Sustainable Lobster in Maine

I have decided to reprint my article from 3 1/2 years ago regarding the efforts by the Maine lobstering industry to boost its already strong sustainability record in response to the unfair red-listing of lobster by a Washington, DC court and an environmental group in California.

From June, 2019:

Almost three years ago I wrote about the effort of some leading vineyards in California’s Napa and Sonoma Valleys to produce?sustainable wines made with solar energy??to eliminate any negative environmental impacts associated with electricity use from the electric grid.?These vineyards see their success in wine sales as a direct result from their sustainability practice of which solar is a very visible sign. That sustainable commitment is spreading east as vineyards across the country, even in Georgia, are going solar powered.

I am convinced that this “sustainably solar powered produced” message about a product is the right message for those that want to grow their markets, particularly as more Americans seek sustainable products.?According to a?2018 Deloitte Study, 7 out of 10 Americans are demanding American companies seek more energy from renewable sources for the products they sell.??

This past week my wife and I had an opportunity to stay at my father’s cottage on a small island in Maine, home to the?Cranberry Isles Fishermen's Co-operative.?Their signature product is called Little Cranberry Lobster named after the island my father has been taking our family to for the past 60 years.

Lobster fishing, or lobstering, has always been the way of life on Little Cranberry, since as far back as I can remember, although decades ago there was also herring, cod and other fisheries, now long since collapsed to just lobstering.?Back in the 1800’s the Cranberry Islands boasted a much more diverse fishing and farming community to stock the sailing vessels bound for Europe at the last port-of-call on the East Coast before heading east across the Atlantic.?The economy of the islands hit their peak in the late 1800’s. For the past 50 years, however, the community of Little Cranberry Island has subsisted mostly on lobstering, and the economy of the island rose and fell depending on the supply of lobsters.?And times could be tough, especially when the lobsters were occasionally in very short supply.?

This is why the lobstermen from Little Cranberry Island follow strict sustainability measures to ensure that lobster populations remain plentiful enough to support present and future generations of lobstermen. Sustainability measures include minimum and maximum allowable sizes to keep.?All others are tossed back in the ocean.?Also, egg bearing females are marked so that they are returned to continue laying eggs for more lobsters.?And the number of lobstermen is heavily controlled to regulate the amount of traps being hauled in a given area.????

These sustainability measures have helped assure a plentiful supply of lobsters in this Down East community 2/3 up the coast of Maine towards Canada.?But the lobstermen have also been helped by the rising sea temperatures to the south.?In their efforts to stay in colder ocean waters, the lobster populations have been migrating north from Long Island sound and the coast of Massachusetts up into the Gulf of Maine and toward the Great Harbor of Mount Desert Island and the Cranberry Islands.?For the past two decades or so the lobstering on Little Cranberry Island has been very good.?But that raises a new problem.?Too much supply of lobsters and not enough market demand cause prices to collapse.?The job of the Cranberry Isles Fishermen’s Co-operative is to help market the lobsters and maintain a steady demand in the market place.?They promote their sustainable practice in a new message; “Sustainable, Traceable, Maine Caught”.

Little Cranberry Lobster, always some of the sweetest, tastiest lobster on the Coast of Maine, has been enjoyed all over the country and even at the White House for State Dinners.?It only made sense to tout this small lobstering community as providing a sustainably caught and fresh Maine lobster taste.?Over the past ten years the “Sustainable, Traceable and Maine Caught” message took hold and even the Chinese have taken a fancy to Little Cranberry Lobster.?We often joked that the Chinese liked the bright red shell characteristic of the cooked lobster.?With the Chinese buying lobster, market demand remained high and the good lobstering was rewarded with a stable price.

Then, in early 2018, President Trump placed tariffs on a large swath of Chinese products and the Chinese responded with tariffs on a host of American products including Maine lobster, and suddenly the market demand for Little Cranberry Lobster was in big trouble.?As lobstering remained strong would there be enough demand in the fall to support the lobstermen of Little Cranberry Island??Many of the friends of the island community ordered Little Cranberry Lobster for their 2018 – 2019 birthday parties, fall football parties and other celebrations, to help out.?

But the lobstermen of Little Cranberry Island knew they needed to step up their sustainability game.?So in the spring of 2019, they installed approximately 230 solar modules to generate energy from a new 60 kW solar array.?The solar array generates enough power to offset approximately 90% of the $1,000 per month electric bill from the cooperative’s operations.?Now Little Cranberry Lobster can add a new moniker, “Solar Produced”.?

And it may be working as the super market chain, Whole Foods, has begun offering Little Cranberry Lobster.?Whole Foods parent company, Amazon, is now shipping Little Cranberry Lobster around the country and has told the lobstermen they can take all they can catch.?Whole Foods, of course, is dedicated to sustainable foods.??As a result of the new Amazon – Whole Foods business, the Cranberry Isles Fishing Co-operative has reached a new record in sales.?The Co-op has reached over 1.8 million pounds of lobster sold in a year.

I have long advocated that we need to find ways to transition to renewable energy to slow down and reverse the accumulation of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, but this should be done with attention to economic advantage to preserve and grow our economy. Because of the forecast of ever rising oceans and increased sea temperatures the island communities, such as, Little Cranberry Island, are, essentially, our early warning system.?Yet the Cranberry Isles Fishermen’s Co-op have turned to solar because they see it as the only way to preserve and grow their market, and that is because Americans from California to Maine are putting a value on sustainable products and renewable energy.?

As I said three years ago, If we are truly going to achieve our national environmental and sustainability goals, we need to support small business market approaches to renewable energy.?Perhaps the new?Little Cranberry Lobster logo could say?“Sustainable, Traceable, Maine Caught and Solar Produced”??Now the best tasting lobster in America has a new reason for you to purchase it… Solar Produced!!