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Manchias Seal Island: Current Status

The area surrounding the Machias Seal island currently has Canadian inhabitants but the ownership of the island has been fought over many generations. In these waters surrounding the island in the Grey zone is a plentiful stock of lobster that has steadily increased over the years. The grey zone is defined as a disputed area of 110 square miles of water without boundaries which depends heavily on the possession of Machias Seal Island. There have been many changes to the water over the years which has created even more conflict between the two fishermen groups. The first being the influx in lobster around that area that has led to a boom in the lobster industry. In 2016 there were over 132 million pounds of lobster caught by the Americans which is over double that caught in 2000 and is worth 583 million dollars. The Canadians caught over 9 million dollars worth of lobster in 2016 which is more than the Canadian ports had ever taken in. The main reason for this boom in lobster harvest was because of the continually warming ocean temperatures and their increased hatching rates. These warming oceans were pushing the lobster to deep water forcing them to migrate farther north up the coastal areas.

This boom in the industry has led to some major conflict between the Americans and Canadians as to who has rights to these waters to fish these lobsters. As stated by Karen A. Alexander all of this conflict between these two groups started with the drivers of change which are a change in marine environment as well as a concern with security of supply of the lobsters. These drivers are what lead to the competition between the Americans and Canadians along with some exacerbating factors as mentioned by Alexander in their theory. Factors such as the thought of taking/altering what is ours as well as the poor governance of the whole system. The Americans believed that the Canadians were infringing on the waters that they had always been fishing and were stealing their catch so they were taking what was theirs. By seeing the Canadians have increasingly more boats that fish those waters it was thought of as a direct threat to those fishermen and their communities. The Canadians just viewed this as fishing their waters they had always had just never used as intensely.

When it came to poor governance there was uneven attention given by different countries' governments to the issue of lobster fishing in those areas. The Canadian government had heavy patrolling with armed guards making sure Americans stayed on their side of the waters. While the American side did not have as serious of enforcement allowing Canadians to smudge the line more of where the borders were. Overall the governance of the issue is not even between sides. This has become a serious issue and conflict between both fisheries and some sustainable strategies have been at work to better solve the problem. One of the major themes is to commit to understanding sustainable development as well as a better knowledge of the nature and use of marine resources. These fisheries also are needing to look into the maximum sustainable yield of the fishery to make sure the stock will stay stable for years to come. All of these methods for better management of the Lobster stock in the grey zone are being worked on and constantly tweaked as the stock is continued to be fished.

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