Preparing for Gov. John Baldacci’s Natural Resources Summit, the Department of Marine Resources (DMR) has enlisted the help of two respected experts in Maine fisheries.
Prof. Jim Wilson, professor of Marine Sciences and Resource Economics at the University of Maine, Orono, is working on a groundfish paper.
Spencer Apollonio, former DMR Commissioner, prepared the paper on aquaculture. Apollonio has also served as chair of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and as executive director of the New England Fisheries Management Council.
Both papers, in draft form, were to be posted on the DMR website
The department will use the papers to prepare recommendations for the Natural Resources Summit, scheduled for November 17th.
This is “a chance to tell the governor what he can do to support these industries,” said Sue Inches, Marketing Director for DMR. Draft papers from the other natural resources industries were also posted on July 14th.
Final papers in all fields are expected on the governor’s website www.maine.gov/governor/baldacci/index.shtml in mid to late September.
Wilson’s paper includes groundfish, lobsters, sea urchins, sea cucumbers – “all in 15 pages,” he noted wryly.
“Interest in the groundfishery is high now because its problems are more immediate,” said Wilson. He was referring to a 65 percent decrease in groundfishing in New England scheduled to take place in April 2004.
The result is that the groundfish industry finds big boats pitted against smaller ones, and the east against the west end of the coast. The New England Fisheries Council under the National Marine Fisheries Service has created an allocation war that will shake out as the reduction is implemented.
In contrast, Maine lobstermen are making good pay, even as they glance nervously towards southern New England where the lobster fishery is in danger.
Gov. Baldacci called for the Natural Resources Summit to “create an effective vision for the natural resource-based business of Maine’s future, and to develop practical strategies…to seize the opportunities that the future holds.”
When Maine split off from Massachusetts to become a state in 1820, approximately 80 percent of Maine workers were employed in farming, fishing or forestry.
In 1920, just 100 years later, these industries employed only 40 percent of Maine workers.
In the 80 years since then, these natural resource-based industries have been challenged by new technologies, global markets, land use pressures and domestic competition.
Together, farming, fishing, and forestry still contribute to Maine’s gross state product, but their combined $3 billion is just under 10 percent of the state’s total value-added industry.
Baldacci points out that “the full value of these industries is underestimated, because it is Maine’s farmers, fishermen and foresters who are the stewards of the rural landscape on which Maine’s vital tourism and emerging retirement industry are based.”
As Maine’s largest industry today with 11 percent of the workforce, tourism brought in $5.6 billion. Baldacci wants the Summit to give Maine an understanding of the interface of the traditional natural resource-based industries with tourism.
Baldacci is challenging the summit participants to “stop thinking of the fishing, farming, forestry and tourism sectors as distinctly different entities …[and find] ways to protect the viability of and promote the growth in Maine’s rich natural resource-based industries.”