UMaine Grad Student Using Canadian Research Grant to Study Legal Building Blocks of North Atlantic Fishing Boundaries
Contact: George Manlove at (207) 581-3756
ORONO — By studying the early creation of international laws that divide up what once were the world’s most lucrative fishing waters, off the Canadian Maritimes and New England, University of Maine Ph.D. student Brian Payne hopes to help prevent overfishing elsewhere.
Such is the basis of research Payne is doing in preparation for a doctorate in history. His proposal is considered so relevant that the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. recently awarded him a $5,800 research fellowship grant. In the next year, the Orono resident will spend time in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Ottawa studying the creation between 1871 and 1910 of legal boundaries and fishing rights in the North Atlantic. He hopes to complete his dissertation the following year.
Whether fish stocks on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and Georges Bank off Maine and Massachusetts are too depleted for successful restoration is for scientists to determine, Payne says, but he believes his research is applicable to future policies in the Northeast and to fisheries elsewhere in the world, including the Pacific Northwest. The historical perspective on the original laws governing fisheries in the Northeast can help policy-makers create more successful management policies, he says.
“I think these legal debates from 1871 to 1910 were the building blocks for understanding fisheries from an international perspective,” he says. That knowledge can allow further understanding of how to take a more international view of management and governance, according to Payne.
Fierce debates over questions of policy and law governing who can fish when, where and how continue today, both in government and in the fishing industry. Governments have sought to lay claim to and protect their stake in international waters and the fishing fleets dragging the ocean floor and setting gill nets seek to preserve jobs and salvage a critically threatened fishing industry.
Starting from the beginning, much of Payne’s work will examine the ways in which national authorities imposed themselves on an international resource economy.
“The study will examine diplomatic and legal records to uncover how authority in the North Atlantic was negotiated between competing international factions, and between those who orchestrated law enforcement and those who had legal authority imposed upon them,” is how the Canadian Embassy website describes Payne’s research.
Winning the Canadian Embassy fellowship was a rigorous and competitive process. To be selected from a field of other grant applicants, Payne needed to submit to the Canadian government letters of reference, a synopsis of his research plans and a detailed, 40-page research plan and prospectus.
“They’re extremely selective about granting these awards,” says Scott See, chair of the UMaine History Department, and Payne’s advisor. “I’m sure that one of the reasons why he was selected was because he’s doing a borderlands study.”
See acknowledges the many legal and social implications of Payne’s work, and believes the Canadian Embassy recognizes that Payne’s research will advance the legal, environmental and practical research that already has been done in the field.
Payne intends to spend five months working in the provincial archives and Saint Mary’s University and the Gorsebrook Institute in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and also the National Archives in Ottawa.
During his stay in Halifax, Payne wants to work with people who work in fishing and members of the public about fishing boundaries and regulation. “I hope to be part of the debate over fisheries restoration,” he says, and show through the history of international maritime law the underlying philosophy that led to today’s rules.
The Canadian government traditionally awards a limited number of research grants to students and researchers outside Canada in cases where the work will largely involve and benefit Canada.
According to See, UMaine students have an excellent record when it comes to winning research grants from the Canadian Embassy.
“We’ve been extremely successful in getting these awards,” he says. “That’s certainly a sign of the quality of our students and the strength of our program.”
Payne is a native of Youngstown, N.Y., near the Canadian border. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, N.Y., and a master’s in history at the University of Maine, Orono in 2001. He currently is a teaching assistant in the history department at UMaine.