The Alaska delegation to the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council signaled a shift in policy at the June meeting in Sitka. The group severed processor ties to harvesters and took steps to sharply curtail transfer and leasing of catch allocations for the Gulf of Alaska rockfish fishery.
The six voting members from Alaska, which include Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Denby Lloyd, represent a controlling bloc of the 11-member federal council that governs the Gulf of Alaska fishing waters.
The Alaska delegation successfully pushed for a dramatic overhaul of the five-year rockfish pilot program scheduled to sunset after the 2011 season.
Council member Duncan Fields of Kodiak said the "important, innovative" structural changes to the rockfish program were intended to not only shape state policy, but national policy as well by emphasizing cooperative fishing over individual fishing quotas.
Read the complete story at The Alaska Journal of Commerce.