Gloucester Marine Station, Partners Will Identify Commercial Fishing Opportunities

A fishing vessel in Gloucester Harbor plys the city’s downtown infrastructure for the seafood industry on which its economy is partly dependent.
A fishing vessel in Gloucester Harbor plys the city’s downtown infrastructure for the seafood industry on which its economy is partly dependent.

Massachusetts’ Seaport Economic Council recently awarded $276,854 to the campus’s Gloucester Marine Station at Hodgkins Cove, the UMass system and other partners to identify economic growth opportunities for the Commonwealth’s commercial fishing industry.

Adrian Jordaan, assistant professor of fish population ecology and conservation and director of the marine station, says the successful proposal was developed through a collaboration of the Department of Environmental Conservation and UMass Boston’s Urban Harbors Institute. It is designed to “build momentum and focus resources to help one of the critical industries for the Commonwealth to benefit coastal communities.”

Jordaan summarized the project as stimulating engagement among the UMass system and stakeholders to advance research on impediments to a sustainable and resilient seafood sector. “We hope to stimulate eight funded projects that leverage support and partnerships to contribute directly to solving keyproblems in the seafood sector,” he says.“Additionally, we hope that by incentivizing engagement in collaborations, new and lasting partnerships can be created.” One goal is to develop a consensus on optimal approaches for UMass to provide incubator and trans-disciplinary research in response to and in support of the needs of the Commonwealth’s seafood sector.

For its part, the state economic council pointed to the university system’s ability to “leverage the diverse expertise and research capacity of its five campuses to take an innovative, multidisciplinary approach” to assess and identify management strategies for habitat, fishery management, marketing and economic forces. The award states “In doing so, Massachusetts will be able to improve its fishing industry by both reinvigorating traditional components of the system, including diversifying catches and increasing consumption of locally caught fish.”

The effort will include linking efforts to understand marine ecosystems and habitat in a changing climate, fisheries management frameworks, as well as emerging segments of the developing seafood system such as value-added products, waste recovery, fuel-efficient vessels, environmental restoration and other initiatives.

Minority Senate leader Sen. Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) noted in a statement, “Given the serious challenges facing our commercial fishing industry, it makes good sense to fully engage the expertise and research capabilities of UMass to help those who depend on fishing to chart a course not only to survival, but to sustainability and prosperity.”

In addition to Jordaan at UMass Amherst, other members of the collaborative research group are Kristin Uiterwyk,director, and senior research fellow Jack Wiggin of the Urban Harbors Institute at UMass Boston; Valerie Nelson, director of the Water Alliance Gloucester;Katie Kahl, extension assistant professor in sustainable fisheriesand coastal resilience at the marine station; Montague Demment, vice president for international programs at the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities and consultant Margaret Brennan-Tonetta, associate vice president for economic development at Rutgers University. An advisory group will also include representatives from around the UMass system and from UMass Amherst departments including food science, environmental conservation and economics.