Joshua S. Reichert

2017 Honored for Sustained Ocean Achievement

For almost three decades, Dr. Reichert, and the Oceans Group of the Pew Charitable Trusts, have relentlessly focused their attention on pushing decision-makers to protect the world’s oceans. Since taking the helm of Pew’s Environment Program in 1990, he has designed and led a diverse array of ocean conservation initiatives in the United States and elsewhere in the world. He is known for his willingness to tackle large problems, incur significant risk, and pursue bold strategies in search of solutions to some of the most urgent problems facing life in the sea. These include overfishing, the absence of adequate enforcement systems needed to deter illegal fishing, and the continued use of dirty gear, such as bottom trawls and pelagic longlines that result in the catch of fish, seabirds, turtles, marine mammals, and other ocean life that are unwanted by fishermen and often thrown back into the sea either dead or dying.

Dr. Reichert and the Pew Oceans Group have provided key leadership in a host of environmental initiatives including transitioning fisheries management from a focus on individual species to entire ecosystems in which fish and other marine life reside; creation of the world’s largest network of marine parks; protecting the waters of Antarctica; strengthening the system of fisheries management in the European Union, and the United States by mandating an end to overfishing.