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other fisheries around the country. Neither the national nor the regional groups 

 have the broad experience, staff, financial resources, or the trust of the fishing com- 

 munity, necessary to forge comprehensive long-term community-based solutions. 

 There are only a handful of organizations devoting significant resources to the 

 northeastern fishing issues. Most argue that the primary factor limiting their ex- 

 pansion in this area is funding. (In contrast, the Northern Forest Alliance has over 

 25 participating environmental and conservation oivanizations.) They must be 

 strengthened to deal effectively with this resource problem. 



It may be possible to assist some organizations to develop the capability to fow 

 community-based comprehensive sustainable development programs. But other "de- 

 livery vehicles" need to be brought in to the fisheries issues as well. These include: 

 community foundations, education institutions, community development corpora- 

 tions, local chambers of commerce, and social service agencies. New relationships 

 among community development organizations, the conservation community and fish- 

 ing groups need to be forged and new institutions may need to be developed to fill 

 the gaps which cannot be met by other existing institutions. 



Women play an important and unique role in the commercial fishing industry. Be- 

 cause of the amount of time the men spend away at sea, women play the predomi- 

 nant role in the family and the community, and many play key roles in the family 

 business, essentially running the shore-side operations. In Maine women dominate 

 the "sellers' representative" side of the processing business, representing the fisher- 

 men at sea. Fishermen's wives organizations throughout New England play critical 

 roles in the policy and regulation-setting process, often because the husbands are 

 at sea. In the communities of Gloucester and New Bedford, where there are heavy 

 first and second generation ethnic concentrations in the fishing industry, often the 

 men don't speak English, and the wives serve as the communications link with 

 world outside the fishing fraternity. The role of women and its implication for devel- 

 oping long term strategies for the future needs to be assessed, ana fishermen's wives 

 organizations need to be supported and strengthened. 



Politics and Policy 



Efforts of the environmental community to affect federal policy relative to the 

 northeast fishery are largely limited to the Magnuson Act and reformation of the 

 Council process. While these efTorts are important, the future of the industry may 

 well be as influenced by the availability of capital. New sources of capital need to 

 be developed to help underwrite transition strategies and efforts to diversify the 

 economies of the coastal communities which are dependent upon the fishing indus- 

 try. Dozens of federal programs exist which could be tapped to provide direct relief 

 for fishermen and loans to help "revitalize" the industry. Congressional offices and 

 the Clinton administration are moving ahead with proposals to access emergency 

 funding for the fishermen. These programs need be identified and analyzed for their 

 applicability to this problem. 



The ongoing political and policy process surrounding the northeast fishery "crisis" 

 is extremely controversial, dynamic, and subject to significant change on a daily 

 basis. This issue has already been significantly influenced by election-year politics. 

 Elected officials are acutely focused on attempting to accommodate fishermen's re- 

 quest for aid, even if those requests are not in the long term interest of the resource 

 or the industry. That influence may increase, as it gets closer to the elections. 



EfTorts aimed at influencing federal policy which fail to take into account local 

 community economic development issues will not address the long term problems 

 associated with the fishery. At the same time a "bottoms-up" local community-based 

 planning effort focused on developing economically viable and environmentally sus- 

 tainable initiatives will not succeed unless it is coupled with federal policy initia- 

 tives which set some regional parameters for the fishery resource. A comprehensive 

 strategy is required, which combines both a top-down and bottoms-up approach. 



After the endless regulatory battles surrounding Amendment 5 and two decades 

 of seemingly fruitless scientific research, the fishing community is crying out for 

 practical results-oriented projects targeted directly at stock restoration, development 

 of markets for under-utilized species, value added marketing strategies, boat buy- 

 backs, mortgage relief, tax relief, aquaculture and mareculture development. How- 

 ever, these short term initiatives need to be developed within the context of com- 

 prehensive strategies intended to address the root causes of the fisheries's current 

 situation. This will reouire the establishment of firm parameters tied to the long- 

 term sustainability of the resource. Otherwise we are destined to repeat the pattern 

 of over-exploitation of the last century. 



Fishing communities are crying out for action — not more study. Various specific 

 proposals for revitalizing the fishing industry have been advanced in various ports. 

 These include: display auctions/fish exchanges, fishermen's co-ops, small business 



