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Joint Legislative Task Force on Evaluating Alaska’s Seafood Industry Completes Its Third Round of Meetings
Anchorage, AK – This week, the Joint Legislative Task Force on Evaluating Alaska’s Seafood Industry completed its third round of meetings discussing solutions the legislature can undertake to bolster Alaska’s seafood industry. Task force members include Senator Gary Stevens, Chair, R-Kodiak, Senator Jesse Bjorkman, R-Nikiski, Senator Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau, Senator Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, Representative Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, Representative George Rauscher, R-Sutton, Representative Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, and Representative Sarah Vance, R-Homer.
Wednesday’s meeting featured a presentation from researchers and economists at Coastal Cultures Research LLC and the UAF College of Fisheries that focused on commercial fishing permit outmigration from local communities and suggested ways to improve access to commercial fishing in Alaska waters. These included creating new permit classes based on location and economic needs, restructuring the permit transfer process to encourage younger and new fishermen, and allowing local organizations to acquire permits and hold them in trust to remain within that specific community for new fishermen who meet eligibility criteria.
The task force also heard from Seamark, a start-up seafood industry consulting and R&D firm, urging the need to spur investment through tax credits, research and development, and improving value-added processing incentives.
On Thursday, the task force heard from four of the six Community Development Quota (CDQ) groups on the necessity of continuing science-based fisheries management to ensure sustainability, investing in aging infrastructure to support coastal fishing communities, and increasing training and fisheries access for small-scale fishermen throughout the state.
The task force also heard from four salmon hatcheries around the state. They emphasized that hatcheries produce $576 million of economic impact in Alaska and contribute 20-25% of the state’s salmon harvest. They also emphasized the need to continue critical state funding, address deferred maintenance of hatcheries, and streamline coordination between state agencies for efficient management.
“As we step further into understanding the challenges the fishing industry faces, it has become clear that the legislature has a number of levers that can be pulled to support new infrastructure, provide tools to modernize an aging fleet, and encourage emerging technologies to suit the needs of fishing in the 21st century,” said Sen. Stevens. “This, along with increasing opportunities for access, we can provide long-term sustainability for the industry along with increased economic opportunities for Alaskans.”
To watch the task force’s November hearings, you can replay Wednesday’s hearing here, and Thursday’s hearing here, or you can visit www.akl.tv.
The next task force meeting will be held on December 10 and 11 at the Anchorage Legislative Information Office. Please write to: AKSeafoodTaskForce@akleg.gov to contact the committee with any questions.
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