By Tom Walsh

ROCKPORT — Shoreline access and resource preservation are among the priorities of a growing number of community-based fisheries management efforts under way throughout Downeast Maine.

The local leadership of six such projects spoke Friday at the 30th annual Maine Fishermen’s Forum and Trade Show at the Samoset Resort.

The Rev. Ted Hoskins of Blue Hill solicits the opinions of fishermen on a proposed Downeast Groundfish Initiative while serving as moderator of a seminar Friday. Gouldsboro First Selectman Dana Rice of Birch Harbor (above, far right) listens among a crowd of 100 participants to an overview of the Downeast Groundfish Initiative. The presentation drew mixed reviews from fishermen impacted by dwindling stocks of cod and other species in Downeast coastal waters. Stonington’s Robin Alden of the Penobscot East Resource Center gives a talk on local fishery management initiatives. Staff photos by Tom Walsh

Among them was Robin Alden of Stonington. A former Department of Marine Research commissioner, she’s now the acting director of the new Penobscot East Resource Center, where she’s been busy working with communities from Stonington east to Blue Hill in encouraging local fishery management initiatives.

“The Center works to energize and facilitate community-based projects,” Alden said. “We view the Center as the grease that makes these things work.”

One success story in progress, she said Friday, is the ongoing effort to establish a Zone C Lobster Hatchery in Stonington. Working on that project are members of the Stonington Lobster Co-op, the Stonington Fisheries Alliance, the Zone C Council, the Vinalhaven Lobster Co-op, among others.

Alden describes the hatchery as “a massive community science project.”

“The big issues are where to release the lobsters raised and whether it does any good,” she said. “There are seven districts in Zone C, and they will be releasing the same number in each district and then doing some collaborative monitoring.

“We don’t expect to restock the ocean; Mother Nature does that very well,” she said. “But we will learn a lot from this. If lobster stocks ever take a dive, we’ll have some insights through this micro-level science.”

Construction of the hatchery will begin this spring in a building donated by the Stonington Lobster Co-op. The hatchery will begin operations on a “dry run” basis this summer. Start-up costs are estimated at $50,000.

“The project has received a $25,000 grant from the Tide Foundation, which is based in San Francisco,” Alden said. “That’s being used to match what’s raised in a local fund drive. Letters have gone out to 915 lobstermen in Zone C.

“There seems to be a great feeling that this type of constructive activity is worthwhile,” she said. “Donations are coming in from all over. In the first two and a half weeks, donations were at $6,000. It’s happening.”

Also speaking at the Forum’s seminar on community-based fisheries management was Virginia Olsen of Stonington. She owns of Oceanville Seafood in Stonington and is an active volunteer with the Deer Isle-Stonington Clam Committee.

That group has been working to protect access to clamflats and has had some success with re-seeding plots.

“We keep losing access with more people purchasing homes on the waterfront,” she said. “It’s getting harder and harder for people to get down to the clamflats.

“What we’ve seen is that, the more we get out there and work with the community, the more access we get to the water, which is what we are losing every day.”

Olson serves as secretary of the Maine Softshell Clam Advisory Council. She believes communities need to demonstrate commitment and concern if they want to realize local control of fishery assets.

“If we hope to encourage the state to give towns more control over any aspect of our fisheries, we have to put time in on conservation efforts,” she said.

Those attending the seminar also heard from Will Hopkins of the Cobscook Bay Resource Center in Eastport. He described how that center worked closely with the Cobscook Bay Fishermen’s Association in addressing concerns about regulations that reduced the urchin season in Zone II from 94 to 45 days, even though urchin stocks had held steady for the previous two years.

“There were probably a dozen meetings on urchin conservation and management, with the idea of taking some specific legislative position,” Hopkins said. “The resource center provided technical assistance and served as a safe place for informed debate that maintained a civil tone and avoided polarization.”

As it turned out, he said, there wasn’t enough consensus to bring a legislative proposal forward.

“We spent the better part of a year working on something that never came to enough agreement to pursue it,” Hopkins said. “Although they didn’t come to agreement, the Fishermen’s Association got a lot of ideas going.

“We also learned that this community-based management stuff doesn’t happen quickly. We learned, too, that life is complex where people and marine resources interact.”