Coastal Services Center

The relationship between researchers and commercial fishermen has sometimes been adversarial. But in the Gulf of Maine and other areas of the U.S., adversaries have turned into partners in an effort to help better manage the ocean ecosystem.

"In the past, there was so much contention between scientists and the resource users; there wasn't a lot of trust and cooperation," says Rollie Barnaby, educator for the University of New Hampshire Sea Grant Cooperative Extension. "In order to make that connection and the research more relevant, it's important to get users involved in the research."

What began about 12 years ago as a project-by-project effort to bring fishermen and researchers together has turned into a regional effort that receives significant congressional funding.

One of the largest and most successful efforts to organize and fund cooperative research has come from the Northeast Consortium, an organizational partnership between the University of New Hampshire, University of Maine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Collaborative research meshes fishermen's experience and knowledge of the resources and vessel operations with scientists' methodology and experience, saving time and money, and improving coastal management decision making.

The researcher–fisherman partnership also gives scientists access to more vessels and provides economic incentives for the fishing community.

Bad Blood

During the 1980s and 1990s, the debate over proposed fishing restrictions on Georges Bank and in the Gulf of Maine soured relationships between researchers and commercial fishermen.

"Fisheries were declining and everybody was pointing fingers at everyone else," recalls David Goethel, a New Hampshire commercial fisherman. "There was a lot of frustration on the part of the fishing industry that they couldn't participate. Scientists were frustrated because they were doing their very best, but everybody was saying that wasn't good enough."

Goethel says he recognized the research role fishermen could have in the 1980s after being asked to take shrimp researchers out on his boat to test experimental fishing gear. "I thought right off the bat that had I been involved from day one, it would have been a better program."

Goethel adds, "Fishermen know a lot about gear and how to do things—the nuts and bolts of putting together an experiment. What was lacking was the scientific rigor of being able to go out and test something."

Equal Experts

Barnaby, a former commercial fisherman, also recognized that fishermen and researchers have "different knowledge, expertise, and training, but both know a lot about the marine environment."

In his work with Sea Grant, Barnaby made sure fishermen were a part of all the research grants in which he was involved. "Enough scientists did work with fishermen to realize the importance of working together."

Fishermen also were going through some hard financial times. "It used to be that you caught all the fish you needed and wanted," Barnaby says. "If that was still the case, cooperative research might have been harder to institute."

Coming Together

Support for bringing researchers and fishermen together came from U.S. Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. In 1998, New Hampshire Sea Grant received $300,000 to launch the Northeast Consortium. Since 1999, the Northeast Consortium has encouraged and funded co-equal partnerships among commercial fishermen, researchers, and other stakeholders. The consortium receives $5 million annually from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Marine Fisheries Service to fund cooperative research projects.

Participating commercial fishing vessels from New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts are equipped and used as research platforms, and researchers come from the four partnering research institutions.

"The Northeast Consortium illustrates the best of Sea Grant," says Ann Bucklin, director of the New Hampshire Sea Grant College Program. "Partnership building, nonadvocacy participation by all stakeholders, conflict resolution—these are core Sea Grant extension values."

Asking the Right Questions

Each year, the Northeast Consortium funds over 30 new cooperative research development projects, with each project lasting from one to three years. Bucklin says the consortium is currently managing over 100 projects involving more than 260 fishermen.

Goethel notes that in the Northeast, probably one fisherman in six is involved or has been involved in the past in a cooperative research project.

Research areas include development of selective gear technology, monitoring marine protected areas, fish habitat studies, and oceanographic and meteorological monitoring.

To be successful, Goethel says, the research question has to be interesting to both the fisherman and scientist. "There isn't a lot of theoretical research going on. We're looking at real questions that have real answers that we needed yesterday."

It Gets Competitive

To receive research funds, scientists and fishermen team and submit planning letters to an annual open competition that is reviewed by a 30-member panel made up of fishermen, scientists, and representatives of governmental and nongovernmental agencies and organizations.

Barnaby says that typically less than half of those teams might be invited to submit full proposals, and that only half of those proposals might be funded.

Because most projects last two to three years, projects that began in 2000 and 2001 are "just now wrapping up," Bucklin says. The consortium is now focusing on ensuring that cooperative research data are used by fisheries and ocean managers.

Trust and Communication

In addition to improving resource decision making, benefits of cooperative research include improved relationships between stakeholders and more of a buy-in to research results and resulting regulations, research being conducted on more vessels, and diversifying fishermen's income.

"It builds trust and encourages communication when you bring factions together to solve problems," notes Bucklin. "It's helped the fishing community with employment options, helping reduce overcapacity without fishermen having to accept a government bailout or sit on the beach."

Goethel says, "A lot of fishermen like learning more about the ocean and really like the idea that what they know is being used for something and counts for something."

Still, there are fishermen out there who want nothing to do with the research. But they are the minority, Barnaby says. "The majority sees the benefits and enjoys it."

He adds, "It's an excellent way to do research. I would encourage other researchers to use the users."

To learn more about the Northeast Consortium, point your browser to www.northeastconsortium.org. You may contact Rollie Barnaby at (603) 679-5616, or rollie.barnaby@unh.edu, or Ann Bucklin at (603) 862-0122, or ann.bucklin@unh.edu. You may contact David Goethel at egoethel@comcast.net. For help in getting involved in cooperative research, visit www.fishresearch.org.