Fenton Communications

"We are the firm that helped Save the North Atlantic swordfish from the brink of extinction" (Fenton website)

Remember the Alar apples scare? It's success - if you can consider inflcting tens of millions of dollars in damages on the apple industry by creating public hysteria over completely overblown, misreported and misrepresented science - was largely due to Fenton Communications ( link and yes, there are people who still consider that a success). Not at all coincidentally, that was also what moved Natural Resources Defense Council into the big times of environmental activism.

Fenton Communications clients:

• David & Lucile Packard Foundation (link).
• Earth Justice (link).
• Environment Defense Fund (link).
• Foundation Center
• Greenpeace
• National Environmental Trust (link).
• Pew Campaign for Automotive Fuel Efficiency.
• Pew Cultural Data Project.
• Pew Environment Group (link).
• The National Wildlife Federation.
• The Nature Conservancy (link).

*According to Fenton, "by the late 1990s, the North Atlantic swordfish population had plummeted. Fenton’s “Give Swordfish a Break” campaign was anchored by world-renowned chefs’ refusal to serve the endangered fish. As a result, the federal government declared more than 132,000 miles of the Atlantic off-limits to swordfishing. By 2002, swordfish had reached 94 percent of full recovery." People who were actually aware of what was going on didn't share Fenton's grandiose analysis of their, or of their client's (Pew Seaweb - link) role in "saving swordfish." The Pew funded Give Swordfish a Break campaign came at the tail end of a successful push by the U.S. swordfish fleet and NMFS for effective international management, and all it did was severely damage the U.S. swordfish market. Sort of like Fenton and NRDC saving U.S. apple eaters from Alar (link).