As much as the story of Port Clyde, Maine, is the fish and the people, it’s now become a story of embracing a new model to bring back a way of life that balances fishing, while maintaining local fish resources in a sustainable way.

(Port Clyde, Maine.)

• Feature: Port Clyde: A Way of Life Revived
• Litigation: Protecting the Ocean Ecosystem

This Maine coastal community of 1500 people has only had one drastic change in the last decades. It’s the fish: there’s just not so much of them anymore.

(Port Clyde, Maine.)

• Feature: Port Clyde: A Way of Life Revived
• Litigation: Protecting the Ocean Ecosystem

Gone are the days where groundfish and herring stocks were abundant. The decline in groundfish (haddock, cod, flounder, halibut, hake, Pollock, and red fish) is due to the influx of industrial fishing in the region in the last few decades.

(Port Clyde, Maine.)

• Feature: Port Clyde: A Way of Life Revived
• Litigation: Protecting the Ocean Ecosystem

In the 1970s, New England’s groundfish and herring populations crashed under heavy fishing from foreign fleets, leading to the passage of the Magnuson-Steven’s Act in 1976.

Glen Libby, 54, a Port Clyde fisherman, remembers the time when you could catch more in a day than what people now need four days to catch.

(Road leading to the fishing port in Port Clyde, Maine.)

• Feature: Port Clyde: A Way of Life Revived
• Litigation: Protecting the Ocean Ecosystem

In 2007, Earthjustice began representing local fishermen before federal regulators and in the courts challenging the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (the government agency charged with setting fishing rules and monitoring fishing activities) failure to restrict the industrial herring fishery from critical spawning regions for groundfish.

(Port Clyde, Maine.)

• Feature: Port Clyde: A Way of Life Revived
• Case: Herring Trawlers: Threat to New England Fisheries
• Litigation: Protecting the Ocean Ecosystem

“Over the last decades, it’s been a steady decline,” says Glen Libby. Glen, a former groundfisherman and current shrimp fisherman, is chairman of the Midcoast Fishermen’s Association (a non-profit group seeking to improve the lives of local fishermen) and president of a local fishermen’s cooperative.

(Glen Libby, 54, a Port Clyde fisherman.)

• Feature: Port Clyde: A Way of Life Revived
• Litigation: Protecting the Ocean Ecosystem

The Libby family has had to adjust to higher fuel prices, federal regulations and competition from industrial fisheries. Their strategy to stay afloat? They organized the Port Clyde fishing cooperative last year, with local fishermen processing and selling their catch directly to customers.

(Port Clyde, Maine.)

• Feature: Port Clyde: A Way of Life Revived
• Litigation: Protecting the Ocean Ecosystem

The fishermen use environmentally-friendly fishing gear that meets or exceeds federal requirements and attracts customers who want to support a local, sustainable fishing model.

(Gary Libby, 52, checking his lobster trap.)

• Feature: Port Clyde: A Way of Life Revived
• Litigation: Protecting the Ocean Ecosystem

Earthjustice defends these fishermen because, simply put: they are better stewards of the ocean. By staying out of vulnerable fish spawning grounds and using sustainable fishing equipment, these Port Clyde fishermen are modeling a standard that allows them to continue their lifeblood while also allowing the fish stocks to rebound.

(Gary Libby, 52, checking his lobster trap.)

• Feature: Port Clyde: A Way of Life Revived
• Case: Herring Trawlers: Threat to New England Fisheries
• Litigation: Protecting the Ocean Ecosystem

The legal challenges brought by Earthjustice aim for several things: establish fishing catch limits that acknowledge the role that herring play as a forage species, establish a new monitoring program that provides accurate estimates of herring and other bycatch, and finally, protect sensitive areas of the ocean that are spawning grounds for groundfish, herring, and other species.

(Gary Libby, inspecting a lobster.)

• Feature: Port Clyde: A Way of Life Revived
• Case: Herring Trawlers: Threat to New England Fisheries
• Litigation: Protecting the Ocean Ecosystem

There have been recent victories. In July, commercial fishermen from Cape Cod reached an agreement with NMFS requiring the government agency to reconsider a weak rule that allowed industrial herring fishermen to dump non-target fish that come up in their nets back into the ocean.

(Gary Libby and his dog.)

• Feature: Port Clyde: A Way of Life Revived
• Press Release: NMFS Agrees to Repropose Important Rule for Atlantic Herring Fishery
• Press Release: Government Agency Must Reevaluate Flawed Decision Rejecting Petition Protecting Groundfish
• Litigation: Protecting the Ocean Ecosystem

The Port Clyde Fresh Catch cooperative offers a delivery subscription service and online sales, where customers can have fresh or frozen seafood shipped to their home.

(Packaged cod at the Port Clyde Fresh Catch Coop processing facility.)

• Feature: Port Clyde: A Way of Life Revived
• Litigation: Protecting the Ocean Ecosystem

“I was a lobster man and now I’m retired,” Nathaniel Winchenbach says. The cooperative “is a great opportunity for a fisherman. I see it as a great opportunity for everybody working here. Starting from square one, learning how to run a small business.”

(Nathaniel Winchenbach, 30, filleting cod.)

• Feature: Port Clyde: A Way of Life Revived
• Litigation: Protecting the Ocean Ecosystem