Education

Maine has experienced boom-bust cycles in fishing industries; herring and cod are two such species. Below are two labels from canned alewife and cod products. How do restore our environment to have functioning ecosystems, with cod and other coastal fish populations at former levels, that support sustainable rural economic activities?

You cannot "manage fish populations" since we have no control over how many fish are produced during reproduction. What we do control is how many fish we remove (landings) and the fishing effort used. These are regulated by changing the number of fishermen, length of season, amount of fish allowed to be caught (the quota) and type and design of fishing gear.,

If you need to reduce the catch, you reduce effort. However, we are now attempting to restore lost ecosystems... how do we accomplish this? See What is Historical Ecology?

Management of human-nature interactions, such as fisheries, is a complicated process. However, we all play a role in what happens to our oceans. By making good decisions on what type of fish you eat (never eat shark, it is like eating a cheetah) and the activities you enjoy, the chances are that we will all get to enjoy nature in the future. If we all remain part of the problem, chances are that future generations will have a very tough life.

Restoring ecosystem function requires that we know what our target is, then that there is a combined effort to achieve that goal. First, we much understand what the "old" ecosystem looked like. How has Maine changed? See Timeline Maps. We hope that over time we will fill this section with interesting and educational articles that might help everyone appreciate the decisions required to improve our future by taking a hard look at our past.

Learn about local Maine history:

Maine on RootsWeb (Recommended) http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~websites/usa/maine.html
Barrier Management http://www.nottawasaga.org/index.php/river-restoration/barrier-management
How does a mill work? http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/waterwheels/
Information of Native culture http://www.snowwowl.com/peopleabenaki.html