Since 1995, the Northeast lobstermen have been more regulated and managed than at any other point in the history of their industry. The lobster fishing industry has been a staple industry in the Northeast United States for over 200 years. From first being considered a staple food for indentured servants to its contemporary status as a popular delicacy, the lobster fishing industry has played a large role in forming the landscape and economies of the New England coastline. In 1995, the implementation of lobster zone management in the form of limited entry fishing zones, trap limits, and zone management areas represents the largest most comprehensive management strategy to the lobster industry. In 1999, for example, under the authority of the Department of Commerce and Maine's new limited entry law, each Maine lobstermen is required to indicate which of the seven new management zones he/she will be fishing in. These new management zones and the limited entry into them is the most comprehensive measure to achieve the goals set forth and implemented by the NOAA Fisheries service. The effect this has on the local culture in the five states of Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island is felt in a variety of ways. From direct economic suffering through mandatory loss of productivity to stressing local community social interactions, the wave of repercussions flows freely from the policy makers in Congress to the bait men of New England. The result at the local level of these management strategies is major impacts on the local cultures, communities, and individuals who depend on the open access type of system that has been in place in the Northeast lobster industry from its inception. The analysis of the effect of federal fishing regulations on a local Maine community reveals a web of issues connected to land use development, shifting economics, and the highly managed primary economic input of the local lobster fishing industry. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the connection between federal fishery management policies and the policies impacts on Harpswell, a lobster fishing community in Maine. Managing the commons in the 21st century presents itself as no easy task. It takes an enormous amount of regulation, investigation, and manpower to assess and then provide adequate measures to accomplish the goals set forth in the Sustainable Fisheries Act, (SFA). The SFA is only one piece of legislation that regulates the allocation of goods, in this case lobster, evenly across a large number of users. As proposed by Garret Hardin (1968) in The Tragedy of the Commons, a resource will be exploited until extinction as every individual attempts to maximize their harvest from a common resource. The lobster fishing industry in New England is no exception to this principle. The issue of primary concern is the development of techniques which will preserve the resource harvested by many individuals while still allowing adequate time for any given species to replenish itself in its natural environment. The end result is a process of procedural restrictions on those individuals using the resource in order to achieve the ultimate goal of preserving the prosperity of future generations in the industry. One complication of managing the fishing industry at the federal level is the difficulty in managing the spectrum of users who rely on the industry. For policy makers and scientists the priority of management strategy is to preserve the industry through the maintenance of stock biomass. By limiting the number of users and amount each user is allowed to harvest, the regulations that shape the industry limit economic prosperity to a number of users. In order to minimize these effects at the local level, policy makers must include the expected outcomes of such limiting regulations into formulating new policy. In addition to the direct loss of productivity by individual users, the larger aspect of local economies also plays a role. The next level of impact of user restrictions translates into a changing rural economy. Along the Maine coast fishing has been a primary staple of the economy. As such, its importance to the overall stability of the economy becomes increasingly important in the shaping of rural areas. Currently many of the communities once considered solely a fishing economy are seeing the local economics change. The reasons for the change are the limitations on their earning potential and the declining fishing industry importance state wide because of high demands for coastal access and coastal property. The development pressures on coastal land are creating a scarcity of access points to the waterfront which lobstermen require to continue catching lobster. Access to fishing grounds is one of the major issues that policy makers must address to stabilize the declining fishing industry in Maine. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), is the organization charged with monitoring and recommending policies to the Department of Commerce. The Department of Commerce is a sub-committee of the United States Congress and in this matter is balancing ecological indicators with economic profit viability. The Magnusons-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act was signed as legislative law on April 13, 1976. The Act was designed to establish ownership over 200 nautical miles offshore of the Untied States. Its intent was to extend jurisdiction over the waters in terms of conservation and harvesting. By the mid-1970's it had become apparent that much of the exploitation of the coastal United States resources was actually occurring by harvesters of neighboring countries causing a rapid rate of depletion due to limitless availability for fishing grounds. Natural resources in the United States are one of the bases for the economic prosperity of the United States. The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the governing act of access to United States Fishery resources, states; "Section 2 Findings Purposes, and Policy that: (a) Findings.-The Congress finds and declares the following: (1) the fish off the coasts of the United States, the highly migratory species of the high seas, the species which dwell on or in the Continental Shelf appertaining to the United States, and the anadromous species which spawn in the United States rivers or estuaries, constitute valuable and renewable natural resources. These fishery resources contribute to the food supply, economy, and health of the Nation and provide recreational opportunities" (MSFCMA, 1976). Geography has always been concerned with atmosphere, organisms, land cover, and the variation of geographic features. Natural resources have always been encompassed by the discipline of Geography. Indeed Geography deals with landscape, people, and the relationship between the two as described in the Man-Land Tradition in William D. Pattison's "Four Traditions of Geography" (Pattison, 1964). In the case of the lobster, and the U.S. Fisheries in general, the question becomes similar to that later addressed as, "The Tragedy of the Commons". When people realize that a resource's abundance is finite, the race to profit by one's own consumption creates motivation to harvest until the last bit of resource remains. The logic to this being that eventually, whether you participate in the harvesting or not, the resource will run out and why not take from that which all your neighbors are taking? Regulation of the fishing industry is a complex system of organizational hierarchies that maintain and implement regulations to provide the most benefit to the most people through managing ecological factors and resource extraction. The dichotomy between long term stock biomass sustainability and immediate individual profit necessitates the need for stringent regulations to preserve the resource in order for future extraction opportunity. The two are interdependent of one another. The management strategies are required to manage stock biomass because each individual is attempting to maximize their output. It is a challenge of balancing the needs of fishermen's immediate well being with the longer term impact of the catch on the stock biomass. Another consideration is the short-term and long-term regional and National economic impact. The challenge of regulating certain species and geographic areas according to ecological health must be highly managed and calculated to produce the best possible combination of profit and product. For Harpswell, Maine, this balancing act, between the people and local economies that rely on the ocean and the number and variety of its creatures, is now complicated by the added factor of economic strain through real estate pressures on their land at the same time as their opportunity to earn more is legislatively limited in the name of resource longevity.
