Saving Seafood

Buyout nets coastal Alaska villages first direct ownership of Bering Sea crab quota

January 13, 2021 — Fishing rights and vessel ownership are transferring from a Seattle-based fishing company to two Alaskan regional economic development organizations and 30 communities.

The seller is Mariner Companies, owned by pioneering Bering Sea crabbers Kevin Kaldestad and Gordon Kristjanson. Two Community Development Quota organizations have purchased the company’s crab boats, and 30 communities have formed limited liability companies to purchase the quota, which amounts to 3% of the Bering Sea opilio and red king crab fishery.

The direct ownership of quota by communities is new in the area served by both Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation and the Coastal Villages Region Fund.

The BBEDC and CVRF are two of the six Community Development Program groups in Alaska, which are allocated portions of Bering Sea resources. The groups can then either lease their rights or develop owner-operator businesses themselves, but the proceeds return to the communities they cover through economic development programs.

Although the communities involved are included in BBEDC and CVRF programs, by establishing new LLCs for the communities, each one is able to have more control over how to best use the revenue the quota brings in.

Read the full story at Alaska’s News Source

Communities in Alaska join forces to buy out crab industry partners

January 7, 2021 — Thirty coastal Alaska communities, the Coastal Villages Region Fund (CVRF), and the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation (BBEDC) announced on 7 January the buyout of Seattle-based Mariner Companies.

The acquisition, according to a release from the organizations, constitutes 3 percent of the total opilio and red king crab quota. In addition to the quota, the CVRF and BBEDC will acquire full ownership of seven crabbing vessels from the company, which is majority-owned by Kevin Kaldestad and Gordon Kristjanson.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ALASKA: Coastal Villages study renews fight over CDQ quota allocations

June 21, 2018 — A new study reaffirms that large and long-standing inequities still exist in a federal program aimed at improving the economic situation in Western Alaska.

Coastal Villages Region Fund commissioned the report conducted by the Seattle-based research firm Community Attributes Inc., which concludes the fisheries allocations in the Community Development Quota Program prevent the groups representing the poorest regions in Western Alaska from fully achieving their mission.

Coastal Villages is the CDQ group for 20 villages on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, which is one of the most economically depressed regions not only of Alaska, but the country as well.

The Western Alaska CDQ Economic Needs Report notes that Coastal Villages serves 35 percent of the population meant to benefit from the program, yet has access to just 24 percent of the pollock, about 18 percent of the crab and 17 percent of the Pacific cod quota dedicated to the CDQ Program.

Those fisheries quotas are allocated amongst the six CDQ groups that cover residents within 50 miles of the Bering Sea coast in an area starting north of Nome on the Seward Peninsula south and west through Bristol Bay and out the Aleutian chain.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce