Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust aims to bring back the local seafood market.

As recently as the early 2000s, Monterey Peninsula residents could head down to Monterey’s waterfront and pick up fresh, locally caught seafood on one of the city’s two wharves.

But with the collapse of the groundfish fishery – which includes species like sanddabs, petrale sole and rockfish – subsequent regulations drove local fishermen out of the market, even as the fishery as a whole has come back. Today, nearly all the fish sold on both wharves is far more likely to be from Canada or Asia than from Monterey Bay.

The Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust, a nonprofit started in late 2014, aims to change that, and is trying to revive the local fishing economy and rebuild the bridge between local fishermen and the local market.

To that end, the trust – with a funding assist from the Monterey Bay Aquarium – initiated a feasibility study in late November to see what, if anything, can be done to solve the problem.

“Most people you talk to would love to have local fish in local markets,” says Sherry Flumerfelt, the trust’s executive director. “Why is that not working?”

To help find out, the trust hired food systems consultant Karen Karp, whose New York-based Karen Karp & Partners is leading the study, which began a few weeks ago and will wrap in March or April. Her firm will be looking at what infrastructure is already in place, and what the demand is for a local market.

Initial findings show a local marine science community buoyed by the recovery of groundfish, but also fishermen who still feel left out, Karp says. And because a lot of industry infrastructure disappeared with the local fishing economy, she’s trying to get a handle on what’s left.

Alan Lovewell, CEO of Moss Landing-based Real Good Fish – which sells local seafood deliveries to members – and is an adviser to the trust, sees only a limited potential in the near future due to market and regulatory constraints.

The best possible outcome of Karp & Partners’ study, he says, “is that we as a community get a clear understanding about what’s necessary to get more local seafood into restaurants.”