Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Alaska to Study Fishing in Protected Arctic Waters

April 17, 2o23 — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) has said that it is preparing for an eventual end to the longstanding moratorium on commercial fishing in U.S. Arctic waters.

Speaking last month during the Arctic Encounter Symposium held in Anchorage, Alaska, ADF&G Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang said his department is seeking $1 million in state funds and another $2 million in federal funds to work on research aimed at understanding sustainable fishing in the Arctic, in the event it happens there.

“As fish stocks move north around the circumpolar north – and fishing fleets from other countries follow them – Alaska should not be left out. We see opportunities for our coastal communities to develop fisheries. And we certainly do not want to be left onshore while Russia and other countries go out and fish those waters,” said Vincent-Lang, according to the Alaska Beacon.

If the funding is approved, the scientific research will identify stocks north of the Bering Strait that are capable of being developed into commercial fisheries. Thereafter, ADF&G will draft a fishery management plan, determining participants and possibly allocating shares by communities.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

Alaska tribal groups sue federal fisheries managers, seeking action on salmon crisis

April 12, 2023 — Two of Alaska’s largest tribal groups have sued the federal government, alleging federal regulators are mismanaging Alaska’s billion-dollar pollock and cod fishery amid an ongoing salmon crisis in central and southwestern Alaska.

The Association of Village Council Presidents, which includes 56 tribes in the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta, and the Tanana Chiefs Conference, which includes 42 tribes in Interior Alaska, filed suit Friday in U.S. District Court against the National Marine Fisheries Service and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

Yukon-Kuskokwim tribes go to court over Bering Sea groundfish

April 12, 2023 — Alaska tribal leaders from the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers regions filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the National Marine Fisheries Service, seeking a new review of groundfish catch limits in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands.

Years of restricted chinook and chum salmon seasons have resulted from salmon bycatch in the pollock trawl fishery, contends the lawsuit by the Association of Village Council Presidents and Tanana Chiefs Conference, now represented in court by the nonprofit environmental law group Earthjustice.

The lawsuit claims NMFS “relied on outdated environmental studies and failed to consider monumental ecosystem-wide changes that have occurred in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands ecosystems over the last two decades.”

Subsistence fishing in the Yukon and Kuskokwim regions has been cut back over years. Tribal advocates who say salmon bycatch is a major factor are pressuring NMFS and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to put more restrictions on bycatch in the pollock trawl fishery.

Since at least 2007, western Alaska chinook salmon stocks have been in decline, followed by collapses in chum and coho salmon stocks over the last three years, the lawsuit says.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Western Alaska chum bycatch limits are moving forward — slowly

April 12, 2023 — Proposals to limit chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea are moving ahead, but slowly. After reviewing recommendations over the weekend, the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council asked for further analysis to help develop possible chum bycatch limits or additional regulations on the Bering Sea pollock industry.

It’s a small step in a slow federal fishery management process.

Supporters of bycatch limits say reducing the accidental catch of chum and chinook salmon in the Bering Sea could help improve runs along the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers, which have seen record-low returns in recent years. But the pollock industry is pushing back.

Mellisa Johnson is government affairs and policy director for the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim Tribal Consortium and a member of the council’s advisory panel. She said while the council is moving in the right direction, the motion doesn’t immediately address villages along the Yukon and Kuskokwim that have been hit hardest by the chum and chinook crash.

“Indigenous people … have provided testimony [that] they have not been able to fish for three years,” she said. “There’s a high possibility that they may not be able to fish with 2023 being the fourth year.”

Salmon is central to life in Western Alaska. Residents, environmentalists and other pro-subsistence advocates spent hours testifying in favor of bycatch limits last week, describing the devastating impacts to food security and Indigenous culture without it.

“Hopefully there’s enough other salmon species runs that will work to accommodate the food security issues, but it’s really hard to say … that [Western Alaskans are] going to get their needs met,” Johnson said. “More than likely, that’s not going to happen.”

The Western Alaska salmon crash is likely driven by a number of factors, including climate change. It’s not certain new bycatch limits would improve the runs, since only about 10% of chum intercepted in the Bering Sea are headed for Western Alaska, according to genetic studies.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: SalmonState releases statment regarding testimonies to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council

April 12, 2023 — After days of testimony and comments from hundreds of Alaskans over the course of its week-long April meeting, SalmonState views that the North Pacific Fishery Management Council has failed to meaningfully address the issue of the pollock trawl fleet’s bycatch of chum salmon, king salmon, herring, halibut, snow crab, Bristol Bay red king crab, and many other species.

SalmonState claims that instead of recognizing the need to manage Alaska’s oceans as an ecosystem and accepting its own Salmon Bycatch Committee (SBC) and Advisory Panel’s (AP) recommendations for a range of measures to reduce chum salmon bycatch, the Council threw out the guidance of the advisory boards they charged with developing this very proposal and assigned the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to start again from square one in proposing a cap. They say this decision postpones any meaningful action for this fishing season at the very least.

Read the full article at KINY

ALASKA: Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute aiming efforts at growing Southeast Asia, Latin America markets

April 12, 2023 — Facing higher tariffs and an unfriendly trading atmosphere, China is no longer a viable market for seafood from the U.S. state of Alaska. So the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, the promotional board for Alaska seafood, is turning to Southeast Asia and Latin America as alternative options.

In late March, ASMI Global Marketing and Strategy Senior Director Hannah Lindoff told the Alaska House Fisheries Committee her organization has opened a regional office in Bangkok, Thailand, initiated a marketing campaign in Southeast Asia, and expanded its Brazil marketing program to cover the entirety of Latin America.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Three Alaska tribes sue over permits for Donlin Gold Mine

April 11, 2023 — Three tribes in the Kuskokwim River region of Southwest Alaska filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, challenging federal agency permits for the Donlin Gold Mine, billed as potentially the world’s largest open pit gold mine.

Project backers NovaGold and Barrick Gold Corp. began working in 2012 for permits to open a mine 10 miles north of the Kuskokwim River. In echoes of the Pebble Mine project vetoed in January by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Donlin opponents say the planned mine and its rock waste would pollute salmon spawning streams that flow into the Kuskokwim River.

Tribes suing to halt the proposed project are Orutsararmiut Native Council, Tuluksak Native Council and the Organized Village of Kwethluk, represented in court by the nonprofit environmental law group Earthjustice.

“Citing three fundamental flaws in the environmental and subsistence analyses and authorizations for the project,” according to a statement from Earthjustice, “the lawsuit challenges key authorizations of the massive open pit mine including a federal permit allowing thousands of acres of wetlands to be filled and a federal authorization granting access across federal lands for a 316-mile pipeline from Cook Inlet to the mine site.”

Read the full article at National Fisherman

In unprecedented move, federal council takes no action on Cook Inlet salmon plan

April 11, 2023 — A federal council made the unprecedented decision to take no action on choosing a new fishing management plan for Cook Inlet commercial salmon fishing Friday, after it said it was left with no good options on a tight, court-ordered timeline.

That means management of the fishery will likely fall to the federal government — which council members and Cook Inlet fishermen warn could severely limit the fishery.

At its April meeting in Anchorage, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council was supposed to choose between several potential management plans to delegate management of the Upper Cook Inlet commercial salmon fishery. The council manages fishing in Alaska’s federal waters, which start three miles offshore.

But council members, audibly frustrated, said none of the options before them were viable.

“The court-mandated timeline has forced this council into a box that we find ourselves in,” said Andy Mezirow, a charter boat captain out of Seward who sits on the council. “For these reasons, I can’t support any of the alternatives before us today, and I hope the public notes that fisheries management on a tight court-mandated timeline does not allow us to do our best work.”

The council’s been trying to figure out what to do with the fishery for years, following a lawsuit from the United Cook Inlet Drift Association over management of the fishery.

In 2020, in response, the council voted to close a large swath of Upper Cook Inlet to commercial salmon fishing. That area — called the exclusive economic zone, or EEZ — is where drift fishermen say they catch a majority of their fish. Kenai Peninsula fishermen and advocates showed up, en masse, to the 2020 meeting to object to the closure.

UCIDA sued, once again, to overturn the decision. The court sided with them last June and the state reopened the fishery just as the 2022 season was starting up.

That was a temporary fix. At its meeting this month, the council was supposed to choose a new fishery management plan, or FMP. It’s under court order to have a plan in place by 2024.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

Proposed Bering Sea Marine Sanctuaries Topic of Roundtable Thursday After First Day of NPFMC

April 5, 2023 — This Thursday, after the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s first day, a public roundtable discussion on two nominations for National Marine Sanctuaries in Alaska will take place from 5:30-7:30, Alaska time. Hosted by NOAA Fisheries, the discussion will cover the recently nominated St. George Unangan Heritage from St. George Island and Alagum Kanuux (Heart of the Ocean) from St. Paul Island, the two largest of the Pribilof Island group.

During this roundtable, NOAA will share information about the process for nominating and designating national marine sanctuaries and for attendees to share their perspectives and ask questions regarding the process and NOAA’s inventory of successful nominations.

Addition to the inventory does not guarantee that a nominated area will become a national marine sanctuary. National marine sanctuary designation is a separate public process that by law, is highly public and participatory, and often takes several years to complete.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com