A
veteran fisherman who served on the city council at Kodiak, Alaska, says commercial
fishermen need to speak up in support of improved crew licenses, with a number that
would track economic contributions of crew to local economies.
“We
need a crew license with a number that would stay with you for the rest of your
career and track you,” Terry Haines told participants in ComFish 2012 at Kodiak
in mid-April. “Then if a boat made a delivery, authorities could get the information
on the value of the fish, who was in the boat.”
That
way, fishermen could be kept track of throughout the industry to see how much money
they are making and its impact on fishing communities, Haines said.
Haines
noted that the Alaska Municipal League, in which he is a participant, has a policy
statement calling for robust crew data collection and use of social and economic
data in framing fisheries management programs.
Haines
said Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, who spoke earlier at ComFish, should be contacted
by fishermen because he could be a real advocate for this change.
Haines
and many other Kodiak residents are concerned about how privatization of the crab
fishery through the federal crab rationalization program has hit their community
in the pocketbook. He spoke of his concerns of capital flight when rights in a fishery
are given to specific user groups and the price of leasing such rights goes sky-high.
“We
have basically given 100 percent rights of harvest to people who can move to Arizona,
while working fishermen have to stay in the community and work on boats,” Haines
said. “Eighty percent lease fees for crab leases seem to me excessive.”
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