As regulators struggle to find a better way to manage the region’s fish stocks, a Maine group offers a potential solution that should be included in any study of alternative management plans. Area management, which empowers local groups to set rules for a small area of the coast, has worked well for Maine’s lobster industry. It is time to see if it can also work for the region’s troubled groundfishing fleet.

The New England Fisheries Management Council is expected at its June meeting to authorize studies of alternatives to the current management system, which largely relies on limiting when and where fishermen can fish in order to allow depleted fish populations to grow. Despite restrictions, populations of several commercially valuable stocks have not rebuilt and regulators are considering further restrictions.

The council is prepared to examine further days-at-sea restrictions and a point system, which would “charge” fishermen points based on the scarcity of the fish they catch. The council should add area management to this list of approaches that will be analyzed for about a year and a half before a rule is finalized by May 2009, as required by a court order.

The Area Management Coalition, a group of fishermen, scientists and conservationists, is ready to do this work by focusing on Maine’s inshore fishery. This area, along the coastal shelf, was once very productive, but fish populations have declined dramatically, largely due to overfishing.

Ted Ames, a long-time fishermen who has extensively researched historical catches, estimates the area should produce between 15 million and 30 million pounds of fish a year. Today, it yields only 1 million to 3 million pounds. As a result of the fishery’s decline, the number of groundfishermen in Maine has plummeted. In the 1960s, every coastal town had a fishing fleet. Today, only one fisherman in the area from Vinalhaven to the Canadian border makes his living from groundfish.

As a result of the groundfish decline, many Maine fishermen have switched to catching lobster. That species now accounts for about three-quarters of the state’s commercial harvest. The focus on lobster, while understandable, is of concerns because a decline in the lobster population would further erode the economic viability of many coastal communities.

To remedy this situation, the Area Management Coalition has proposed that Maine’s inshore fishery be managed by a local council that would set restrictions for those who want to fish in the area. By managing on a smaller scale, the hope is that fishermen will be rewarded for restricting their catches to allow populations to grow, for example, by larger catches in the future. Under the current system, if local fishermen don’t quickly catch a population that is growing and has potential to be very productive in a couple years, other fishermen, often in much larger boats from far away, will.

The Maine Legislature unanimously passed a resolution supporting this approach. Funding from Congress for a pilot project along the Maine coast is even more important.

Maine’s version of area management for its lobster fishery has been touted internationally. Now, it makes sense to try this approach with the groundfishery.