Fishermen get help understanding research Seminars ease difficulties of navigating industry regulatory process, statistics

Glenn Robbins has fished the Atlantic from Canada to New Jersey for three decades. He’s forgotten more about the Maine coastline than many fisheries biologists will ever know.

But until recently, the Portland herring and groundfish harvester hasn’t believed that his knowledge was appreciated by fisheries regulators.

“It’s frustrating when you take a day off and drive three or four hours [to a meeting] and nobody listens,” Robbins said Thursday.

This spring, the fisherman’s faith was renewed when he attended a series of seminars in Durham, N.H., designed to narrow the gulf between fisheries “experts” and working fishermen.

Robbins attended the first of a dozen seminars being sponsored by the Marine Resource Education Project and funded by the Sea Grant program. The program teaches fishermen about the statistical methods used by fisheries biologists, as well as how to navigate the complex regulatory process, said John Williamson, spokesman.

The workshops were designed to ease communication among the sometimes disparate worlds of fishing, science and regulation. “Translators” with board backgrounds in fishing, biology and politics were employed to keep the jargon at a minimum.

“The biggest part of the problem was how to translate this information into English,” Williamson said. Fishermen can’t really participate in the regulation of their business until they understand the process, he said.

The program is based at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, so as an added incentive, fishermen who participate are reimbursed for their travel and lodging costs and paid a $500 stipend to make up for lost fishing days.

The first set of workshops, held in April, drew 20 fishermen from all over New England. Williamson hopes that these graduates will become active participants in managing their fisheries.

“The average fisherman does more survey of the marine environment daily than any of our top fisheries researchers,” Williamson said. “Collectively, the fishing community carries a huge body of information.”

The Marine Resource Education Project is an offshoot of a larger effort to get fishermen involved in scientific management, he said.