Acadia Partners Blog

In late October SERC was privileged to host a meeting of researchers associated with the Downeast Initiative. You can read the article describing that meeting by clicking here. I attended the meeting and came away impressed. What the Downeast Initiative is attempting to do is critically important.

Fishing and the Downeast Economy

A part of the Initiative’s importance follows from the importance of fishing in the Downeast Maine economy. As one measure of that importance, consider Gouldsboro, where I live. A year or so ago I was involved in finding funding to build a pier here in Prospect Harbor. Part of that process involved estimating the economic importance of the pier, which, in part, depended on the economic importance of fishing to the town of Gouldsboro, where Prospect Harbor is located.

Uncovering the data needed to make a really good estimate of economic activity at the town level is surprisingly difficult. The reasons for this are a subject for another blog entry, another day, but the simple explanation is that most publicly available economic data are not broken out at a fine enough level of detail to allow good estimates at the town level.

However, I did have access to census data, I knew how many lobstermen fish out of Gouldsboro’s harbors, I had estimates of the value of the catch, and could use some conservative multipliers to estimate the amount of related economic activity–boat building and repairs, bait sales, fuel sales, wholesaling and trucking of lobsters and bait–that is tied to fishing.

Putting these numbers and relationships together, I estimated that the economic activity generated from Gouldsboro’s fishing operations, extending over a radius of sixty miles around Gouldsboro, is approximately equal to the income earned from all other activities in the town. Put more simply, fishing accounts for a very large proportion of the town’s economic life. (I would be very interested to know what estimates other people have arrived at for the value of fishing activity, for other towns and harbors. If you have such estimates, send me an email or add a comment to this posting.)

BUT–the point is that, whatever the number, fishing accounts for a large proportion of the dollars sloshing around in the local economy. Just as important, these are year-around dollars. Some of the other important sources of economic activity in the area–tourism and spending by summer-only residents, for example–push Gouldsboro in the direction of a part-time economy. The long-term health of the town, as a community of people who work together and solve problems together, depends on year-around activity. Consequently, fishing may have economic importance that stretches beyond its already substantial proportion of overall economic activity.

In any case, Downeast communities like Gouldsboro depend on fishing. Today, that means that they depend on lobster fishing. What happens if there is a significant downturn in the lobster harvest? It used to be that, when the catch for one stock declined, fishermen could shift to other kinds of fishing. But now scallop fishing is decline, urchin fishing is essentially gone, and there are only a handful of groundfishermen along this part of the coast. There are regulatory reasons behind the disappearance of groundfishing, having to do with permits and rules about days at sea, but the root reason for the decline is that fish stocks are a small fraction of what they used to be.

Which brings us back to the Downeast Initiative, which is focused on rebuilding fish stocks and increasing the amount of fishing activity, beyond lobster fishing, out of harbors along the Downeast coast. The focus on these goals, alone, makes the Downeast Initiative a potentially significant contributor to the health of communities along the Downeast coast.

Focus on Local Management

But there is more to the Downeast Initiative than stock regeneration. The most unique dimension of the Downeast Initiative may be its focus on building a fishery that is locally governed. The core idea behind the Initiative’s work is that fisheries conservation will happen only if fishermen are involved in the management of the fishery and have a way to benefit from good management and conservation.

As our news article on the Initiative explains, there are significant scientific questions that must be addressed before such a program could be put in place. But, beyond the biology and oceanography, there are important social and organizational questions–and opportunities–associated with engaging downeast fishermen and communities in the management and governance of the resource.

My own observation has been that, so long as someone else is responsible for management, there is a temptation among those using a resource to try to beat the system. Changing this response–establishing commitment to the success of the management system–happens when you engage the people responsible for daily operations in the management effort. This is true when you are running a company and is true when you are managing a resource: taking on responsibility for the decision making creates a commitment to successful outcomes.

From Fisheries Conservation to Natural Resources Conservation

This is a particular instance of a broader principle that directs our work at Acadia Partners: the future health of Downeast Maine depends on effective and well-informed natural resources decisions at local and regional levels. In our view, the need for effective, well-informed decisions reaches well beyond fishing, extending to land use planning, investment decisions, development of new local business activity, and engagement in cooperative efforts among towns. Conservation of the area’s natural resources–scenic resources, economic resources, ecological resources–will succeed only if local communities are engaged in and committed to the success of such conservation.

The fisheries are among the most important of this area’s natural resources, viewed from an economic standpoint. I cannot conceive of a way in which we could have an effective Downeast natural resource conservation ethic if we do not have a fisheries conservation ethic. The way that we understand our responsibility for this critically important economic resource–and the mechanisms that we put in place to make resource decisions–will shape our response to all natural resource conservation issues.

The Downeast Initiative brings together a broad array of talent, coupled with substantial commitment, to address this central, primary conservation question. Further, it approaches the question with a fundamental, built-in commitment to supporting and enhancing local and regional natural resource decision-making. The Downeast Initiative is one of the most important natural resource conservation initiatives currently underway on the Maine coast.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 26th, 2005 at 2:14 pm and is filed under Coastal Resources, Fisheries, Local Economy, Ecosystem-based management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.