Grant helps coastal and Great Lakes states use science to address the economic, social, and environmental issues surrounding marine resources. We're a federal-state partnership program generally based at universities, with a network of 34 programs across the US and its territories. The network draws on the expertise of more than 3,000 scientists, engineers, public outreach experts, educators, communicators, and students to help people better understand, manage, and utilize the United States' coastal resources.

Abbey Greene: Sea Grant plays a unique role in bridging science and community engagement. To do so, we are a neutral entity. We value our nonpartisan approach to our work because it allows us to work with all communities, facilitate sometimes tough conversations, and bring people together to find solutions to difficult challenges.

However, we'll be vulnerable with you for a moment and say that navigating complex topics while remaining neutral can be hard. So please have some grace with us, and grace with each other, as we listen and learn together. We might come up with more questions to pursue, and you might have some as well. Please reach out — we'd love to hear from you.

Poonam Narotam: In the meantime, we're so excited to dive into this with you! 

Abbey Greene: Yes, thank you for listening! We're so happy to have you here. We wouldn't be able to do it without listeners like you, For Shore.