Letter To The Editor, Courier-Gazette
As a fisherman, when you apply for a license, you are making a commitment. That license stays with you and stays with your boat. You can’t transfer it to anyone else or any other vessel. You invest your training and your equipment in that fishery, knowing that it is something you are going to be doing for the long-term in order to make it worthwhile. It also means that you are invested in the health of the resources that provide your livelihood. None of this is true for the aquaculture industry as it is currently set up.
Right now, an individual who holds an aquaculture lease in Maine can transfer it to anyone whenever they choose. That doesn’t have to be someone in the state of Maine or even in the United States. It also doesn’t have to be an individual and could just as easily be a company. That means a large foreign entity could own up to 1,000 acres of Maine water. While someone in Maine has a vested interest in the long-term health of the ecosystems and communities here, someone from out of state does not necessarily have the same values. This is a great concern.
The other problem with the transfer of leases is that it means that does not need to be a long-term commitment from the initial leaseholder. The option to transfer the lease gives the initial applicant an out if things don’t go as they’d planned or they’d like to change occupations. That means that their stewardship of the resource and the area of the lease, as well as their interactions with the community, are not bound by the same ties as someone who is in it for the long haul.
Our legislators need to step up and change the legislation so that we aren’t giving away our oceans to an unknown future and leaving it in the hands of people who aren’t part of our communities. It is up to us to voice these concerns to our legislators now so that they make these changes.
William Oliver
South Thomaston