Sushihunter
Active Member
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/alaskas-mafia-style-fisheries-management
Alaska's Mafia-style fisheries management
Craig Medred | Aug 17, 2011
Editor's Note: This is part one of a two-part series looking at how fisheries regulations impact Alaska fishermen, particularly the small businesses that rely on fishing and drive the economies of many small Alaska communities. Part two will explore who it is that regulates Alaska's fisheries and what they stand to win or lose in that regulation.
This is a story about one of the most powerful families doing business in the 49th state, though most Alaskans do not think of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council as a family. The members are not related by blood, and a goodly number of them to do not even live in Alaska. Theoretically at least, they aren't even supposed to be a family, let alone engaged in business.
By law, "the council family," as University of Alaska Anchorage economist and long-time observer Gunnar Knapp describes the NPFMC, is supposed to be the watchdog for the marine resources of the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. This, it can be argued, the family has done well.
But that is not all the council family does.
The council family also doles out the rights to harvest more than $2 billion in U.S. fisheries resources. The council family has significant power to manipulate where this money goes. That power has become an issue this summer because the council family wants to take about 1.4 million pounds of halibut away from small, often mom-and-pop-owned charter fishing businesses in Southcentral Alaska and give the halibut to commercial fishermen.
The charter businesses are not part of the council family. The charter businesses say the council family plan would bankrupt them. The commercial fishermen poised to get the extra halibut are part of the family, and they say that what is happening is only fair.
Their argument goes like this: The biomass of halibut in the waters off Alaska is declining. This has forced the International Pacific Halibut Commission -- a treaty group that oversees management of halibut for Alaska, Canada and Russia -- to steadily lower the allowable catch. Since the commercial catch is tied to biomass reductions, it has been going down. The charter halibut catch, meanwhile, has stayed steady below a fixed guideline harvest level. As a result, a halibut charter catch that once took about 15 percent of the biomass in Cook Inlet and the northeast Gulf is now pushing toward a 20 percent allocation.
MORE: Halibut charter fishermen sue Feds
Ignored in this discussion of fairness is the fact that since commercial fishermen were given an ownership interest in halibut in 1995 with the creation of what are called "individual fishing quotas," the value of commercially caught halibut has risen dramatically. Halibut worth $1.50 to $2 per pound dockside in 1995 now bring $6 to $7 per pound at dockside. The 2010 halibut catch of slightly more than 40 million pounds was valued at almost $200 million to commercial fishermen. That is more than double the value of a similar size catch in 1995 and significantly above the value of peak catches of more than 60 million pounds per year in the early 2000s.
Simply put, commercial fishermen are now working less, catching fewer fish, and making a lot more money. The same is not true of the charter businesses, which have struggled along with other Alaska tourism businesses in the wake of a softening U.S. economy. The value of halibut to these businesses has increased little, but they struggle on as key components of the economies of many small, rural Alaska communities like Homer, Seward, Ninilchik and Kodiak.
Homer bills itself as "The Halibut Capital of the World." The city that stretches out onto a spit in Kachemak Bay near the south end of the Kenai Peninsula is home to commercial halibut processors and a number of commercial halibut fishermen, but the town title is tied to the charter fishing businesses that help fill the community with tourists every summer.
The owners of those businesses say the hammer the National Marine Fisheries Service is preparing to bring down on them at the behest of the council family will prove economically deadly.
Mafia-style halibut fisheries management
Capt. Greg Sutter of Homer and dozens like him admit they don't understand exactly why this is happening. But then they have spent little time watching the political intrigue of the council family. They have lived with faith in the strangely American expectation that the government will treat them fairly and equitably. They have little sense of the Mafia-style operation running this show.
Ed Rasmuson does. He is a former member of the council family. A lifelong Alaskan and heir to the banking family that helped finance the transition of Alaska from a territory to state, Rasmuson was in the early 2000s named to the council to help keep an eye on the interests of the charter businesses and the tens of thousands of anglers -- Alaskans and tourists -- that fish for halibut near small Alaska coastal communities. Rasmuson quickly discovered how difficult the task.
"The problem, of course, is this: The commercial fishermen feel they have the God-given right to the fish," he said.
Nothing would make commercial fishermen happier than to eliminate any competition for halibut. Nothing would better serve their purposes than for all of the charter businesses to go under. That would leave only the recreational fishery to deal with, and sport fishermen in Alaska are notoriously disorganized. If the council family can sink the sport-fishing businesses that have a financial interest in preserving a recreational fishery for halibut, long time observers of Alaska fish politics said, it will be a lot easier to cut back the catch of individual, recreational anglers who lack a financial interest in what is going on and thus usually don't pay attention to fishery regulations until it is announced their bag limits have been cut to a single fish.
The single-fish bag limit -- possibly a single-fish with a maximum-size limit -- is what is now being proposed for the charter fishery. Charter operators say the council family might as well as just slit their throats. The size limit would kill the famed Homer Jackpot Halibut Derby, the oldest fishing competition in the state. And any one-fish bag would kill who knows how many charters, many of which say they already struggle to sell people on charters with a current two-fish limit.
Largely because of sky-high fuel costs, a day-long charter out of Homer today costs on average about $250. That's $125 per fish if an angler catches the limit. With the average charter-caught halibut running 15 pounds or less, this translates to a cost of about $8.30 per pound for whole fish. A tourist, or Alaska resident, who drives to Homer could shop around on the docks and buy fish for less from commercial halibut longliners, who are now getting $6.50 to $7.25 per pound for their catch from processors.
Alaska's Mafia-style fisheries management
Craig Medred | Aug 17, 2011
Editor's Note: This is part one of a two-part series looking at how fisheries regulations impact Alaska fishermen, particularly the small businesses that rely on fishing and drive the economies of many small Alaska communities. Part two will explore who it is that regulates Alaska's fisheries and what they stand to win or lose in that regulation.
This is a story about one of the most powerful families doing business in the 49th state, though most Alaskans do not think of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council as a family. The members are not related by blood, and a goodly number of them to do not even live in Alaska. Theoretically at least, they aren't even supposed to be a family, let alone engaged in business.
By law, "the council family," as University of Alaska Anchorage economist and long-time observer Gunnar Knapp describes the NPFMC, is supposed to be the watchdog for the marine resources of the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. This, it can be argued, the family has done well.
But that is not all the council family does.
The council family also doles out the rights to harvest more than $2 billion in U.S. fisheries resources. The council family has significant power to manipulate where this money goes. That power has become an issue this summer because the council family wants to take about 1.4 million pounds of halibut away from small, often mom-and-pop-owned charter fishing businesses in Southcentral Alaska and give the halibut to commercial fishermen.
The charter businesses are not part of the council family. The charter businesses say the council family plan would bankrupt them. The commercial fishermen poised to get the extra halibut are part of the family, and they say that what is happening is only fair.
Their argument goes like this: The biomass of halibut in the waters off Alaska is declining. This has forced the International Pacific Halibut Commission -- a treaty group that oversees management of halibut for Alaska, Canada and Russia -- to steadily lower the allowable catch. Since the commercial catch is tied to biomass reductions, it has been going down. The charter halibut catch, meanwhile, has stayed steady below a fixed guideline harvest level. As a result, a halibut charter catch that once took about 15 percent of the biomass in Cook Inlet and the northeast Gulf is now pushing toward a 20 percent allocation.
MORE: Halibut charter fishermen sue Feds
Ignored in this discussion of fairness is the fact that since commercial fishermen were given an ownership interest in halibut in 1995 with the creation of what are called "individual fishing quotas," the value of commercially caught halibut has risen dramatically. Halibut worth $1.50 to $2 per pound dockside in 1995 now bring $6 to $7 per pound at dockside. The 2010 halibut catch of slightly more than 40 million pounds was valued at almost $200 million to commercial fishermen. That is more than double the value of a similar size catch in 1995 and significantly above the value of peak catches of more than 60 million pounds per year in the early 2000s.
Simply put, commercial fishermen are now working less, catching fewer fish, and making a lot more money. The same is not true of the charter businesses, which have struggled along with other Alaska tourism businesses in the wake of a softening U.S. economy. The value of halibut to these businesses has increased little, but they struggle on as key components of the economies of many small, rural Alaska communities like Homer, Seward, Ninilchik and Kodiak.
Homer bills itself as "The Halibut Capital of the World." The city that stretches out onto a spit in Kachemak Bay near the south end of the Kenai Peninsula is home to commercial halibut processors and a number of commercial halibut fishermen, but the town title is tied to the charter fishing businesses that help fill the community with tourists every summer.
The owners of those businesses say the hammer the National Marine Fisheries Service is preparing to bring down on them at the behest of the council family will prove economically deadly.
Mafia-style halibut fisheries management
Capt. Greg Sutter of Homer and dozens like him admit they don't understand exactly why this is happening. But then they have spent little time watching the political intrigue of the council family. They have lived with faith in the strangely American expectation that the government will treat them fairly and equitably. They have little sense of the Mafia-style operation running this show.
Ed Rasmuson does. He is a former member of the council family. A lifelong Alaskan and heir to the banking family that helped finance the transition of Alaska from a territory to state, Rasmuson was in the early 2000s named to the council to help keep an eye on the interests of the charter businesses and the tens of thousands of anglers -- Alaskans and tourists -- that fish for halibut near small Alaska coastal communities. Rasmuson quickly discovered how difficult the task.
"The problem, of course, is this: The commercial fishermen feel they have the God-given right to the fish," he said.
Nothing would make commercial fishermen happier than to eliminate any competition for halibut. Nothing would better serve their purposes than for all of the charter businesses to go under. That would leave only the recreational fishery to deal with, and sport fishermen in Alaska are notoriously disorganized. If the council family can sink the sport-fishing businesses that have a financial interest in preserving a recreational fishery for halibut, long time observers of Alaska fish politics said, it will be a lot easier to cut back the catch of individual, recreational anglers who lack a financial interest in what is going on and thus usually don't pay attention to fishery regulations until it is announced their bag limits have been cut to a single fish.
The single-fish bag limit -- possibly a single-fish with a maximum-size limit -- is what is now being proposed for the charter fishery. Charter operators say the council family might as well as just slit their throats. The size limit would kill the famed Homer Jackpot Halibut Derby, the oldest fishing competition in the state. And any one-fish bag would kill who knows how many charters, many of which say they already struggle to sell people on charters with a current two-fish limit.
Largely because of sky-high fuel costs, a day-long charter out of Homer today costs on average about $250. That's $125 per fish if an angler catches the limit. With the average charter-caught halibut running 15 pounds or less, this translates to a cost of about $8.30 per pound for whole fish. A tourist, or Alaska resident, who drives to Homer could shop around on the docks and buy fish for less from commercial halibut longliners, who are now getting $6.50 to $7.25 per pound for their catch from processors.
