This is a great question and should be something our state is focused on! There is a lot of talk around utilizing the current public power movement to partner with UMO and create a new backbone of industry off a diversified energy grid. The developmental capacity needed could supply a huge number of jobs for years to come, especially if models such as the Non-Transmission Alternative in Boothbay Harbor are mimicked. By encouraging this kind of development and fostering a new, mid-income industry, these families who currently make very good money for themselves fishing would see incentives to switch to a safer and more sustainable career.

However, it shouldn’t be ignored that fishing is dying in Maine, whether we like to admit it or not. This is going to continue whether or not stocks decline. The value in our coast has been determined to be in single family housing and retirement communities. If fishing families can’t live in the municipalities they fish out of, let alone within 20 miles of one, they will of course start to look for other options. This has been part of it along with the growth of tourism, our rapidly aging population, etc. We can’t expect our current industries to absorb the impact of lobstermen vanishing though. If we leave it up to natural forces the same thing that happened to the mill workers will happen to lobstermen across our coast. I highly recommend everyone to look up the 10 year plan developed in 2020 that highlights parts of what I pointed out here. Maine is approaching a crossroad that poses major shifts in our society brought on by climate change, it’s up to us now to prepare to take the right path.