Sustainable Communities
Network Case StudiesSustainable Communities
Network Case Studies
Contact: Sustainable Cobscook Community Alliance
Will Hopkins, Coordinator
20 Adams Street
Eastport, ME 04631
Tel: (207) 853-4560
Fax: (207)
Scope: Rural
Project type: Community wide sustainability planning
Cobscook Bay, located "down east" on the coast of Maine, is
home to nine communities. Lubec and Eastport are separated by about 2 miles
across the Bay and 40 miles by land. West Quoddy Head, in Lubec, holds the
title of the easternmost point of land in the continental United States.
The largest towns, Eastport and Lubec, have 1,965 and 1,853 residents, respectively,
and the smallest community, Dennyville, has a population of 355. Though
the entire population of the area totals only 6,801, there is an enormous
amount of skill, talent and regional knowledge contributed by both natives
and newcomers. Many families have been in the area for generations, and
the Passamaquoddy tribe of Native Americans represents a wealth of indigenous
heritage and customs.
Though the economic history of the area originated in a lucrative sardine
industry, which had about 40 factories thriving in the 19th and early 20th
centuries, the demise of this industry brought a loss in population, wealth,
and a proud way of life. The remaining families in the area turned to clam
and sea urchin harvesting, lobster and other fishing, and salmon aquaculture,
and today the largest public employers are the public service fields and
light manufacturing.
The economy of the Cobscook Bay, however, remains rooted in its natural
resources. Fishing from the Bay; harvesting wild blueberries from hundreds
of acres of fields in the area; extracting forest products, including logs,
pulpwood and evergreen wreaths; and tourism are existing industries in the
region that rely upon the natural resources. Eastport also boasts of a deep
sea port, which is increasing its services to allow them to serve a variety
of clients.
Despite the richness of the natural environment of the Cobscook Bay region
and the people who live here, there are many struggles that residents face.
There is a distinct lack of significant economic development in the area
as well as a long-term reliance on government entitlement programs. Many
people fear that the current practices of managing blueberry crops (which
often involves heavy use of herbicides and clearing of land for blueberry
crops) and managing forested lands, (with clearcutting by small land owners
as opposed to selective cutting) threaten water and soil quality. However,
people realize the economic benefit of these industries to the area.
Traditional fishing, which requires access to common fishing areas, struggles
against the emerging aquaculture industry which leases sites to raise Atlantic
Salmon and shellfish in submerged ocean pens. Recently there has been an
emphasis on moving the aquaculture industry to include "value-added
processing," which keeps the jobs of fileting and deboning in the community
rather than shipping the fish elsewhere to be processed.
Though the fishing industry is taking some strides to keep money within
the community, other issues, such as the creation of public lands (which
are extremely important for tourism in the area) could undermine the struggles
of municipalities to meet the needs of their citizens by depleting the tax
base. Combined, the shrinking municipal revenue and cutbacks in state funding
have affected the quality of education in the area, and towns unable to
provide good education and job opportunities face losing their most precious
resource - the young people in the area. Community groups, themselves, also
suffer from lack of qualified human resources, financial support, and duplication
of project and research efforts. Due to these realities, ideas often die
before beginning.
In response to these challenges, a small group of committed citizens from
the communities on Cobscook Bay formed the "Sustainable Cobscook"
group, which donated hundreds of volunteer hours to determine how sustainable
development on Cobscook Bay could be achieved. A grant proposal was submitted
by the Maine Community Foundation for funding from the Ford Foundation,
as part of a three New England state proposal that would promote sustainable
community development. The criteria for inclusion in the grant proposal,
which featured two communities in the states of Maine, New Hampshire and
Vermont, was for the community to have a dependence on the ecosystem for
their principle livelihood, and to have some degree of grassroots organizing
already in place that emphasizes community planning and the incorporation
of environmental, social and economic factors. The Sustainable Cobscook
group served as this grassroots element, and, when funding was won, really
set to work.
The first commitment of the group was to promote and monitor the health
of the four top values identified by the citizens of the area: the economy,
the natural environment, the quality of education, and the sense of community
and cooperation in and among towns. These values were determined through
a focus group process, which involved three community meetings, advertised
in local newspapers and by word of mouth and each held in different locations
in the Bay.
Participants at each meeting were presented with sustainability concepts,
organized into groups, and then asked exploratory questions such why they
lived in the area, what they would change, what they would protect. Responses
to these questions provided the basis for determining the community values,
and the participatory nature of the questioning ensured authenticity of
the responses. One important aspect of the focus groups was the random grouping
of the participants to avoid segregation by town or class. Not surprisingly,
the participants found that they had more common ground with each other
than they had previously thought, which set the tone for future cooperation
and collaboration.
Once the values of the Cobscook Bay community were clearly determined, a
group of 7-15 people met extensively through the fall and winter of 1994-1995
to determine indicators which would measure the sustainability of the area.
Such a monitoring process would help determine the needs of the community,
and measure the success rates as work to improve the situation in each category
progressed. In a process similar to the value-determining focus groups,
these indicators were brought back to the community during three separate
meetings to ensure that they adequately described the realities of the community.
A list of project ideas was also generated during this process, four subcommittees
were formed to address the values and project ideas (community/cooperation,
education, economy, and environment) and the project idea list was "checked"
with the community on different occasions and in different locations. The
projects which surfaced as priorities in need of funding and development
were: (1) hiring of a community coordinator; (2) establishment of one or
two community centers for information sharing; (3) research on the indicators
which will measure the sustainability of the Cobscook Bay region; (4) support
of clam management and research on the decline of the softshell clam in
the area. An "appropriate activities" loan fund was established,
and project ideas for the creation of a local municipal leadership training
program, and a computer communications network linking the various towns
around the Bay are in development stages. One existing project involves
students of all high school biology levels in raising sea urchins, scallops,
and clams via aquaculture and the community is also trying to develop a
curriculum conference for training teachers how to further use the Bay area
in their science classes.
A self-selected steering committee, which had originally organized the focus
groups, determined the mission, indicators, and project ideas, now had the
task of shifting the management of Sustainable Cobscook to a representative
advisory board in order to fully incorporate the interests of businesses,
environmental groups, citizens, educators and students. The Bay area has
many community organizations from which the advisory board could partially
draw members, among them are the: school boards, paid and volunteer municipal
officials, chambers of commerce, historical societies, the Quoddy Spill
Prevention Group, the Eastport Port Authority, the Sunrise County Economic
Council, the Washington County Technical College Marine Trades Center, the
Aquaculture Innovation Center, the University of Maine at Machias, the Quoddy
Regional Land Trust, and the Quoddy Tides Foundation.
Once the time came to determine the governance and structure of the Sustainable
Cobscook Community Alliance, the group experienced a dramatic breakdown
of members because of different opinions in the financial aspects of the
community initiatives. One group tended to believe that the economics of
managing community projects were secondary to their real purpose, and another
believed in the necessity of a strong structure and to guide the community
development in order to set a precedent for future actions. At this point,
a mediator was called in to build consensus among the group, and attempt
to move forward in determining an acceptable governing structure and budget.
Fortunately, the four subcommittees were still active through this process
of polarization, and individual projects began to move forward without a
formal governing and organizational structure. A meeting will be held in
the fall of 1995 to formally decide upon the governing structure.
Despite the unresolved governing conflict, the Sustainable Cobscook Group
has officially become the Sustainable Cobscook Community Alliance and continues
to be a vehicle for uniting people, ideas, information and money. It presently
facilitates the implementation of projects conceived by other groups of
individuals as well as initiates projects on its own, and its choice of
projects in which to become involved is be guided by the fundamental goal
of developing a sustainable community around Cobscook Bay.
Special thanks to Will Hopkins and Diane Tilton for their input and guidance
in compiling this case study.
Case Study Source: Sustainability
in Action: Profiles of Community Initiatives Across the United States--
American Forum for Global Education. 1995
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URL: http://www.sustainable.org/