Rising Tide: The Ocean Podcast – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Explore the alliance between fishermen and environmentalists that is reshaping the industry and safeguarding marine life.

On the latest episode of Rising Tide the Ocean Podcast, host David Helvarg and co-host Vicki Nichols Goldstein sit down with James Workman and Amanda Leland, co-authors of Sea Change – Unlikely Allies and a Success Story of Oceanic Proportions — a book that makes a convincing case that empowering fishermen to work together, even as they compete, can create miracles.

Workman brings the instincts of an award-winning journalist and entrepreneur to the conversation, having already explored humanity's most elemental struggles in his earlier work, Heart of Dryness. Leland came to the sea the way many do — through a grandfather and a fishing line at age five — and never left. Today she serves as Executive Director of the Environmental Defense Fund, the international nonprofit working to align healthy communities and economies with the hard realities of a changing climate.

Together, they dig into the market-based system known as catch share fishing: what it is, how it's reshaping the destructive race toward overfishing in U.S. waters, and why it may be one of the most promising tools we have for getting this right on a global scale. They also explore the human cost baked into commercial fishing — still one of the deadliest jobs on earth — and how catch shares are changing those odds. And they explain their choice to tell this sweeping story through the life of one rugged Gulf Coast fisherman named Buddy, a narrative anchor that grounds the policy and the science in salt, sweat and consequence.

All of it plays out against the backdrop of a rapidly warming, rapidly changing ocean — and what that means for the millions of people whose dinner plates depend on getting this right.

A story of hope, hard-won transformation and new challenges. Dive in and take an audio bite.

Additional Resources

Sea Change Book — the captivating, deeply-human tale of how fishermen—along with some unlikely allies—helped carry out the biggest conservation success story you've never heard of.

Blue Frontier / Substack — Building the solution-based citizen movement needed to protect our ocean, coasts and communities, both human and wild.

Inland Ocean Coalition — Building land-to-sea stewardship - the inland voice for ocean protection

Fluid Studios — Thinking radically different about the collective good, our planet, & the future.

On the latest episode of Rising Tide, hosts David Helvarg and Vicki Nichols-Goldstein sit down with Angelo Villagomez, Senior Ocean Fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington D.C. — a man who has spent his career turning conviction into policy at the edges of the map.

A longtime activist and advocate for community and indigenous governance, Villagomez was a central force behind the establishment of the Mariana Trench National Marine Monument, doing the hard, unglamorous work of coalition-building from the ground up while based in Saipan, deep in the western Pacific.

The conversation turns, as it must, to the present dangers. The Trump administration has set its sights on the nation's marine monuments, thrown open the door to deep-sea mining with reckless enthusiasm, and pursued what can only be described as a vendetta against offshore wind — apparently terrified of a wind-spill — while greasing every available skid for oil and gas expansion. Meanwhile, the institutional backbone of American ocean science, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is being quietly hollowed out from within.

But Villagomez and his hosts don't stop at the diagnosis. The episode maps a course forward — from protecting local waters to hitting the streets (signs reading "No Kings but king salmon" are apparently optional but encouraged), registering to vote, and casting ballots with the ocean in mind come November.

If information is a weapon for positive change, this conversation is live ammunition.

Additional Resources

Blue Frontier / Substack — Building the solution-based citizen movement needed to protect our ocean, coasts and communities, both human and wild.

Inland Ocean Coalition — Building land-to-sea stewardship - the inland voice for ocean protection

Fluid Studios — Thinking radically different about the collective good, our planet, & the future.

In the latest episode, David Helvarg & Vicki Nichols Goldstein talk with the Reverend Robert Wilkins about how his faith led him to his work with the Seafarers Ministry, serving ship crews arriving at the Port of Oakland, California. Wilkins and his team make ship visits, help crew members connect with families in places like the Philippines and Bangladesh, and check in on conditions such as time spent at sea and food quality — often doing follow-up when issues arise.

They also support mariners on shore leave with recreation, transportation, and other needs, and even coordinate doctor visits when necessary, frequently working with Customs and Border Protection to make it happen. 

Each holiday season, the ministry delivers gift bags to seafarers and continues to grow its volunteer program, expanding ship visits from 250 vessels to 370 this year — supporting the people responsible for moving more than 90% of the world’s goods.

Wilkins also shares his perspective on shipping automation and decarbonization, exploring how these changes are already affecting seafarers and may reshape their livelihoods in the future.

Tune in to this insightful conversation with Rev. Wilkins and gain his unique perspective.

** Additional Resources **

Blue Frontier / Substack — Building the solution-based citizen movement needed to protect our ocean, coasts and communities, both human and wild.

Inland Ocean Coalition — Building land-to-sea stewardship - the inland voice for ocean protection

Fluid Studios — Thinking radically different about the collective good, our planet, & the future.

In our latest episode we talk with Peter Fiekowsky, an MIT trained physicist and engineer who has worked at NASA, on Artificial Intelligence, as an inventor, entrepreneur and more. He’s now authored, ‘Climate Restoration – The only future that will sustain the human race.” 

We discuss 4 key ideals and technologies he believes can help bring down excess CO2 in the atmosphere generated by the burning fossil fuel and other human activities. Among his more controversial ideas is seeding the ocean with iron pellets. Enjoy this lively and engaging conversation.

Rising Tide, the Ocean Podcast is co-hosted by Blue Frontier's David Helvarg and the Inland Ocean Coalition's Vicki Nichols-Goldstein. This podcast aims to give you information, inspiration and motivation (along with a few laughs) to help understand our ocean world and make it better. The ocean is rising, and so are we!

Learn more at bluefront.org

We speak with Fabien Cousteau, third generation ocean explorer and documentary producer. Along with talking about his life and adventures – including in a one-man sub disguised as a white shark - we learn about his newest project. Having lived 31 days underwater doing science and education in an aging habitat off Key Largo, he’s now working to build a larger “international space station for the ocean,” to be located in the Caribbean and carry out the next generation of marine science and conservation. 

Rising Tide, the Ocean Podcast is co-hosted by Blue Frontier's David Helvarg and the Inland Ocean Coalition's Vicki Nichols-Goldstein. This podcast aims to give you information, inspiration and motivation (along with a few laughs) to help understand our ocean world and make it better. The ocean is rising, and so are we!

Learn more at bluefront.org

In this episode we speak with Francesca Koe, Board Member of the Greater Farallones Association of California. She’ll talk about how she became a dive instructor and free diver and her love of the kelp forest that got her nicknamed ‘Kelp princess.’ Unfortunately kelp is the new coral in terms of being endangered. With 95 percent of northern California’s kelp forest gone Francesca is now playing a central role in efforts to restore it, and shares the who, what, when and why with us.

Rising Tide, the Ocean Podcast is co-hosted by Blue Frontier's David Helvarg and the Inland Ocean Coalition's Vicki Nichols-Goldstein. This podcast aims to give you information, inspiration and motivation (along with a few laughs) to help understand our ocean world and make it better. The ocean is rising, and so are we!

Learn more at bluefront.org

We hear from activist Hilton Kelley. Raised in the segregated west side African-American community of Port Arthur Texas, the most polluted coastal town in America, he went on to join the Navy and become a successful actor. But at 39 he returned to help restore his community and fight pollution becoming a leading environmental warrior, winning battles around air pollution, PCB incineration and the Keystone pipeline. Along with recalling oil spills he recites a poem that was key to his success, ‘My True History.’ 

We talk with Marine evolutionary biologist Les Kaufman about his decades of study of ocean and freshwater fish, coral reefs, human behavior and natural systems and the possibility of restoration and hope for heavily polluted and climate-impacted ecosystems from Florida’s coral reefs to Africa’s massive Lake Victoria. Plus he used to teach our Blue Frontier Associate Director Natasha Benjamin who joins us for this conversation. 

Rising Tide, the Ocean Podcast is co-hosted by Blue Frontier's David Helvarg and the Inland Ocean Coalition's Vicki Nichols-Goldstein. This podcast aims to give you information, inspiration and motivation (along with a few laughs) to help understand our ocean world and make it better. The ocean is rising, and so are we!

Learn more at bluefront.org

In this episode, host David Helvarg and Vicki Nichols Goldstein sit down with Dionne Ybarra, director of the Wahine Project, whose path to the ocean was anything but direct. Raised in an inland Mexican American farmworker family, Ybarra didn't find surfing until she was 38 years old — and when she did, she looked around the lineup and didn't see many people who looked like her. Rather than paddle back to shore, she did something about it. Ybarra launched the Wahine Project — wahine being the Hawaiian word for surfer girl — and has since taught thousands of young girls, along with some boys and adults, to read waves and face their fears, from the kelp-cold waters of Monterey all the way to Mexico, Gaza, and beyond. It's a story about belonging in the surf, and about what it means to ride waves not just for yourself, but for the ocean itself.

We talk with world-renowned science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson about his life and his novels, including his last, ‘The Ministry for the Future’ that’s been widely hailed as both a riveting story and a plan for how we survive and transcend the climate emergency. We also talk about Ocean themes in his works from New York to California to light years beyond earth, plus his bodysurfing and his non-fiction memoir of years hiking the Sierras.  

Rising Tide, the Ocean Podcast is co-hosted by Blue Frontier's David Helvarg and the Inland Ocean Coalition's Vicki Nichols-Goldstein. This podcast aims to give you information, inspiration and motivation (along with a few laughs) to help understand our ocean world and make it better. The ocean is rising, and so are we!

Learn more at bluefront.org