My Turn: Banking on Alaska’s fishing future

February 21, 2016 North Pacific

Many people our age have written wills. Have you? It’s a good idea, of course, because wills preserve family harmony while planning for ways our youth can prosper. Many in the fishing industry feel the same. As fishing leaders gathered in Juneau this week for the United Fishermen of Alaska board meeting, Symphony of Seafood and other events, we have to look past our industry’s near-term challenges and focus on our collective “will” to ensure Alaska’s local fishing legacy lives on. Linda Behnken of Sitka, Edward Davis of Hoonah, Duncan Fields of Kodiak and Norman Van Vactor of Dillingham are long-time leaders in the commercial fishing industry. Read the Op-ed here 13:27

Alaska's fishing future, Duncan Fields of Kodiak and Norman Van Vactor of Dillingham, Edward Davis of Hoonah, Linda Behnken of Sitka

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The New England groundfish debacle (Part III): who or what is at fault? Nils E. Stolpe/FishNet

It took me a while to decide how to most accurately describe the situation that has been visited upon the New England fishing communities that are and since colonial times have been dependent on the groundfish fisheries.

NILS STOLPE: The New England groundfish debacle (Part IV): Is cutting back harvest really the answer?

While it’s a fact that’s hardly ever acknowledged, the assumption in fisheries management is that if the population of a stock of fish isn’t at some arbitrary level, it’s because of too much fishing. Hence the term “overfished.” Hence the mandated knee jerk reaction of the fisheries managers to not enough fish; cut back on fishing. What of other factors? They don’t count. It’s all about fishing, because fishing is all that the managers can control; it’s their Maslow’s Hammer. When it comes to the oceans it seems as if it’s about all that the industry connected mega-foundations that support the anti-fishing ENGOs with hundreds of millions of dollars a year in “donations” are interested in controlling. Read the article here

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