Community-based resource management, a simple-sounding concept, actually requires hard, frustrating effort say, those who try it. Despite the obstacles, a few organizations in New England and Atlantic Canada are slouching toward some measure of success.
In recent years no resource issue has been more contentious in Atlantic Canada than the native vs. non-native fisheries problem. Prompted by the so-called Marshall decision of 1999, when the Canadian Supreme Court said native fishermen had the right to make a moderate living from hunting, fishing and gathering, members of many native bands took to the water to fish.
Often the native fishermen traveled beyond their adjacent shores, and also often chose not to recognize the dates set by Ottawa for fishing seasons, believing their treaty rights exempt them from federal restrictions.
After the Marshall decision, the members of one tiny band of 240 Mi’kmaqs in Bear River, Nova Scotia, set gear, and then watched members of other bands come from other regions to fish the waters near their home. As in other places, non-native fishermen who must abide by federal restrictions were angry.
“We had to live with the fights afterward,” said Rob McEwan, a member of the Bear River band. “We pulled our gear. Our chief asked us to.”
Band members discussed the problem and decided to do something very different from the confrontations on the water that were happening in other parts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. They approached, joined and made a mutually beneficial deal with a non-native fishing organization and decided to resolve the issue locally.
“None of us really knew how to fish,” said McEwan. So band members promised the non-native fishermen a percentage of the band’s quota in exchange for fishing lessons. “We only use so much of our quota, because only six or eight of us will actually go fishing,” said McEwan. “We will turn over some of our quota in return for training by them and then we will support them when they need it.”
“I grew up 20 minutes away from Rob’s community and I knew nothing of the Mi’kmaq culture or community,” said Martin Kaye of Hillsburn, N.S., a former fishermen now working with the Bay of Fundy Resource Centre. “Now they have put their trust in us. The trust between the native community and the federal government is not there, but our organization provides neutral ground – facilities, services and resources that normally don’t exist for native groups.”
Kaye admits racism played a part in why natives are not fishing yet. “It’s been a long road,” he said. “I keep learning more about Mi’kmaq culture. There’s a lot there. They’ve been there a long time and we didn’t know much about them. It was ignorance.”
This Nova Scotia experience is one example of how community-based management is working in increasing locations, sometimes at a snail’s pace and with only incremental accomplishments, but working.
The Fundy center was started by two other local organizations, the Western Valley Development Authority and the Fundy Fixed Gear Council (which includes the Inshore Fishermen’s Association). Oddly enough, said Kaye, the Resource Centre began in 1998, at the same time (but with neither group aware of the other) as the Cobscook Bay Marine Resource Center started by Will Hopkins in Eastport. “It’s unique that the same concept came up at the same time in different places… One of our founders, Arthur Bull, met Will Hopkins after both organizations had started, and it was through Will that we were hooked up with the Kendall Foundation,” said Kaye.
The Boston-based foundation now provides funding for both centers. The Fundy center purposely avoided government funding, said Kaye, because it did not want to appear to be just another arm of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). “We’re completely community-driven,” said Kaye. “The DFO wants to get involved with us now, because we because we do a lot of their work, by default. They’re right in love with us. However, right now, the community doesn’t want them involved.”
Representatives of several other groups practicing community-based resource management – the Stonington Fisheries Alliance, the Cobscook Bay Fishermen’s Association, IFISH, North Atlantic Marine Alliance (NAMA) and the Maine Sea Coast Mission – told their stories at a workshop during the recent Maine Fishermen’s Forum at the Samoset Resort in Rockport. These stories, like that of the Bay of Fundy Marine Resource Centre, could prove to be isolated incidents, or they may finally represent the start of a fundamental change in management techniques.
“We’re so far behind what’s they’re doing in underdeveloped nations, like India and the Philippines,” said Kaye. “They’ve taken community-based management to a whole new level. Here, we talk about allocation or managing a resource. Their work is vital to fishermen being able to feed their families.”
Ted Hoskins of the Maine Sea Coast Mission told Forum attendees, “You don’t have to invent the wheel. We stole our principles from NAMA and the Resource Centre.” The NAMA organization, based in Maine and headed by Craig Pendleton, is based on principles devised by Dee Hock, founder of Visa, who used the chaos theory as a foundation. Once members agree on governing principles, in theory, the management part should prove to be easier.
The benefit many organizers see for community-based groups is that members can agree on a set of principles within which they govern the resource or fishery that needs allocation. A region’s issues may then be fitted into the principles by consensus of the interested parties, a system organizers say works better than the federal or state method of laying down complicated, one-size-fits-all rules that often don’t work for everyone.
Leo Murray, of the Cobscook Bay Fishermen’s Association, said his group’s accomplishments include establishing a three-and-one-half-inch law for scallops and for having urchin licenses returned to some local people. “We are dedicated to conserving and enhancing all our targeted species,” he said. “I’m now hearing talk again about ITQs (individual transferable quotas) and other management techniques – the same things I heard years ago. But I think if fishermen band together and stay together, they can change things.” He admitted the going was tough for his group at first, even with local folks. “The hardest part was to go down to the docks and have someone say, ‘Why have you done this to us?’ That was the first couple of years. We don’t hear it now.”