Saving Seafood

ALASKA: State voids Area M restrictions after Aleutians East argues ethics violation

May 27, 2026 — The Alaska Department of Law has voided regulations aimed at restricting the Area M commercial salmon fishery.

The regulations were passed by the state Board of Fisheries in February, and quickly challenged in a lawsuit filed by the Aleutians East Borough, the Native Village of Unga, and two commercial fishing groups. They argued the regulations couldn’t be enforced because the Board of Fisheries violated state ethics laws while adopting them.

The groups dropped the lawsuit Wednesday after the state revoked the new rules, with both sides agreeing to end the case.

Area M has long been at the center of a fight over salmon conservation in Western Alaska, where low chum and Chinook returns have led to major restrictions on subsistence fishing.

Read the full article at KUCB

State Agrees to Void All Five Challenged Area M Fisheries Regulations

May 21, 2026 —  The following was released by the Aleutians East Borough:

On May 20, 2026, the Acting Attorney General of Alaska disapproved all five commercial salmon fishing regulations challenged in a lawsuit by the Aleutians East Borough, the Native Village of Unga, Area M Seiners Association, and Concerned Area M Fishermen — acting under the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act as a matter of state government accountability, independently of the pending litigation. With the relief they sought granted through the state’s own ethics enforcement process, the plaintiffs are dismissing the lawsuit.

The Acting Attorney General’s action is a complete vindication of the plaintiffs’ central claim that Board members with undisclosed conflicts of interest cast the deciding votes to restrict the Area M fishery, and a historic accountability moment for a body whose ethics practices have long escaped scrutiny.

The lawsuit, filed April 3, 2026, in Alaska Superior Court (Case No. 3AN-26-05959CI), alleged that the Board’s February 2026 Area M proceedings were fundamentally compromised by ethics violations at the voting stage. The complaint alleged these violations rendered the Board’s votes on the five challenged regulations unlawful under Alaska’s Administrative Procedure Act (AS 44.62) and Executive Branch Ethics Act (AS 39.52), and that the deciding votes on three of those regulations were cast by a member and/or members with undisclosed conflict(s). According to the May 20th letter disapproving the regulations, the Acting Attorney General issued an Order of Corrective Action on May 19, voiding all five regulations under AS 39.52.430(c) and AS 39.52.330 — the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act — confirming that the ethics violations alleged in the complaint were not only valid, but decisive.

The State’s decision to invalidate all five regulations — Proposals 126, 127, 141, 147, and 148 — removes the most damaging restrictions on the Area M fishery before they could take effect in June 2026. Proposals 126 and 127, adopted by a 4–3 vote, would have dramatically reduced open fishing time and area for commercial purse seine and gillnet gear in the South Alaska Peninsula. Proposal 141 imposed closures during the post-June fishery tied to chinook catch thresholds. Proposals 147 and 148 changed maximum net depths for both gear types, with those changes set to take effect in 2027.

According to the original complaint, the combined effect of all five regulations would have created “a derby-style fishery that will likely result in increased chum and chinook harvest.” The Alaska Department of Fish and Game — whose role at Board of Fisheries meetings is to provide scientific counsel on conservation objectives and the management measures best suited to achieve them — testified at the February 2026 meeting that the existing adaptive management program was working, presenting years of data and demonstrated catch reduction results as evidence. The Board overruled that counsel and adopted all five regulations anyway, producing an outcome its own scientific advisors warned would undermine the very conservation goals the regulations claimed to serve.

The May 20th letter from the Acting Attorney General to the Lieutenant Governor disapproved the regulations based on a previous, undisclosed Order of Corrective Action issued under AS 39.52.430(c) and AS 39.52.330 — the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act — the same statutes the plaintiffs cited in their complaint. The order does not merely settle a legal dispute; it is an exercise of the state’s own ethics enforcement authority, invoked because the Board’s February 2026 proceedings could not withstand scrutiny under Alaska law. The disapproved regulations may not be filed or take effect unless the Board re-adopts them through a new, lawful process.

Plaintiffs had sought to resolve the ethics violations through every available administrative channel before filing suit. Six federally recognized tribes formally notified the Board in writing of the conflicts on February 13, 2026. The Board failed to act. After the Board Chair, who oversees the Board’s ethics determinations, twice declined to address the ethics issues during the meeting itself, a representative of the Unga Tribe filed a formal complaint with the Alaska Attorney General’s office on February 23, 2026. That complaint went unanswered for 42 days. The plaintiffs filed suit on April 3. Within weeks, the State moved to resolve the case by voiding all five regulations.

The resolution also vindicates the Area M fishermen’s record of voluntary conservation. Under the adaptive management program in place since 2022, Area M fishermen reduced average annual June chum harvest by 50% compared to the five-year pre-program average — a 32% reduction against the ten-year average. The seine fleet voluntarily stood down an average of 291 hours of fishing time per season. In 2025, the drift fleet joined the program, standing down 554 hours across 28 vessels and 64 separate stand-down events. The program earned documented support from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Commissioner. The Board voted to dismantle the program anyway. Those regulations are now void.

The Acting Attorney General’s invocation of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act to void these regulations confirms what these communities have long argued: that the Board of Fisheries has a systemic ethics problem that demands a systemic response. Under Board of Fisheries policies, responsibility for overseeing ethics disclosures and conflict-of-interest compliance rests with the Board Chair. At the February 2026 meeting, the Board Chair twice declined to address documented ethics concerns raised on the record – concerns that the Acting Attorney General has since determined were valid and dispositive by voiding the regulations adopted at that Board meeting.

The plaintiffs call on the Alaska Legislature and the Office of the Governor to commission an independent, public review of the Board’s adherence to its own policies, ethics disclosure requirements, and public process obligations — including how the Chair’s ethics oversight responsibilities were discharged — and to deliver enforceable recommendations to the Legislature and the public. The Board of Fisheries makes decisions that shape the economies, cultures, and ways of life of communities from Southeast Alaska to the Arctic — decisions with generational repercussions. Alaskans deserve a board that follows its own rules, discloses its conflicts, and earns the public trust it is given. The plaintiffs and the communities they represent will measure the response to this call by one standard: whether such a review is commissioned, completed, and acted upon.

“The people of this Borough have stewarded these waters for generations. We know what responsible management looks like, and we know when the process has failed us. The State’s agreement to void all five regulations is the acknowledgment this region deserved: that the process was broken, and that we were right not to accept it,” said Mayor Alvin Osterback of the Aleutians East Borough.

“The fishermen I represent have spent years working side by side with state biologists, building a conservation program grounded in trust, transparency, and shared goals. That is how fisheries management is supposed to work. We expected nothing less from the Board of Fisheries. This outcome makes clear that public process and public trust are not optional, and that those who disregard them will be held accountable,” said Kiley Thompson, President of Area M Seiners Association.

“As a tribal leader, my obligation is to protect a way of life our people have maintained since time immemorial. When the system failed to protect that, we had no choice but to fight for it. Every door was closed to us, and still we fought,” said Heather Thompson, Vice President of the Native Village of Unga.

“The permit holders I represent have built their lives and their families’ futures around this fishery. When a flawed process threatens that, we have an obligation to stand up and fight back. Today, that fight paid off, and it sends a clear message that the integrity of the Board of Fisheries process matters to fishing families who depend on it,” said Steve Brown, President of Concerned Area M Fishermen.

Plaintiffs are represented by Taylor Rose Thompson of the Law Offices of Taylor Thompson (Anchorage, AK) and Beth Baldwin and Eleanor Bohn of Ziontz Chestnut LLP (Seattle, WA).

About Aleutians East Borough: The Aleutians East Borough is a municipality encompassing communities along the Alaska Peninsula and Eastern Aleutian Islands, including Sand Point, King Cove, Cold Bay, False Pass, Akutan, and Nelson Lagoon. Commercial fishing is the economic foundation of the Borough and its municipal budget.

About Native Village of Unga: The Native Village of Unga is a federally recognized Indian tribe headquartered in Sand Point, Alaska. Tribal members and their Unangan ancestors have utilized the local ocean fishery for over 9,000 years for both subsistence and commercial purposes.

About Area M Seiners Association: Area M Seiners Association is a 501(c)(6) non-profit based in Sand Point, Alaska, representing commercial salmon fishermen holding CFEC limited entry permits in the Area M Fishery.

About Concerned Area M Fishermen: Concerned Area M Fishermen is a 501(c)(6) non-profit based in Homer, Alaska, representing fishermen holding CFEC limited entry and interim use permits in the Area M salmon fishery.

Aleutians East Borough sues Board of Fish over new Area M salmon regulations

April 14, 2026 — The Aleutians East Borough, the Native Village of Unga and two Aleutian fishing groups are asking a state court to void fishing regulations adopted at a February state Board of Fisheries meeting.

The lawsuit, filed in the Alaska Superior Court last week, asks to overturn five regulations for the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian commercial salmon fishery known as Area M. The borough is leading the lawsuit alongside the Native Village of Unga — a federally recognized tribe based in Sand Point — the nonprofit Concerned Area M Fishermen, which represents permit holders for the fishery, and the Area M Seiners Association — another nonprofit representing commercial harvesters in the region.

The plaintiffs say the new regulations would cause them significant financial and emotional harm, impacting the local communities that rely on fish tax revenue from the fishery.

Read the full article at KNBA

ALASKA: Aleutians East Borough files formal ethics complaint for a conflict-of-interest vote in suspending Alaskan conservation program

March 25, 2025 — The Aleutians East Borough in Alaska filed a formal ethics complaint with Alaska’s Attorney General regarding a vote taken that approved the dismantling of an adaptive conservation management program.

The complaint alleged that a council member who voted should have recused themselves from the February Alaska Board of Fisheries meeting due to a conflict of interest.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Aleutians East Borough files ethics complaint after Board of Fisheries Area M decision

March 9, 2026 — The Aleutians East Borough is asking the state to investigate whether a member of the Alaska Board of Fisheries acted ethically during a vote on restrictions to the Area M salmon fishery.

Borough Mayor Alvin Osterback and representatives from several tribes in the region say they filed a complaint with the Alaska Department of Law on Feb. 23. They say a member of the Alaska Board of Fisheries had a conflict of interest when he cast a tie-breaking vote last month in favor of restricting the Area M fishery.

The complaint argues that Curtis Chamberlain of Anchorage should have recused himself because he is an attorney at the Calista Corporation, a Western Alaska Native corporation that has advocated for stricter limits on the fishery.

Read the full article at KYUK

OPINION: Rural Alaska is suffering. Shutting down the Area M fishery isn’t the answer.

February 6, 2023 — I was born and raised in the Interior, in the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim (AYK) region, to be exact. I grew up in a community that depends on subsistence fishing, and my childhood memories are dominated by recollections of my father, my mother and countless other members of my family and broader community going out on boats and bringing back the fish that our people have harvested and survived on for generations. I grew up fishing for subsistence, and I know how deeply important it is not only for physical survival but for the survival of our cultures and the identities of Native people across Alaska.

I have lived in False Pass seasonally over the past 10 years and have raised my kids there. They have been raised to know subsistence and value it. They have created their own memories, both in False Pass and in the AYK region with my family. I have seen the harvests change in my lifetime, from years of abundance to some years where there is nothing at all, and I am brokenhearted by the impossible situation many communities in the AYK — including the one I grew up in — find themselves in with increasingly diminished salmon runs. However, I know that shutting down the fishery often referred to as Area M that my community and many, many other communities in Western Alaska depend on will not solve any of the problems the AYK is facing. Instead, it will cause more communities to suffer. We know this because every major research study and dataset demonstrates that limiting or shutting down Area M fisheries will not solve the salmon return crisis in the AYK. This conclusion is also that of the Department of Fish and Game, supported by both NOAA and Fish and Game studies demonstrating the impact that five-plus years of poor ocean conditions have had on AYK chum salmon.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Area M, Where Alaska commercial and subsistence fishing interests collide

July 14, 2022 — There have been clashes over regulating Area M for decades, but the battle heated up after the Yukon-Kuskokwim chum crashes began. This is the first in a three-part series.

Kuskokwim fisherman Fritz Charles grew up in Tuntutuliak, on the lower river. There were so many fish then that his parents would put away literal barrels of them. His job as a child was to pack the dry fish tight in the barrels using a special method.

In 2021, chum runs took a sharp downward turn. It was the worst year on record for them on the Yukon River, and it’s the same story on the Kuskokwim. This year, the runs on both rivers are at their second lowest.

In 2021, 153,497 summer chum salmon swam up the Yukon River. That’s compared to an average of about 1.7 million summer chum. The river was missing about 1.5 million fish.

At the same time, Area M commercial fishermen caught 1,168,601 chum at sea while subsistence fishing on the rivers was closed. In the midst of the smallest chum run western Alaska subsistence users had ever seen, Area M fishermen were catching more than ever before.

Do the subsistence fishermen in the Y-K Delta or the commercial fishermen in Area M have a greater claim to the chum? About a decade ago, a comprehensive salmon genetics study of the Area M fishery confirmed that most of the chum caught in the region, around 60%, are bound for coastal Western Alaska. But when you start to break that number down further, that’s where things get complicated.

Read the full story at KTOO