I'd like to sit in the shade while eating delicious food and drinking a local beer. Of course, I bet you already thought of that stuff.

All I'd want to do is eat. Eat eat eat eat eat. Oh boy, I love lobster.

I'd love to see a display of historical photos and documents and read/hear about the history of the local fishing industry. And also, eat.

I would like to be in a gigantic lobster costume handing out bibs and doing the Lobster Dance.

I would like to be drenching my white t-shirt in drawn butter and then booty-lobster-dancing with someone in a gigantic lobster costume.

Off the top of my head, I'd be interested to see:
- a comparison of fishing techniques in the cultures local to the area ove rthe last [X00] years, with exhibits of tools and technology, whether actual artifacts or photos/sketches. Hands-on replicas of weirs and nets and such would be supercool.

- research on population sizes and individual sizes of catch. (Though this might be counter to the festival's goal of encouraging people to eat fish. Depends on the stance the committee takes on sustainability issues and fishing restrictions.)

- first-hand accounts of fishing tales, commercial or personal. Could be in-person speakers, films, audio loops, or reproduced historical journals/diaries/ships logs.

- a discussion of lobstering culture and how it's different from fishing culture. (Realllllly fascinating social interaction, especially the in-group sanctions on perceived transgressions. Operatic stuff.)

This all sounds pretty dry and academic, but it should be easy to point out the juicier, more easily accessible points of inbterest without losing the deeper study.

Miko, are you in touch with the branch of History of Marine Animal Populations Project?

Also, a lobster roll and cold beer.

I would like to hear what's being done to address over-fishing of the oceans, so that I don't feel so bad when I EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT DELICIOUS LOBSTER EAT EAT EAT (catch breath) EAT EAT EAT

A fishing vessel kitted out as they were historically compared to a modern one. And what Elsa said.

HMAP! Yes.

The overfishing thing is a big part of the festival. It's, of course, intensely complicated and sensitive. However, we are happy to be sitting at the table with the fishing industry hashing things out. The ultimate stance is this: things are going to change, and we are going to need more sustainable fisheries. But if our fishing industry goes out of business as consolidation continues, there won't be any local know-how or input into the sustainability plans. We're aiming to keep our port active and our local industry alive so that they can be around to help develop and adapt to more sustainable regulations in the future that (we hope) will favor small-scale fishers over consolidated factory-style fleets.

Though there's really not much fish you can eat at all without feeling guilty. Unfortunately. Lobster's not too bad and northern shrimp, when they're in season, are pretty great. Other than that, [wiggles hand].

Elsa, yeah! I have two good friends who have worked on HMAP as part of their graduate studies. Really, really interesting stuff! Brilliant idea, too.

These are GREAT ideas. I'll be taking 'em back to the committee! Keep 'em coming!

I'd like to see demonstrations of how they repair the nets.

I'd like to know how they know where to look for the fish. Besides "in the water".

But if our fishing industry goes out of business as consolidation continues, there won't be any local know-how or input into the sustainability plans.

This may be:
A) common knowledge
B) already practiced
C) external to your current focus

but from what I've read (mostly sociological/cultural studies) the lobstering industry appears to have integrated small-scale practitioners into the decision-making part of the regulatory process. This means that the regulations reflect actual, practical concerns about the population that lobsterers are fishing. More crucially, lobsterers feel even more invested in the letter of the law, because they helped to craft it themselves. Self-policing is very strong.

It might be interesting to compare the construction of fishing limits and regulations, how they involve the population of fishing people affected, and how self-policing works in a community.

(Just throwing this out there --- I know embarrassingly little about this particular fishing community, though I have a bunch of friends at HMAP and have spent many a beer-y evening hearing their stories.)

Net repair is a great idea! Fun to watch, and another possibility for a hands-on display. Hands=on stuff --- always a hit with kids.

Maybe cool: a discussion of how technology changes the industry, even in small-scale operations. The winch, for example, increased hauls and allowed fishing crews to rely less on muscle. Did motors increase range for individual boats? Steel hooks? GPS units? Cell phones?

Ohhh, all of that sound like fun! Well, except for the eating seafood part.

Enough seats and tables is all I'd care about (well, taking food + beer as a given).

Demonstration of fishing wonk stuff would be cool. Tools, machines, hardware. And maybe a knot-tying demonstration (or other hands-on, learn-how-to-do-it stuff).

Bodega Bay has a fisherman's festival. I went one year and all it was was arts and crafts -- the same vendors you see selling crystals and leatherwork and silver jewelry and stained glass at every other Northern California fair. It was really disappointing.

It might be interesting to compare the construction of fishing limits and regulations, how they involve the population of fishing people affected, and how self-policing works in a community.

Yes, this is the main problem and the source of much strife in the fin fisheries - in the fin fisheries the development of limits can't be locally focused because finfish are migratory and don't correlate to state, waterway, or even national boundaries. So self-policing is out of the question; on the banks, there are fishermen from all the Northeastern states competing with those from the maritime provinces and competing with boats from the Eastern North Atlantic nations and even farther away than that. The animals have to be sampled, studied, and regulated as vast migratory populations, and since they move in and out of international waterways, where you're fishing has as much impact on regulatory environmet as what you're fishing. Where you land your fish, and where your boat is licensed, are yet more complications to fishery mangement. Add to that the economic incentive not to put your own state's fishery at a disadvantage when other nearby states (and nations) have less stringent guidelines, and you have a nasty stew a-brewing.

There are a lot of people at work on it and it grows swiftly complex. AT this point, though I'm fairly knowledgeable for a consumer, I tend to stay out of the debate because I have far less understanding than do marine scientists, fishermen, and government bodies, who are all busy hashing this out all the time. I do strongly believe that fishermen have to be part of the solution. But at the same time, they are very self-interested in not having regulations become more strict, and in the current regulatory environment they have no incentive to. There is no "organic premium" on the water - except, perhaps, programs that guarantee them a higher-dollar sale, like the one being started here. That might reduce the pressure on them to oppose changes, as long as they can make a fair living with less catch. We need to figure out other ways to relieve the economic pressure for MORE fish all the time, which the competitive regulations create. Unfortunately, what happens is that as costs rise and regulations tighten, the little guys who own one or two boats can no longer pay their way, so they have to leave the business. However, the consolidated end of the business - owners who own fleets of dozens of boats up and down the seaboard - have economy of scale working in their favor and can bulk-purchase ice, fuel, and insurance and set prices more favorably for themselves because they can produce a more regular supply. What that means is that fishing boat captains are no longer owners, crew are no longer likely to ever be owners, the family and community structure of the labor falls apart and it becomes work-for-hire, which is even less invested in the community, and of course, returns fewer profits to the community. So, stiffer regulations may not even protect fish populations - they may just assist consolidators in producing a more efficient, but more damaging, fishing industry, analogous to what's happening with factory farming and agricultural consolidation.

So there aren't any simple solutions, sigh.

No, of course --- on reflection I see that idea is far too contentious and complex for this venue. It's a hard enough discussion outside of the public eye, much less for a festival.

In that case, I would like to see LT in a gigantic lobster costume doing the lobster dance.

Yeah, that's part of the problem. IT's really hard to boil down to a simple message.

So we're boiling it down to the closest to simple we can get: a) fisheries are in trouble - environmental and economic; b) but we have a 400 year history in the industry, and if we support our local fishermen, they will be around to stay engaged in policymaking, and c) by creating a desirable NH fish brand, which can be distributed locally, we will at least be saving the daily fossil fuel waste we currently have because all the fish right now gets trucked to Boston (in refrigerated trucks) and then trucked back up here.'

And LT is definitely getting a lobster costume.

The lobster costume is going to have big foamy claws that can clutch small children and animals, correct?

And bobbly antennae that will drift maddeningly in and out of his field of vision?

Yay - I'm getting a lobster costume! What shall we name my new character? .

Fishstick Thespian
Lipstick Crustacean

or

Monsieur Homard Thermidor
will return in
Tomalley Never Dies.

how about one of those champagne or chocolate fountains, except filled with melted butter ?

Fishstick Thespian

Painful degree of LOL