Saving Seafood

Alaska fishermen cheer passage of the Young Fishermen’s Development Act through Congress

December 28, 2020 — A new federal act will set aside funds annually to support fledgling fishermen, pending approval from President Donald Trump.

The Young Fishermen’s Development Act passed through both houses of Congress this month with strong support from all three Alaska legislators. If enacted, the act would fund training and mentorship opportunities for commercial fishermen who are just entering the industry.

It would be the first program of its kind for fishermen. The U.S. government already sponsors comparable professional development programs for young ranchers and farmers.

Grants and program funding would come from Congress. But it would be up to local communities to decide how to use funding.

“So local nonprofits or Native organizations can apply and propose projects that make sense for that year,” said Marissa Wilson, executive director of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council. The council is one of the nonprofits that brought the idea for the act to Rep. Don Young’s desk five years ago.

Read the full story at KTOO

ALASKA: Pandemic pushes fishing activists to call for more government support

July 30, 2020 — Before this year’s salmon season, federal disaster funding was mostly unavailable to small-boat fishing businesses. Then, Congress amended the Paycheck Protection Program at the beginning of July so that fishermen could apply. A little later, it extended the program’s application deadline until August 8.

That was a big relief for many fishermen in Alaska.

“My family and I are salmon fishermen,” said Jamie O’Connor, a Bristol Bay set-netter who fishes in Ekuk and serves as the Working Waterfronts director for the Alaska Marine Conservation Council. “It was really difficult for us to quantify our impacts before our season had happened, so we were really happy to see that there had been an extension and some alterations to the program to allow us to participate.”

At the peak of this year’s sockeye run, O’Connor’s processor put the fleet on limits — the company, and many others in Bristol Bay, told fishermen not to fish due to freezer and capacity issues.

“We missed probably half to a third of our season in those three days,” O’Connor said. “It was a hard thing to sit through, especially with all of the effort that went into preparing for this season. To have done more on the front end to make sure we could do this safely and then just sit out the run was crushing.”

Read the full story at KTOO

Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization bill advances in US House

December 14, 2017 — By a 22-16 vote on Wednesday, the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Natural Resources advanced HR 200, the Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act, legislation introduced by representative Donald Young, an Alaska Republican.

The bill was one of 15 scheduled for markup Tuesday and Wednesday by the panel.

With just days to go before Congress breaks for the holidays, the bill to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Act so far has not received much attention in the Senate. Chances are strong that the debate over the measure will continue well into 2018.

However, that didn’t stop the ocean conservation group Oceana from responding, issuing a statement that warned HR 200 “would weaken science-based conservation of U.S. fish populations and increase the risk of overfishing by removing annual catch limits for many species”.

Oceana campaign director Lora Snyder called the vote “a slap in the face to anyone who cares about ensuring the health of our nation’s fisheries, instead jeopardizing decades of progress in ocean conservation. … [It]  would roll back decades of progress, leading us back down the path to oceans empty of fish and fishermen losing their livelihoods.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Despite recent tweaks, New England fishermen want more changes in law

January 13, 2017 — Despite tweaks to fishing guidelines in 2016 aimed at increasing regulatory flexibility, some New England groundfishermen and recreational fishermen still support a move to amend the Magnuson-Stevens Act, sources told Undercurrent News.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA’s) recently made changes to a guideline known National Standard One (NS1), but there will still likely be a push from east coast fishermen to amend the Magnuson-Stevens Act as Republican president-elect Donald Trump takes office.

The effort intends to bring more “flexibility” to fishery management, sources told Undercurrent News. 

In October of 2016 NOAA made changes to NS1, which aims to prevent overfishing while achieving the optimum yield from each fishery.

Changes were first proposed in January 2015, and the final rule passed in October 2016 giving regional councils more latitude to set catch limits, a change that was opposed by environmental groups.

Call for flexibility 

Fishermen, particularly on the US east coast, have been critical for several years of what they say are rigid timelines that give regulators ten years to rebuild stocks deemed overfished.

Some sources told Undercurrent that the lack of flexibility sometimes forces regulators to severely — and some say, unnecessarily — cut quotas when fisheries are nearing the 10-year mark. If a fishery has shown improvement and is nearing its goal, they claim, it makes no difference in the long run whether they reach that goal in the allotted ten years or sooner.

“I think that it’s possible that those new guidelines acted as a relief valve for that pressure. I don’t know that you’re going to get as much pressure to create flexibility in the act that you would get two years ago,” Shannon Carroll of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council told Undercurrent.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

ALASKA: Gulf fishermen wary of Congressional intrusion into council process

April 7, 2016 — Gulf of Alaska fishermen suspect that Washington, D.C., politics might come into play for fisheries regulations they want left to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.

A letter circulated by the Alaska Marine Conservation Council and signed by 250 Gulf of Alaska fishermen and residents was sent to each of Alaska’s three congressional delegation members.

The letter asks that the Alaska’s representatives in the nation’s capital oppose any legislation intended to press Gulf of Alaska fisheries regulations.

“Specifically, we request our Alaska delegation to support development of a Gulf of Alaska Trawl Bycatch Management Program (aka catch share) in the Council process so all stakeholders may contribute to a transparent process,” the letter asks.

“Please do not support any attempt to circumvent the council process through legislation in Washington, D.C., as that would effectively preclude Alaskan coastal communities and stakeholders from having a direct voice in the process.”

During ComFish, an annual Kodiak commercial fisheries booster event, Stephen Taufen of Groundswell Fisheries Movement acknowledged writing the letter and said that the Congresswoman in question is Rep. Jaime Hererra Beutler, R-Wash.

Beutler, a representative of southwest Washington, sits on the House Appropriations Committee. Much of the Gulf trawl industry is based in Seattle.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce