Markets & Economic Development Community Leadership Downeast Groundfish Initiative Hatchery Outreach and Education

Community Fisheries Action Roundtable (C-FAR) was started in January 2008 as a leadership educational program for coastal fishermen in eastern Maine to mobilize them to environmental activism. This year-round training program provides the fishing community with essential tools for taking leadership roles in fisheries management.

There is no substitute for fishermen’s leadership in fisheries. Without this, their local knowledge and community values will not have a voice in shaping the future of the fisheries and experience will cease to be passed down to the next generation. Building and supporting this leadership is fundamental to the mission of Penobscot East Resource Center and our work provides hope with practical grassroots action. The C-FAR acronym wordplay is intentional; developing the concept of community-based responsibility for fisheries is a long term process of cultural change, in fishing communities and in Augusta and Washington. We need to "see far."

Hope is essential to counter despair and apathy. Grassroots action provides tangible results. CFAR promotes a set of ecological principles intended to protect the industry and the community alike.

The Questions

Will it sustain local communities and retain fish as a public resource? Fisheries should not be privatized but managed to sustain local communities and ensure that future generations have an equal or better opportunity to access fishery resources.

Does it promote owner operated fisheries? Owner-operated fisheries must be promoted so that management is not driven by corporate interests.

Does it diversify fishing livelihoods? Fisheries must be managed in a way that promotes multi-species fishing livelihoods that allow fishermen to adapt to the natural fluctuations in abundance of commercial species and changes in markets, relieving fishing pressure on scarce species while maintaining fishing livelihoods.

Does it protect reproduction? Fisheries must be managed in a way that recognizes critical points in the life history strategies and spawning patterns of species.

Does it protect juveniles? Fisheries must be managed in a way that will allow adequate numbers of juveniles to reach reproductive age.

Will it maintain food chain relationships? Fisheries must be managed in a way that recognizes and protects food chain linkages.

Will it maintain critical habitat? All activities must be managed so as to maintain the integrity of habitats critical for spawning, juveniles and feeding.

Does it protect local stocks? Fisheries must be managed in a way that protects local stocks where there is a probability that they exist.

Does it establish effort controls and limits? Fisheries must be managed in a way that recognizes reasonable limits on harvesting capability. Local governance bodies must participate to reflect local fishing practices.

The Program

The C-FAR program has two parts. Two, three-day roundtable meetings and a follow-up year round mentoring program. Winter roundtable training sessions are convened in January through March, when most fishermen are not fishing. A group of 15 personally-recruited fishermen and family or community members commit to participating in all six days of training. One session is always held in the state capital Augusta so that participants may interact with the policy process, meet legislators and lobbyists, and visit the places where management changes happen. The other two sessions rotate through the many coastal towns where we operate. Participants bring industry-related ecological and community issues and work through group process facilitated by professional facilitators.

Regional community training sessions have been held in Stonington, Jonesport and Machias. Participants talk about community-based fisheries management principles and the process of interacting with those principles in relation to management and resource changes. We introduce basic fisheries management concepts and provide a civics refresher. Group and individual decision-making, group processes e.g. meeting dynamics and facilitation are discussed. Participants bring specific and timely issues or problems facing their community or the industry as a whole as a starting point for the group’s work. The process involves communication techniques, information about accessing additional information and resources, and sparking curiosity about marine ecology at scales different from that of fishermen’s traditional knowledge.

The skills, perspective and connections that are developed at the roundtables are further reinforced through year-round follow up mentoring, nurture and support. Year-round our Community Coordinator travels from the Penobscot bay islands to Eastport, responding to arising problems and to deliver information, interpret management initiatives, connections to resources, and advice as requested to program graduates and to community groups.