Kodiak Daily Mirror
December 16, 2004

Kodiak residents weigh in on NPFMC meeting

By Jan Danelski

Attending the North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting that ended Tuesday in Anchorage was, “an interesting learning lesson,” said Pete Thompson, fisherman and concerned, longtime Kodiak resident. “For six days I didn’t leave the hotel.

“For me the last half hour of voting on seven IFQ actions was like watching a high-stakes game of poker in Vegas. I had to ask what was happening. The whole formal procedure is pretty awesome,” Thompson said.

The council heard seven days of testimony, much of which related to groundfish rationalization in the Gulf of Alaska and the imminent implementation of crab rationalization in the Bering Sea.

“I truly feel, for some of my issues, testifying had an impact,” Thompson said.

Fisheries consultant Linda Kozak also monitored IFQ issues.

“One action I think stands out for Kodiak fishermen is the council’s final action on block holdings of halibut IFQs,” she said.

Small amounts of individual fishing quota of halibut are grouped into blocks, which in turn are tied to specific areas. Before the council’s final action during their Dec. 8-14 meeting, fishermen could hold only two blocks per area. If one wanted to buy more poundage, he or she had to sell one block before buying a bigger one, Kozak explained.

“This action is good for the small-boat fleet,” Kozak said.

In addition to IFQ issues, Kozak was at the meeting to track proceedings on Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands crab rationalization.

The council’s plan was put into law when it passed the U.S. Senate as a rider to the omnibus spending bill earlier this year, she explained.

At last week’s meeting, the council spent a day and a half examining the writing of the proposed rule which will eventually implement the crab rationalization program.

“There were no comments on changes (to the rationalization plan), only consistency,” Kozak said.

Terry Haines, who currently crews on the F/V Shuyak, went to the council meeting as a representative of FishHeads, a group of 267 members which is open to anyone in or linked to the fishing industry.

“It’s a local policy group to petition the council,” Haines explained.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect when I went, but I found quite a few people from Kodiak and other coastal communities there with similar concerns: No. 1 is access to the fish,” Haines said.

“Most of us are afraid that this (the GOA groundfish industry) will become an absentee business.

“A lot of plans link harvest vessels to processors,” Haines said. “This takes the free market out of it.”

Another concern fishermen have, Haines said, is that plans for rationalization which include cooperative links between vessels and processors could allow boats to pool their rights and use only one harvester to take all the fish.

“This eliminates jobs for crew and skippers,” Haines said.

FishHeads is concerned that the council’s alternative plan could threaten free-market enterprise; allow the owner of fishing rights to be somewhere other than on board during the fishing effort; and eliminate jobs for crew, Haines said.

“There were so many of us there testifying,” he said. “Everyone did a good job. I think it went a long way toward having them understand what it’s like on the grounds.”

Julie Bonney of Alaska Groundfish DataBank said: “The good news (from the council meeting) is we did the quota-setting process for all groundfish species in ’05 … and GOA pollock is up 29 percent,” she added.

Bonney, who represents trawl catcher vessels and processors, kept an eye on the GOA rockfish pilot program. This first effort to rationalize a small part of GOA groundfish is slated to go in the water by mid- 2006 or early 2007, Bonney said.

As regards the big picture, Bonney favors a rationalization plan for the Gulf that ties processors and harvesters together to encourage capitalization of the processing sector. Otherwise, she predicts, Kodiak and other coastal communities will see minimal processing locally. Secondary, value-added processing will be done somewhere else.

In addition to the many fishermen and, as one antendee put it, “the highly professional presence of big-picture interests,” coastal village interests were well represented.

Sven Haakanson of the Alutiiq Museum attended the Anchorage sessions. He points out that the council is going to appropriate fishing resources based on their use during the last 30 years.

Some 15,000 to 20,000 people lived here before outside contact exterminated 90 percent of that population, Haakanson said.

“If you really want to look at historical use of the fisheries you have to go back 7,500 years,” he said.

Rationalization without consideration for coastal villages could result in “stripping away our ability to build sustainable communities,” Haakanson added.

Freddie Christiansen of Old Harbor testified at the council meeting.

“I felt very positive about everything. The outcome is impossible to predict, but I feel being able to stay part of the analysis (of the proposed alternatives for GOA rationalization) is good.”

Christiansen explained that it is not a share of the fish so much as access to the fish that is important in rural communities.

“It is crucial,” he said.

Both Haakanson and Christiansen stress that coastal communities have been totally dependent on the Gulf for almost 8,000 years. The council must understand this, they said.