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

The Downeast Groundfish Initiative is a crucial first step toward implementing true ecosystem based management with shared stewardship of fisheries. DEGI operates in an area where the groundfishery was decimated over the past twenty years leaving the economy precariously dependent on a single species –lobster. This project can serve as a model for developing sustainable, resilient co-management of marine resources, not just in Downeast, but in all resource-based communities.

John Renwick, Gouldsboro Fisherman:

"The inability to come in and out of the fishery that has over-harvested and wiped out the different fisheries. Everything's connected. And we're a whole house of cards right now, and I'm one of the lucky ones because if they have a catastrophic year in the lobsters, I can still dig worms. But how many others can? So they don't have something to fall back on to pull themselves out. They're gonna lose everything."

The Groundfish Challenge

In eastern Maine, the groundfish fishery collapsed by the early to mid 1990’s for many reasons: protection for critical habitat, discarded by-catch that included juvenile groundfish, targeting of spawning aggregations, and simply too much fishing pressure in too small an area.

Groundfish – these are fish that live in on or near the sea bottom e.g. flounder, halibut, cod - have not rebounded as in other parts of the Gulf of Maine. There are more than 2,000 fishermen in this region and not one of them is groundfishing.

Dwight Carver, Beals Island Fisherman:

"We worked groundfish down pretty bad; I mean as an industry - everybody. Had we known 20 or 30 years ago what was gonna happen, I think we might have addressed it."

 

The Opportunity

The purpose of Downeast Groundfish Initiative (DEGI) is to diversify the fisheries based economy by re-starting the once highly productive groundfish fishery in eastern Maine. As stakeholders in rebuilding depleted stocks, fishermen will be an integral part of the governance of fishing, taking responsibility for its sustainability.

The initiative is guided by three principles:

1. To protect ecosystem structure and function, especially groundfish spawning areas, nursery ground and other critical habitats by controlling how, when and where fishing is conducted;
2. To create healthy, resource-based communities through partnerships among fishermen, community members, managers and scientists;
3. To support a diversified coastal fishery based on equitable access to resources, principle-based governance and sound science.

 

Click to Enlarge The proposed Downeast Initiative area is shown in this map.

 

DEGI is managed by Aaron Dority, assisted part-time by interns from College of The Atlantic and Duke University Nicholas School of Management.