February 2, 2018 — There is an economic principle that’s usually attributed to Herbert Stein, who worked for the Nixon administration and The Wall Street Journal.

Stein’s law: If something can’t keep going forever, it won’t.

Maine’s lobster industry is near the peak of a historic boom, making it the state’s most lucrative fishery. In the last 30 years, lobster landings have increased from 20 million pounds a year to 130 million. No one expects the catch to keep growing forever. The question is not whether it will decline, but when.

Scientists from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the University of Maine and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have applied computer modeling to that question and have proposed an answer. In a report issued last month, they identified 2014 as the peak of the lobster population and predicted a long, slow decline of 40 to 62 percent by 2030, with the catch returning to levels in line with what was seen in the 1990s.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources has disputed the study and questioned the value of its computer models. Since no one was able to predict the historic rise in the lobster population, Commissioner Patrick Keliher said, he doubts the ability of scientists to accurately predict their decline.

He’s right, but there is plenty of reason to take this report seriously and use it as a planning tool. There’s a lot we can’t know about the future, but what we know about what’s happening in the present supports the report’s predictions.

Read the full editorial at the Portland Press Herald