July 17, 2013 — Menakhem Ben-Yami interviews Robin Alden, Executive Director of Penobscot East Resource Center and member of Maine Sea Grant's Policy Advisory Committee.
Ms Alden is also a former Maine Commissioner of Marine Resources and a public member of the New England Fishery Management Council.
Located in Maine, USA, Penobscot East Resource Center was established in 2003 as non-profit NGO with a mission to secure a future for the fishing communities of eastern Maine, and promote the community-based approach to resource management.
WF&A: Robin Alden, what's so unique about the eastern area that it needs a separate resource center?
RA: Fishing for lobster and for groundfish is a tremendous part of the heritage of eastern Maine, providing a living in fishing communities. The unique area from the islands of Penobscot Bay to the Canadian border is a 150 mile stretch of coastal fishing communities with the most fishery-dependent counties on the east coast and 50 fishing communities with their history, their culture and their future, have few alternatives to the fishing trade. It's one of the few remaining community based fisheries in the USA, where the traditional culture is still virtually intact and children are expected to follow their great grandfathers' way – in small owner-operated boats going fishing every day, six days a week. Our role is to provide a long term presence, contributing tools, skills and resources as needed by the fishermen and other community members and their families, and to integrate fishermen's voice in the efforts for sustaining the diversity of fisheries and conservation of the eastern Gulf of Maine ecosystem. Fishermen stewardship will result in more fish and more opportunity for local small-scale fishing businesses.
WF&A: You participated in the recent NOAA conference dedicated to the Magnuson-Stevens Law. It is praised, or ostensibly, mainly but not only on the part of conservationist NGOs, for returning profitability to fishing through output management by TACs and maximum sustainable yield that has led to reducing overfishing of many stocks and rebuilding some.
RA: My criticism of the Magnuson Stevens Act differs from that of many people. I have two principal critiques: it has not served smaller coastal fishing communities well and at the same time the management under the Act in New England failed to restore groundfish, our most iconic fishery, presently at record lows. While some people criticise the Act because it requires highly restrictive conservation when stocks are low – I don't. Instead, I criticise the Act for enabling management that depends too much on one approach to conservation: catch limits.