Community Panel Meetings
The Massachusetts Fishermen's Partnership's Community Panels Project, funded by the Northeast Consortium and Saltonstall-Kennedy grants, is focusing on 6 communities: Beals Island/Jonesport and Portland, Maine; Gloucester, Scituate and New Bedford, Massachusetts; and Point Judith, Rhode Island. MIT Sea Grant College Program's anthropologist, Dr. Madeleine Hall-Arber, is the project leader with Dr. Bonnie McCay of Rutgers University and David Bergeron of the MFP as co-principal investigators. The six communities in the study represent the variety of characteristics found in New England's fishing industry including inshore/offshore, large/small vessels; urban/rural communities; fish/shellfish products; mobile/fixed gear; auction/entrepreneur-dealer, etc. An interim report from the project took the form of comments on Amendment 13 to the Multispecies Fisheries Management Plan (note: PDF format).


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Community Panels Project Methodology

Final Reports, Part 1--Community Panels Project

The portion of the project funded by the Northeast Consortium is now complete. Below please find the report on the project's methodology and the final reports from Gloucester, Beals Island-Jonesport and Massachusetts South Shore

Gloucester, MA
Gloucester's report is in two parts, the first was published in October 2003, the other in June 2005. Gloucester's reports do not include photographs, so return to this site soon for a Gloucester photo gallery. The reports from the Beals Island-Jonesport and Massachusetts South Shore are available with or without photos.
Interim report, 11/03 (948K)
A Supplement, 6/05 (172K)

Beals Island-Jonesport,ME
PDF w/images (792 KB)
PDF without images (296K)

Massachusetts South Shore
PDF w/images (1 MB)
PDF without images (324K)

Final Reports, Part 2--Community Panels Project

Part 2 of the Community Panels Project was funded by Saltonstall-Kennedy and Sailor's Snug Harbor. Links to the final reports for New Bedford, MA; Point Judith, RI and Portland, ME are below.

New Bedford, MA
PDF w/images (1.1MB)
PDF without images (356K)
In Hindsight: Yellowtail Flounder 2004 - PDF without images (164K)

Portland, ME
PDF w/images (648K)
PDF without images (312K)

Port Judith, RI
PDF w/images (368K)
PDF without images (216K)