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Rod Fujita is a Visiting Fellow with the Center for Ocean Solutions, working on Marine Spatial Planning, managing for ecosystem resilience, characterization and control of cumulative impacts, and the development of markets for unpriced ecosystem services.
Fujita received his Ph.D in marine ecology from the Boston University Marine Program at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. He has conducted research on salt marsh ecology, nutrient dynamics, and physiological ecology and went on to study coral reefs while serving as one of the first scientists to operate an isolated research platform several miles offshore of Key Largo, Florida.
Since joining the staff of the Environmental Defense Fund in 1988, Fujita has worked on acid rain, nitrogen pollution, ozone depletion and global climate change. Turning his attention back to the ocean in 1990, Fujita participated in successful campaigns to establish the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (which includes several fully protected marine reserves), the Channel Islands marine reserve network, and California’s landmark Marine Life Protection Act. He also helped develop California’s Marine Life Management Act which calls for ecosystem based fisheries management, and the California Ocean Protection Act, which established the Ocean Protection Council, a cabinet-level body with an ecosystem based management mandate and authority to use the Ocean Protection Trust Fund to support ocean mapping, fisheries projects, marine debris programs and many other valuable activities. Fujita successfully advocated more stringent catch limits to protect vulnerable rockfish species and became one of the first conservationists to advocate catch shares as a way to end overfishing, reduce waste and increase fishery revenues for the west coast groundfish fishery, which is scheduled to transition to catch shares in 2011. Fujita now advises EDF staff, stakeholder groups, and government officials on catch share design and implementation. He also co-founded the California Fisheries Fund, a sustainable source of capital for fishermen and ports with an interest in improving the sustainability of fishing. Fujita partnered with The Nature Conservancy and other groups to engineer a private buyout of trawl vessels and permits along California’s Central Coast, resulting in a transition of trawling to more sustainable hook and line fishing and the establishment of 5,900 square miles of no-trawl zones.
Fujita founded Ocean Innovations, the research and development arm of Environmental Defense Fund’s Oceans Program, where he supervises the research of post-degree students in law, economics, science, financial engineering, business and other disciplines to find breakthrough solutions and identify emerging issues.
Fujita has been appointed to many state and federal commissions and review and advisory panels on environmental issues. He has testified before Congress several times on ocean policy issues and served on the Marine Protected Areas Federal Advisory Committee. In 2000, Dr. Fujita was awarded a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation to explore emerging issues in marine conservation and to write his book, Heal the Ocean.
Publications
Heather Tallis, Sarah E.Lester, Mary Ruckelshaus, Mark Plummer, Karen McLeod, Anne Guerry, Sandy Andelman, Margaret R. Caldwell, Marc Conte, Stephen Copps, David Fox, Rod Fujita, Steven D. Gaines, Guy Gelfenbaum, Barry Gold, Peter Kareiva, Choong-ki Kim, Kai Lee, Michael Papenfus, Scott Redman, Brian Silliman, Lisa Wainger, Crow White, 2012. New metrics for managing and sustaining the ocean's bounty. Marine Policy 36(1): 303-306.
Rod Fujita, Alexander C Markham, Julio E Diaz Diaz, Julia R Martinez Garcia, Courtney Scarborough, Patrick Greenfield, Peter Black, Stacy E Aguilera, 2012. Revisiting ocean thermal energy conversion. Marine Policy 36(2) 463-465.
Fujita, R., K. Honey, A. Morris, J. Wilson, and H. Russell, 2010. Cooperative strategies in fisheries management: Integrating across scales. Invited paper, Mote Symposium in Fisheries Ecology. Bulletin of Marine Science 86(2): 251-271.
Honey, K.T., J.H. Moxley, and R.M. Fujita, 2010. From rags to fishes: data-poor methods for fishery managers. Proceedings of the Managing Data-Poor Fisheries: Case Studies, Models & Solutions Conference, Berkeley, California 1: 159-184.
Phipps, K., R. Fujita, and T. Barnes, 2010. From paper to practice: Incorporating New Data and Stock Assessment Methods into California Fishery Management. In press, Proceedings of the Managing Data Poor Fisheries Conference, Berkeley, California.
Ning, F., C. Zhang, and R. Fujita, 2009. Quantitative evaluation of the performance of a bycatch auction system in reducing bycatch of sea turtles in the Hawaii swordfish longline fishery. Marine Policy 33 (2009) 101– 105.
Halpern, B., S. Walbridge, K.A. Selkoe, C.V. Kappel, F. Micheli, C. D’Agrosa, J. Bruno, K.S. Casey, C. Ebert, H.E. Fox, R. Fujita, D. Heinemann, H.S. Lenihan, E.M.P. Madden, M. Perry, E.R. Selig, M. Spalding, R. Stenek, and R. Watson, 2008. A global map of human impact on marine ecosystems. Science 15 February 2008: Vol. 319. no. 5865, pp. 948 – 952.
Auster, P.J., R. Fujita, S.R. Kellert, J. Avise, C. Campagna, B. Cuker, P. Dayton, B. Heneman, R. Kenchington, G. Stone, G. Notarbartolo Di Sciara, and P. Glynn. 2008. Developing an Ocean Ethic: Science, Utility, Aesthetics, Self-interest and Different Ways of Knowing. Conservation Biology, 23(1):233-235.
Halfar, J. and R. Fujita, 2007. Danger of deep sea mining. Science 316:987.
Fujita, R., 2006. To trawl or not to trawl? Patagonia summer catalog
Fujita, R., K.Bonzon, J. Wilen, A. Solow, R. Arnason, J. Cannon, and S. Polasky. 2006. Rationality or Chaos? Global Fisheries at a Crossroads. In: Defying Ocean’s End, Island Press.
Fujita, R. and K. Bonzon. 2005. Rights-based fisheries management: An environmentalist’s perspective. Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries 15:309-312
Scholz, A., K. Bonzon, R. Fujita, N. Benjamin, N. Woodling, P. Black, and C. Steinback. 2003. Participatory socioeconomic analysis: drawing on fishermen’s knowledge for marine protected area planning in California. Marine Policy 28(4): 335-350.
Fujita, R., 2003. Heal the Ocean: Solutions for Saving Our Seas. New Society Publishing.
Kaufman, L., B. Heneman, J.T. Barnes, and R. Fujita 2004. Transition from low to high data richness in the management of fishery impacts: a provocative experiment from California. Bulletin of Marine Science 74:3:693-726.
Pelc, R. and R. Fujita 2002. Renewable energy from the ocean. Marine Policy, 26:471-479.
Halfar, J. and R. Fujita 2002. Precautionary management of deep-sea mining. Marine Policy 26:103-106.
Fujita, R.M., T. Foran, and I. Zevos 1997. Innovative approaches for fostering conservation in marine fisheries. Ecological Applications 8(1) Supplement:139-150
Fujita, R.M., D.D. Hopkins and W.R.Z. Willey 1996. Creating incentives to curb overfishing. Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy. 11(2): 29-34.
