But we should not forget that those who successfully inhabit these edges also have to be highly adaptable. You have to respond to whatever the weather and markets throw at you. History tells us that Swan’s Islanders in the 1880s were among the first herring fishermen to adapt nets to use as purse seines to catch schools of herring. Or that Clarence Howard of Eagle Island in the 1940s rigged the differential and axle of an old pick up truck to his marine engine to develop an early lobster pot hauler. Or that boat builders on Beals Island have been in the forefront of evolving lobster boat design for over a century.

Nor should it be a surprise that the trend continues. Two and a half years ago in the fall of 2008. as the financial crisis gathered steam, the bottom dropped out of the lobster market almost overnight. Lobsters that had been selling for between $4 and $5 per pound were suddenly worth only $2 per pound. In the midst of this market meltdown, the Governor appointed a lobster task force (on which I participated). The task force met for nine months, collected and analyzed lots of market information, and ultimately recommended that the lobster industry—processors, dealers and fishermen—create a new public-private organization for marketing and branding Maine lobsters modeled on the wildly successful Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, in order to capture more value in the lobster commodity chain.

The recommendation unraveled after it became apparent that a marketing fund based on something like a five-cent per-pound levy on the volume of lobster landings strained the ancient tensions between fishermen and dealers and fishermen and processors. End of story? Not quite, because a couple of innovators have stepped into the breach—one from outside the industry, one from inside.

Read the complete story from The Working Waterfront