By Margaret Bauman
Alaska Journal of Commerce

Alaska officials have come out in strong opposition to the proposed granting of fish quotas to processors in new federal fisheries plans, but support a limited duration of quota allocations to fishermen.

Gov. Frank Murkowski said the state saw limited-duration harvester quota shares as a tool to provide balanced benefits for harvesters and processors, which in turn will aid Alaska coastal communities.

The state also voiced strong opposition Nov. 15 to regional councils setting harvest limits above the acceptable catch levels developed by fisheries scientists. The state supports a regulatory process that includes public input and biological and socio-economic impact analyses.

The state's recommendations, on the heels of stakeholder meetings held over the past five months, comes as Congress is beginning hearings on reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The federal legislation, which lays claim to all fisheries within 200 miles of America's shoreline, has been slated for reauthorization for nearly five years.

Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, whose name is included in the legislation, chairs the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, and has begun hearings on reauthorization.

Terms of the Magnuson-Stevens legislation govern management of federal fisheries in the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska that are worth nearly $2 billion annually, and serve as a critical component of Alaska's economy.

Murkowski said the management of the fisheries by the state's Department of Fish and Game and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council is recognized as the best in the world. "We are committed to advancing for inclusion in (Magnuson-Stevens Act) the elements of these management processes that have resulted in such successful and sustainable fisheries management," he said.

Murkowski expressed concern that many small provisions in the Nov. 7 Senate Commerce Committee draft would cumulatively shift information, funding and authority from the state to the federal government, an action he sees as a step in the wrong direction.

"I am strongly opposed to weakening the nation's fisheries standards or any shift of state authority to the federal government," the governor said.

Alaska fishermen who attended the stakeholder meetings, particularly in Kodiak, voiced much concern over what are known as rationalization programs, which essentially privatize fisheries by allocating harvest according to the history of participants in the fishery.

While reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act will not impact the recently enacted crab rationalization program at this point, Kodiak likely lost the most skippers and crew from the overhauled crab fishery. Kodiak fishermen think they are likely to lose again in the rationalization of Gulf of Alaska groundfish fisheries, said Sue Aspelund, one of three state officials who presided over the stakeholder meetings.

Theresa Peterson, a Kodiak longline fisherman and representative of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council in Kodiak, said fishermen are concerned about how future rationalization, or limited-access, programs are designed after seeing what happened with the recent Bering Sea crab quota program.

"We are looking for a much more equitable sharing of the benefits for the working fishermen and local businesses that make our communities tick," Peterson said in a statement issued Nov. 15 by AMCC. The council is an organization that works to promote community-based fishing opportunities, and maintains that thriving communities are inextricably tied to the long-term sustainability of ocean resources.

While more than 200 vessels were eligible to fish Bering Sea red king crab under the new program, most leased their fishing quotas to form cooperatives in an effort to cut costs and maximize efficiency. Several hundred skipper and crew jobs were lost, sparking great concern by local governments in the Gulf of Alaska.

The worry is that more limited-access programs will repeat the same scenario, siphoning opportunities away from local businesses and independent fishing families, AMCC officials said.

Each new fisheries program should have measurable conservation, social and economic objectives, be subject to regular reviews and undergo modifications if the program is not meeting those objectives, AMCC officials said.

Margaret Bauman can be reached at margie.bauman@alaska

journal.com.