Film: A Coastal Partnership (2012)

A Coastal Partnership: Maritime Stories of Integrated Management

A Film by Sarah Bood for the Coastal CURA

Across the Canadian Maritimes there are many unpublicized stories of coastal community heros, groups of people working together to protect the health of their fisheries, watersheds, and community heritage. 

From the beginning, some of the uniqueness of the Coastal CURA project has come from the variety of media that CURA partners have used to assess, discuss and address the challenges of managing coastal resources and spaces in the Maritimes. Community members’ place-based knowledge and experience, so diverse in form and content, came to be reflected in a variety of manners, from research publications and the development of management plans, to others that defied the traditional academic format, such as learning circles, skills workshops, and film.

A Coastal Partnership is a documentary that focuses on two First Nations and two fishery associations: Lennox Island First Nation in Prince Edward Island and Bear River First Nation in Nova Scotia; the inshore fishery of southwest New Brunswick, and the independent clammers in Digby-Annapolis, Nova Scotia. Linked together through the Coastal CURA, members from these communities have been working with academics to identify what they need to become more involved in coastal management decisions.

This film, a Coastal CURA capstone project, was produced as a collective effort, not only to share the perspectives of the four coastal communities but also to be used as a reflective tool for coastal community residents in general (both within the Canadian Maritimes and beyond). Moreover, the film contains success stories and important lessons about the role of local values, the realities of sharing space and access to resources, and the process of increasing local participation in coastal management.