A conservation advocacy group hopes to persuade many more of Maine's groundfishermen to join a program which it says is designed to help secure sustainable fish populations and fishing communities. And, as Tom Porter reports, it hopes to do this be offering them more fish to catch.
The Nature Conservancy in Maine, which is based in Brunswick, began the week by announcing the purchase of a new federal groundfish permit to be made available to fishermen in the Port Clyde Sector: This stretches from mid-coast Maine down to Biddeford and includes about 25 boats. That's about 40 percent of all Maine groundfishing activity.
The non-profit first got into the business of permit-buying more than two years ago, when the new system of sector management was adopted, and already works with about 10 fishermen in Down East and Midcoast Maine.
It offers them access to more fish, while at the same time encouraging them to engage in what Geoffrey Smith calls collaborative research projects, to help develop new fishing methods. Smith is marine program director at the Nature Conservancy in Maine.
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