Amanda Leland

Biography

Amanda Leland is a visionary leader for recovering global fisheries in our lifetimes. In her role as Senior Vice President for EDF Oceans, she leads a diverse team of scientists, lawyers and advocates for healthy and abundant oceans.

She develops and implements strategies to transform resource management to achieve productive and profitable fisheries, and her team is building on its past progress in U.S. and international fishing to ignite a bold global agenda that will result in more fish in the water, more food on the plate, and more prosperous communities.

Under Amanda’s leadership, the Oceans Program has catalyzed reforms and advanced tangible results for people and the oceans in nine countries in North and Central America, Europe and Southeast Asia. In her decade of service at EDF, she has been a leading strategist for and advocate of the recovery of U.S. fisheries, where today fish populations are rebounding and fishing jobs and revenues are up.

Amanda knew at an early age that the oceans were her passion, learning how to fish with her grandfather. She brings a diverse oceans background prior to EDF, having been a scientist conducting cooperative research with commercial fishermen in Maine, a marine mammal zookeeper, and a Congressional aid focused on ocean issues. She holds an M.S. in Marine Biology from the University of Maine.