Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Two Economic Reports Highlight Pollock Industry’s Impact in Alaska

October 2, 2025 — A pair of new studies validate the economic importance of the Alaska pollock industry. The Alaska Pollock Fishery Alliance (APFA) paid for two studies prepared independently by Northern Economics and the McKinley Research Group.

Both studies found significant economic impacts from pollock fishing and processing and contributions to Community Development Quota (CDQ) groups. The studies put the value of the fishery at the billions of dollars, including thousands of jobs in the seafood sector and the transportation and other support industries.

Read the full article at Alaska Business

OPINION: Alaska’s CDQ fishery program is too important to be misunderstood

August 24, 2022 — Fish politics run deep with Alaskans, and many of us have strong opinions about fisheries management issues. However, the Aug. 4 commentary appearing in this newspaper from Mike Heimbuch, a sitting member of the Board of Fish (BOF), was simply misinformed. We write to not only set the record straight, but also to make sure his conclusions about fish user groups not prejudge the opinions of the ADN’s readers or other Board of Fish members.

Particularly striking were his mischaracterizations about the Community Development Quota (CDQ) Program, a program whose constituents often come before the BOF and who deserve a fair and impartial forum to advocate for the interests of the 65 Western Alaska CDQ communities. First, they are not Alaska Native corporations. They are Alaska nonprofit economic development corporations whose purpose is to provide economic opportunity, jobs, scholarships and training to its 30,000 Western Alaska residents.

The CDQ program has been in existence since 1992 and is arguably the most successful joint state-federal program in Alaska’s history. The six CDQ groups are estimated to be responsible for approximately 20% of their region’s total employment, with more than $40 million in annual wages to their residents, and more than 1,600 students per year are awarded scholarships. The CDQ groups support millions of dollars in infrastructure grants and funding in Western Alaska to support essential needs like fuel purchases. They are not widely known because they focus their resources and efforts where they matter most, in remote communities like Stebbins, Kwinhagak, Levelock, Atka, St. Paul and Nunam Iqua.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Alaska: With New Report, CVRF Continues Its Fight for More Fish

May 9, 2018 — CVRF is one of six nonprofit groups that manage NOAA’s Community Development Quota (CDQ) program. CDQ was set up in 1992 to bring money into cash-strapped Western Alaska communities by setting aside a portion of Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands fisheries for local commercial use.

Coastal Villages has long been advocating for more fish. Michelle Humphrey is the group’s outreach manager.

According to the report, prepared by the Seattle-based research firm Community Attributes, the most impoverished communities in Western Alaska are served by CVRF and the Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation (NSEDC). These two represent nearly 70 percent of the total CDQ-eligible population. But they receive only about 40 percent of the total CDQ quota.

Sarah Marrinan is an economist with the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which oversees the CDQ program. She says when the program started in the 1990s, each CDQ group submitted a business plan to the state, which determined the allocations based on a variety of factors.

Read the full story at KNOM