This problem is more for the lakes and rivers of inland Maine, then for here on the coast. Private land owners put up "No Trespassing" signs, but can you blame them? It is their own property and they don't have to share it with us. But why is Maine advertising for the entire river fishing or boating on lakes when there's not enough adequate access? Sure it brings people in, but why false advertise?
The state is going to have to buy up this land. It may cost a lot of money, but the money we can gain back from it will be greater. If you establish a public water access in a town that may doesn't have lots of tourists the town will have to provide for that public place and create fishing or boating places. If there are established fishing or boating places people will specifically come there: maybe they'll bring they're own boat up or maybe they'll stay in a hotel, but either way they'll buy from the resources around them. With more public water access people will be able to come and enjoy the recreational fishing Maine has to offer. But our state won't pay attention to this problem unless people speak up.
*In Boothbay, we personally don't have this problem. Our town thrives on tourists and the money they spend here: many of them own or use boats. They also go fishing with our local sport fishermen. We have many places for public access: Grimes Cove, Shipbuilders' Park, Murry Hill, Knickerkane, Knickerbocker Lake, the Waterfront Park, Barrett's Park, Juniper Point, next to the Atlantic Edge, and the Newagen town landing.
This makes a lot of sense to me. In a place that is so reliant upon the tourism, and fishing industries public access to water sources is a vital part of Maine's economy. While I agree that the state should buy up vast amounts of the land I don't think that is a realistic solution at the moment because of the economic hardship but hopefully someday!!
ReplyDeleteHeck ya Tori, Your right we don't have enough places where we can get to where we actually want to fish. I believe that the state should do something but like Eden said its probably not the top priority.
ReplyDeleteI think you got a good idea Tori but, I'm going to have to agree with ede's comment. Our economy just can't afford to buy land at the moment.
ReplyDeleteI agree guys, it's not something that should be done all at once. I think they need to start slowly and build up on it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Eden as well we can't afford to buy land. But the tourists I mean are the ones who do bring in our economy in the summer. They are the ones who basically keep us alive so we can live throughout winter. I think though we should have a limit on fishing and polluting our land. We were here first, and a lot of people live and fish off this land. We are the ones that will have to pay consequences in the future! Good Job.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me think of Ocean Point and how all the summer tourists put up "no trespassing signs." Land is becoming so scarce now-a-days, just adding to the world's laundry list of resources that we are using up. Do you think that this could effect us in the future at all?
ReplyDeleteEden made a good point on how we can't do this all at once but as you said tori, if we can do this a little bit at a time then it should work out.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that Boothbay and Boothbay Harbor originally split because of dispute over water access? I agree with what you said about false advertisement but it's not like we can get public water access for the whole state of Maine! I also agree that there are limited places to boat and fish, even though it's not a problem for us here in Boothbay!
ReplyDeleteSo I agree with everyone on this. This affects especially on us, we are a small touristy, fishing industry town, we rely on it. It's a whole system, if something affects one person in this town, then in some way it affects the rest of us as well.
ReplyDeleteBoothbay Region really does have quite a few places with public water access. We make a lot of money in the summer months, with the tourists and all. Maine is a beautiful place, but it's just not that easy to retrieve all the land available. It would be amazing if we could, and definitely would result in Maine receiving a lot of money. Hopefully in the future things will change!
ReplyDelete... I don't personally own any private land with water access, but those who do should think about making it public! They could even make money off of it!!
Yeah, there is deffinitly some land to spare here too. If only we could come up with the funding!
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