In January 2011, residents of Maine’s year-round island communities will have increased access to Maine’s lobster fishery. Last year, LD 1231: An Act To Protect the Long-term Viability of Island Lobster Fishing Communities, sponsored by Speaker Hannah Pingree, was passed into law. This summer, the Maine Department of Marine Resources held three Public Hearings to determine the rules under which this program will operate.
The islands that will be eligible to participate include Chebeague, Cliff, the Cranberry Isles, Frenchboro, Great Diamond, Isle au Haut, Islesboro, Little Diamond, Long (Casco Bay), Matinicus, North Haven, Peaks, Swans, and Vinalhaven.
There aren’t many ways to earn a living on an island, and fishing heads the list. So when lobster zones B, D, and E adopted limited-entry in late 2000, island fishermen began voicing their concerns. As waiting lists for lobster licenses grew, islanders became concerned that the limit on licenses would prevent new families from moving to the islands. Then a few years ago, Zone C considered going to limited entry, which brought the question to a head. Jennifer Litteral, the Island Institute’s policy director, said, “It’s a concern we’ve heard from island communities over time and it became a particular concern in Zone C a couple of years ago when that zone was potentially going to go to limited entry. People from the island communities in that zone spoke to Rep. Pingree about the impact limited entry would have on them.”
According to Rob Snyder, Island Institute executive vice-president, fishermen from Frenchboro and Islesford again raised the subject. In December of 2008, Snyder and Hannah Pingree, speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, held a meeting at the Island Institute with about 15 island zone council representatives (Zones A and F lack year-round island communities) and others he described as community leaders in fisheries management; the state representatives who then represented the islands: Leila Percy, Chris Rector, and Dennis Damon (who couldn’t make the meeting, but who was sent the minutes); Department of Marine Resources (DMR) staff members Sarah Cotnoir and Deirdre Gilbert; and Island Institute marine program staff members.
The legislators felt the strongest idea politically to emerge from those the fishermen suggested at the meeting was the bones of the island limited entry bill, or as Snyder put it, “We needed to create separate waiting lists for the islands.”
Snyder described what happened next as “an amazingly thoughtful and quick process,” and was pleased at how quickly the DMR put its staff to work to help the Island Institute and the legislators understand the issue. “George Lapointe was great,” Snyder said, adding also, “the folks on his staff: Deirdre Gilbert was fantastic and [Deputy Commissioner] David Etnier, too. Both were part of the discussion, and they sat down with Hannah and me in Hannah’s office, and we hammered out what the specifics needed to look like.”
Based on what was learned at the Institute’s meeting, Snyder said they worked with the attorney general’s office and with existing laws to figure out how this new law might look. He said, “I was really impressed with their ability to put together a framework for a law that closely reflected our concerns and that left a number of detailed questions for us to examine with our constituents.” The Island Institute was then able to take that early draft to those island fishermen who had first come to them.
In retrospect, Snyder said, “That kind of feedback process is a really great way to develop a law. People understood at face value that [fishing] is the fundamental driver in island communities. It was targeted for a specific constituency. At the end of the day, a lot of island residents showed up in Augusta to testify. … The Institute’s role was just to facilitate the process: call the meetings and to keep the discussion going between the fishermen and the DMR and Hannah’s office.”
This summer the DMR is working to determine the specific rules that will govern the Island Limited Entry Program. Once this process is complete, eligible islands will have time to petition the Commissioner and complete the application process by January 1, 2011. Asked how he felt about the law, Jeff Putnam, of Chebeague, said, “I’m happy the legislation passed.” He explained, “Basically the reason for this is because with the small population and the limited opportunities on an island, it’s important for us to have our own waiting list so that the kids, the people that want to go lobstering and live on an island and stay on an island [can do so]. It’s very important for the sustainability of an island for them to be able to go lobstering if they choose.”
Myron (Sonny) Sprague, of Swan’s Island, which does not lack for fishermen, said of the new law, “I’m glad that it’s there as a tool that might be used, if we feel that it’s necessary.”
Asked how long he’d been thinking about the problem, Bruce Fernald, of Islesford, said, “Half of us [members of the Cranberry Isles Fishermen’s Co-op] are over fifty and some are into our sixties. … In the last five or six years, I’ve been thinking about it pretty seriously; realizing that most of us are getting old. We would like to have our co-op continue to be a viable business. We need numbers to do that. With the present system, we probably would be, [but] I would say, within ten years, it would be very possible that it couldn’t keep going unless something like this happened.”
Asked if he thought the new program would help, he replied, ” It’s going to be a work in progress. I think it’s going to be a little complicated, but I think it can be worked out.” He said the complicated part will be determining the number of licenses needed to continue to support the community and said, “There’s a happy medium there somewhere.”
Sandra Dinsmore is a freelance writer who lives in Penobscot. She writes the Lobster Market Report for Commercial Fisheries News.