American industrialist and inventor Henry Ford once wrote, “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”
In November 2022, Washington state Commissioner of Public Lands, Hilary Franz, stunned the aquaculture industry by issuing an Executive Order banning commercial net pen fish farming in state-owned aquatic lands.
Several days later, Commissioner Franz held a press conference where, set against the backdrop of net pens in Washington’s Rich Passage, she proceeded to make unsubstantiated claims about the “evils” of commercial net pen fish farming.
As could be expected, the Seattle and state media continued to carry the Commissioner’s message blaming fish farming for the demise of the region’s iconic “wild” salmon and Orcas, despite 40+ years of science to the contrary. The piling-on, however, continued, with stories from the Times being picked up not just around the state but around the country.
As an advocacy organization, the Northwest Aquaculture Alliance (NWAA) knew we had to take swift action to push back against this seemingly overwhelming anti-aquaculture sentiment by changing the narrative and making our collective voices heard—despite the strong headwinds.
In our presentation in the AQUACULTURE COMMUNICATIONS session, we will outline not just our overall strategy in dealing with this Franz-caused crisis, but also the actions and tactics that we used to get our message out and reframe the story. We will talk about building a coalition of scientists, veterinarians, and aquaculture trade associations and using this coalition to issue a demand to the Commissioner to produce the science upon which she issued her Order.
We will also talk about how we used traditional and social media, helped prepare spokespeople, and how we worked collaboratively with other communications professionals from member companies to expand and amplify our message along with influencers from other trade groups.
It is important to state here that the leadership of NWAA was 100 percent behind our advocacy plan.