Restoring in the Commons: Community-based Management of Alewife in Maine

by Charles Curtin

Antioch University, Resilience Design Group and
North Haven Forage Fish Recovery program.

In 1968, the ecologist Garrett Hardin wrote the iconic paper “The Tragedy of the Commons” that was to influence natural resource management for decades. The argument went something like this: In Britain centuries ago there existed open commons where people could communally grazing their livestock. Yet these areas became increasingly degraded because in an open system everyone took a bit more than their share in an effort to acquire forage for their livestock before the next guy. With everyone rushing to get his or her share (or more), it became a race to the bottom as what was to be a sustainable resource is over exploited. The message of Hardin’s paper was that people are inherently selfish, so you need a larger entity such as the federal government to step in to make sure people do not degrade things.

Yet in reality some of the most long-standing resource systems in the world from grazing lands in East African, to some fisheries, appear to be locally governed. This work, pioneered by sociologist Elinor Ostrom (for which she later received a Nobel Prize), shows that local engagement, coupled with linking the scale of the resource to the scale of the management that leads to long-term sustainability. Nowhere is this more evident then along the coast of Maine where two fisheries live by different sets of rules. The lobster fisheries with its local control, family owned boats, and different zones of governance in essence sets up the preconditions for sustainability by making local communities directly responsible for maintaining their resource. This is in stark contrast to the top-down federal control of the ground fishery where the rules generate a very different game in which increasingly large and mobile boats roam the Gulf in search of increasingly small numbers of fish.

Local Governance of Alewife in Maine:

The reality is that most resource questions are too complex to rely on purely local control, yet central governments are too large and unwieldy to generate sustainability, so a combination of the approaches becomes necessary. A good example effective governance is the management of alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) in Maine.

Under Maine law local management authority is vested with municipalities which apply to the Department of Marine Resources (DMR) for rights to harvest. Each town sets guidelines that are viable as long as they meet minimum state standards that must contain a harvest plan including three days a week in which the fish have unimpeded passage, while nets cannot have mesh sizes smaller than 1? inch, or close off more than 2/3 the width of the stream. The management guidelines typically require the fishery to sustain its upstream carrying capacity based on the size of the watershed with a rough estimate of typical population carrying capacity based on 6 fish per acre of pond or lake (Of course this is a rough generalization because some lakes are much more productive, per area, than others).
The town must vote each year to hold a harvest the subsequent year, unless the town meeting is prior to April 1 in which case it is possible to vote and harvest in the same calendar year. The harvest days are selected a year in advance and are fixed, unless one petitions the State for a change. The way harvests are undertaken is extremely variable. Some towns follow the English model and have a fish commissioner or fish warden oversee the harvest. These positions are typically appointed for fixed terms, freeing the commissioner from the political pressure that would occur if they were an elected official, while other towns have direct oversight by the town selectmen.

A successful example of joint management is the Damariscotta Mills run shared by Nobleboro and Newcastle where the fish ladder straddles the town line. This consortium has not only sustained the run, but also succeeded in raising $350,000 dollars to rebuild a portion of the fish ladder originally constructed in the 1800s, with an eventual goal of raising $800,000 to rebuild the entire structure. A council containing one selectman from each town, and a fish agent who oversees the harvest, manage the run. In addition, there is a volunteer committee that serves as an advisory board comprised of a diverse set of interests ranging from harvesters to local gallery owners. As described by Nobelboro selectman Deb Wilson, “Our strength is in being informal, if you limit who is involved it creates insiders and outsiders.” Of the fish ladder rebuilding process Wilson states, “it has bonded the whole community,” bringing people together who otherwise would often have little in common.

So how does governance translate into fishing? Towns can pay a harvester, sell harvest rights, or sometimes even pay for harvest rights. Gear is another issue, some towns have gear and in others the harvester provides their own. For example, in Nobleboro/Newcastle the towns have their own permanent gear and the harvester is paid a fixed salary. Selectman Wilson believes this is better than giving a percentage of the catch because it gives the harvester a predictable income, while reducing incentives to overfish.

Alewife Harvesters of Maine founder Jeffrey Pierce notes that 90 percent of towns bid out contracts, typically for three to five years. Pierce believes five years is optimal with an escape clause in the event the harvester turns out to be a poor manager. But in general for the sake of continuity once you find a good harvester is pays to keep them. In Woolrich the same family has overseen their run since the 1890s! Pierce estimates that 61 towns with harvestable alewife runs in Maine, this includes 41 towns with municipal rights (active harvests) and 20 towns which choose not to exercise their rights. Those runs without a management plan or harvest tend to be in the more suburban areas in the southern part of the state. Deb Wilson, who engages in alewife restoration purely for its conservation benefits and who has no monetary stake in alewife harvesting, believes that fishing is an integral part of the process “because of the harvest things get cared for.” Other local citizens may be passionate about the run, but with jobs and family commitments always an issue, clearing of beaver dams and other kinds of work often just don’t get done, so it helps to have financial incentives to back up the ideals of good stewardship.

Recent Examples of Restorations:

How does one establish a run and develop a governance structure? There are several recent examples. The Lloyd Davis Trust on the Medomak River was established to restore alewife in the 1980s when Davis contributed $20,000 dollars to the effort. The dividends from the trust go to annual monitoring and management efforts conducted in concert with the Medomak River Land Trust. These groups also raise funds for an America Corps volunteer who oversees the day-to-day operations of the restoration. There is not yet a viable population on the Medomak so there is no fishery, but the annual fish counts and organized restoration efforts are a model for other communities.

On the Kennebec river system, Benton Falls was granted exclusive harvest rights in 2005, in large measure due to a long history of harvested runs in the area. But getting the fish back has been far from simple including dam removals downstream using federal dollars, and the town voters agreeing to pay $17,000 dollars to purchase 2.5 acres along the river to provide the necessary public access to develop a harvest area. These efforts paid off with the run becoming the largest in the nation in 2009. The Benton Falls catch is also shared with other towns with alewife warden Rick Lawrence negotiating catch levels, with the harvester returning a third of his earnings to the town. Harvests can range close to 1,000 bushels a season so at $20 to $25 dollars a bushel the economic returns can be substantial. As DMR biologist Nate Gray estimated in a 2011 article in the Morning Sentinel, a single eight-year-old female produces about “$5,000 dollars worth of children.”

The most recent effort is the restoration of alewife to North Haven Island in May 2011. The North Haven project is a cooperative venture between fishermen, summer residents, local landowners, and biologists and conservationists in collaboration of numerous state and federal agencies. The process is truly a community effort with local fishers such as Adam Campbell having expertise with gear and a knowledge of the local ecosystem, landowner David Greenway provides essential access across his property for the fish passage, while seasonal residents Mark Cathy and Mark Stein provide legal and administrative advice and connects to the summer community.

The entire community is invited to have input into the process with an oversight board managing the restoration.

What makes the North Haven run distinct is a heavy emphasis on science. The author coordinates the program, and along with graduate student Charles Soucy we are working to monitor the ecological impacts of the reintroduction. This foundation of science, coupled with broad community support ranging from the town selectmen, to the Grange and local land trust, is essential for garnering larger agency and foundation support. Funds from the eventual harvest of the fish will be plowed back into fisheries conservation and one of the goals of the program is to provide a steady source of financial support for fisheries conservation and management in mid-Penobscot Bay.

National Level Governance:

While river management is necessary, it is not sufficient to sustain or restore alewife. A 2009 study of trawl survey records by University of Maine graduate student Erin Spencer indicates that most of the threats to alewife and loss of fish occur at sea. In other words, all the river restoration and conservation in the world will not maintain alewife runs if they are not carefully managed offshore. A reduction in mid-water trawling starting in 2007 appears to have had a pronounced positive impact on herring survival with many more fish seen inshore in recent years.

The problem though, as pointed out by DMR fishery specialist Michael Brown, is that the fish do not exist in a single state’s waters. Alewife from Maine may travel as far as the Carolinas or beyond and therefore poor management of one state can impact alewife in other regions. Declines in alewife in many parts of its range led to Amendment 2 of the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Shad and River Herring which prohibits commercial and recreational fishing beginning January 1, 2012 unless states develop “sustainable management plans.” It also requires additional state monitoring and requests the Secretary of Commerce take emergency action to implement bycatch-monitoring measures.

For many states this means a complete closure for the indefinite future. For Maine, it means about one-half the existing runs will be closed in the near term. For new restorations such as North Haven this means they may not see harvest for close to a decade because it takes five years to establish the fish, and another few years to document the run is healthy and growing. DMR takes scale samples at the time of release to serve as baselines against which to compare age and sex distributions (along with other biological data), but the increasing levels of scrutiny of the fishery make a foundation in science that much more essential. While the requirements to reduce or mitigate bycatch may make certain kinds of fishing that much more difficult. But despite these challenges, Maine alewife harvester Jeffrey Pierce remains optimistic about the fish’s future stating, “give ’em a chance and they’ll grow like weeds.” For Deb Wilson, who also sits on the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) Advisory Panel, she also does not see Amendment 2 as a major threat to fishermen in Maine, “if we just follow our own rules, we will continue to harvest.”