By Myron Naneng, President of the Association of Village Council Presidents
I traveled to Mt. Village and Emmonak on Saturday, May 30 to listen to concerns raised by the village community members regarding the upcoming summer fishing season and how restrictions are going to be implemented on the chinook salmon, the stable and food for many families on the Yukon river. Commissioner of ADF&G Denby Lloyd, John Moller, Governor Palin’s Rural Advisor, John Lindermann, Area Fish and Game biologist and supervisor, Danielle Evenson, Chief of research for ADF&G for Yukon River, Sue Asplund, Deputy Director of Commercial Fisheries. The purpose fo the trip was to explain the proposed summer fishing schedule and the restrictions that are going to be imposed on the first pulse of Chinook Salmon, and potentially the second pulse to meet treaty obligations with Canada/US Pacific Salmon Treaty. The treaty obligation has not been met for the last two years, with low chinook salmon escapements crossing the border.
In Mountain Village, the concerns were raised regarding lack of income from commercial fishing by the local community. Families hurting to pay for food and fuel, due to lack of income from salmon fishing. And when commercial fishing was open for chum salmon, many felt that they donated whatever they caught to the fish buyers, due to the high cost of fuel. Some made enough to cover the cost of the fuel they bought to fish commercially and many more ended up having more to pay for than before the season started. Questions were asked regarding the monitoring of the fisheries as it goes up the river. Is the Lower Yukon the only monitored fishery on the Yukon river system? What of some reports of fishermen harvesting at least a 500 to a 1,000 chinook salmon up river while our people on the lower river average about 80? The emphasis by ADF&G is we have to have more escapement and more salmon for subsistence upriver. ADF&G stated that they will closely monitor the chinook salmon with test nets, genetic studies and sonar counts at Pilot Station. What if a large number of chinook salmon are allowed to pass at the Pilot Station sonar? Are both subsistence and commercial fishing going to be open?
One local resident who works at the school district had heard young people at the school say that they are glad that spring and summer are here. ” What are you looking forward to do this coming summer?” Many responded that they are looking forward to fishing this coming summer. With the dismal forecast and imposition of closures, it looks like what they are looking forward to will be limited, if any.
It has happened in the past, when a larger than expected chinook salmon has passed the Pilot Station sonar, the Lower Yukon river fishermen have been forced to sit on the beach.
One of the things that has occurred for the last 10 years is that subsistence and commercial fishing have been closed with imposition of windows, where there are no nets are allowed for certain time period during the week and it was imposed on the Lower Yukon river to allow for more escapement of chinook and chums salmon during the fishing season. These windows were suppose to be Temporary, but it seems now that they HAVE become permanent under the current situation. On top of windows now, we have subsistence fishing restrictions, even closures on certain pulses of chinook salmon. Are closures on the first pulse going to be part of the trend, like the windows while the pollock fisheries is allowed to have a high bycatch and waste? Inshore pollock fisheries occur not far from the docks of Unalaska and Dutch Harbor. Both get high tax rates income from these inshore trawl fleets. Don’t our village subsistence and commercial fisheries deserve just as much?
When asked of the lack of disaster declaration by Governor Palin for the Yukon River, the answer from Governor’s office keeps coming back that the State Legislature had changed the requirements for disaster declaration and it did not meet those requirements and the Governor is concerned and is still committed to find ways to support the communities on the Yukon river. If she is so concerned, why does she not propose language to make changes that would allow her to make a disaster declaration?
The question was raised in Emmonak, as to why it took so long for a response from the Governor’s office to City of Emmonak’s request for an economic disaster declaration. Request was made in October, 2008 and no response until January, 2009.
Commissioner of ADF&G said that the high bycatch rate for chinook salmon motion was because of the lack of support for a lower number by members of NPFMC. The number was eventually reduced to 60,000 with incentives of avoiding the chinook salmon. The question is will the trawl fleet abide by the proposals, as it will not be implemented until 2011? Proposed courses of action by the trawl fleet have not worked. They had high chinook salmon bycatches in 2006 and 2007. These impacts will be seen in the coming years, and we hope there will not be further restrictions and closures of fishing on the lower river, which has become the norm rather than an exception. What more will ADF&G promise? What more will State of Alaska promise to the Lower Yukon people in its management of fisheries on the river. We hope that further restrictions will be lifted in the very near future. High fuel prices have not helped the communities and the residents.
Whenever, we as a Native community work on resource issues, such as international treaties, Federal intrepretation comes down that other federal laws apply and that we are bound by other laws and restrictions that are related to those certain resource issues. Apparently, bycatch of chinook salmon by trawl fleet are not affected by ANILCA, subsistence laws and/or Federal laws that may affect the need for conservation and perpetuation of the chinook salmon stocks.
We can be promised that certain actions will be taken. People will make promises to work with the villages, yet more often than not the ones who end up losing are those with the least amount of money to affect the course of action that can be taken to reduce impacts. Why is there not a subsistence fishing representative on the NPFMC? It is a position that should be considered, as we all get impacted by action taken by the council, not only the trawl fleet, yet we don’t have a subsistence representative to speak on our behalf.
Ultimately, there is hope, however, while we wait for the opportunities to come back again, it seems that some things that were to be temporary may end up being permanent to our Lower Yukon fishermen, both subsistence and commercial. What was once a thriving industry and what our people had looked forward to pay for bills and economy of villages may end up being a story of what has been to be told to our young people in the future. WE are hopeful though despite these hard times. Fuel and food prices in stores have compounded the problem.
The rivers through out the State is where many have gathered their food for centuries, and it does not cost as much as store bought food.
In the village of Hooper Bay, the people in the village were reminded eloquently by an elder that the land is the source of food for the village. We should take care of it like our ancestors did for centuries on our behalf. With the salmon regardless of where it goes to grow and spawn, those should be taken care of to sustain our food source. That is why our people on the river look forward to the spring and summer to be able to gather their food for the winter. We hope that the dismal forecast does not turn out as the forecast. But, given that all human impacts are a factor, we need to have those who are known impactors also participate in the conservation of the resources, such as chinook salmon for all Western Alaskan rivers and streams.
June 5th, 2009 at 6:51 PM
Lets hope the harvest is good for you who depend on it.
June 5th, 2009 at 6:59 PM
Call me crazy but I don’t see why we need to impose any restrictions on indigenous people who are trying to feed their families. Restrict the commercial fisherman who are fishing for money not food.
June 5th, 2009 at 7:44 PM
Very interesting post, Mr. Naneng, on a very complicated and frustrating situation!
Keep fighting for your rights….but don’t trust Palin on any promises of advocacy on the part of the governor’s office. She’s an ill wind blowing over Alaska…..
June 5th, 2009 at 8:03 PM
Guess I ended up in spam anyway, so put the former comment where you will, or just enjoy it yourself!
June 5th, 2009 at 8:11 PM
Thank you for bringing another point of view to this difficult issue.
To have the villages of the Lower Yukon bearing the major conservation measures is not right.
While the pollock industry is not the entire issue it is part we can control and SCIENCE should be setting the policies, not politics.
Hopefully we can work towards a better solution that the proposed cap currently under review.
Please keep us informed as the season moves forward.
Thanks AKM for having Myron as a guest blogger on this issue.
June 5th, 2009 at 8:22 PM
Ditto what Victoria said! Many good people are working on these issues and see the glaring flaws in a system which is not based on experience, history, advocacy or science. The politics in play are trying to pit one group against another instead of coming up with viable solutions. There are so many people that we need to root out of Alaska’s places of power – here is another area where sooner is better! The more scrutiny, the better!
Alaska is worth fighting for – I just say to myself (a thousand times): scrub, rinse, repeat! Thank you Rachel!
June 5th, 2009 at 8:42 PM
Thank you for your invaluable perspective, Mr. Naneng. Please continue your quest to regain your centuries-old ways and should be RIGHTS as a native Alaskan. You have my sincere admiration.
June 5th, 2009 at 9:08 PM
Nicely said. Living in a village on the Upper Yukon we are also concerned about the upcoming fishing.
My mother recently made a comment that we might have to go to the south to ‘dipnet’ for salmon or take a charter out of Valdez or Homer. Especially if the state shuts down the season like it did last year. It got a few chuckles but mostly just a small smile with the tilting of the corner mouth. We know the seriousness of the situation.
June 5th, 2009 at 9:27 PM
I tried researching the Alaska statutes for the particulars on declaring a disaster in Alaska. The statute that covers the governors ability to declare disasters, powers of the governor in an emergency, and amounts that can be expended without requesting permission from the legislature is AS 26.23.020. From my read, this didn’t seem to have anything in it that precluded the governor from making a declaration. I also went to the Alaska State Legislature site to see if there had been updates that would amend the statute. That site is located at this url: http://www.legis.state.ak.us/basis/start.asp. Nothing popped up during my search. Maybe someone else has better information?
OT but very interesting–rumor has it that Tweeter in Chief is now insisting that state employees use Twitter for official communications.
June 5th, 2009 at 10:09 PM
Thank you Myron Naneng for updating us on what’s going on! This is a very frustrating problem and I hope there can be some kind of scientific consensus to resolve these issues, before more people are hurt. The bycatch issue just seems ridiculous and politically driven and simply makes no sense to me.
June 5th, 2009 at 10:15 PM
Mr. Naneng, thank you for this post.
June 5th, 2009 at 10:24 PM
Someone in state government better be making sure all the tweets from the twit and any others in official positions are captured and archived for the public record.
Knowing how little Palin cares for the law and her constituents, I hope some enterprising mudpup is also capturing the twit’s tweets.
June 5th, 2009 at 10:33 PM
Thank you Mr. Naneng, for your post. Many good questions are posed in it, and I hope some good answers will be forthcoming.
June 6th, 2009 at 1:41 AM
Thank you Myron Naneng for the information about fishing for food and fishing for corporate profit. I carefully read your explanation of the situation and its contrived rules that do not favor those living on native lands. I am appalled at the apparently built-in restrictions on the native villagers that severely hamper fishing for food and living traditional village life. American pursuit of happiness…for whom?
The recent news of Somali piracy off the coast of its shorelines sounds horrible on the surface; the people who relied on fishing to live and feed their families resorted to piracy because fishing rights have been sold to the highest bidders in China and Europe. Many Somali who relied on fishing to survive were left to starve. It is wrong that any people who have been provided a way of life that worked since time began should have to suffer lack basic needs (fishing for food; work, food).
Both situations are unconscionable. Greedy, selfish individuals (and corporations who are run by greedy people) will only give up the pillaging when people of good-will who care about the earth and its first peoples change the way of doing business. It is categorically wrong to get rich at the cost of deliberately infringing of the right to life to others. It is not right to overrun the livelihoods of people who only wish to continue a way of life that the corrupted see as a less valuable way to live.
‘Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.’ (Fredrick Douglass, 1854)
Keep up the righteous struggle for fishing rights for the villages.
June 6th, 2009 at 3:00 AM
Maybe Sarah will bring a plate of cookies to these villages?
June 6th, 2009 at 4:06 AM
Not sure if it would work, but if all the fishermen and women just go out and fish anyway, what will happen? Will they be arrested? Will the “law” arrest them all? Then perhaps the media will pay attention and some thing can get moving. It’s risky and scary, but civil disobedience is what founded this great country.
I’m so sorry your governor is such a short-sighted, misanthropic, racist puppet.
June 6th, 2009 at 5:15 AM
Well said Ripley in CT.
June 6th, 2009 at 5:28 AM
Thank you Mr Naneng .
I especially appreciate your remarks that all human activities which impact the fishery must part of the effort to conserve and manage the resource.
Competing interests and jurisdictions have diffused and scattered impacts as well. The overarching goal to manage the Chinook fishery scientifically has yet to take enough shape to sort out the responsibility each impactor must bear to sustain viable Chinook returns.
Spot closures such as this one worry me above and beyond the important issue of whether the lower Yukon folks are bearing more than their due burden. This is has the feel of a closing-the-henhouse-door-after-the-fox thingy .
Real study of impact on the WHOLE Chinook fishery regarding bycatch in sea waters is sadly lacking. Are we are losing too many fish before they even make it to the rivers ?
In the case of the Yukon, as we must sustain enough numbers to meet a treaty obligation with Canada , do we continue to penalize Alaskans who live on the rivers to sustain ocean fishing of pollack?
Regarding the ability of the ghastly gov to declare an economic disaster- the rules did change after the 1998 fisheries disaster. The law as written is fine- tying it to UNadjusted-for-Alaska federal income levels in regs seems to be the bad guy.
Why the gov or Legs have not tried to address this openly and perhaps changing it is starting to tick me off big time. Lots of hand-fluttering and spouting off about how we-can’t-do-anything is the worst of what govt can be. Laws are made to meet our needs. We need to address what constitutes our needs!!!!!!!!!!!!
June 6th, 2009 at 5:36 AM
@Ripley in CT -
Depending on where and how a closure operates all the folks could and likely would have their boats and gear impounded and pay huge fines.
Part of the problem is the TOO many jurisdictions thingy… AK F&G on the Ak part of the river , various feds on ocean (NPFMC inc), Dept of State on Canada treaty…blah,blah,blah
Everyday people stuck trying to figure out where THEIR place is in the mess…
June 6th, 2009 at 6:00 AM
VERY well said sir! please publish this in as many papers as possible, send it to all the legislators, send it to the president, send it to everyone in the federal government that is involved. Get your word out, please!
Governor Sarah Palin says she “always” puts Alaska first. Well she had better prove it in this area hadn’t she. You ask SO many good questions, and you deserve answers. I would submit them to her office, you have to put pressure on her! Don’t let her “spin empty answers”.
“If she is so concerned, why does she not propose language to make changes that would allow her to make a disaster declaration?”
” Why is there not a subsistence fishing representative on the NPFMC? It is a position that should be considered, as we all get impacted by action taken by the council, not only the trawl fleet, yet we don’t have a subsistence representative to speak on our behalf. “
June 6th, 2009 at 6:09 AM
This is some really interesting stuff. At some point, you should collect all of your “local interest” essays and publish them.
June 6th, 2009 at 6:11 AM
Palin likes to “brag” about the Alaska’s “Frontier Spirit” and Alaskans “Unique way of life”, yet she doesn’t protect it.
She is using words only, with no action behind her words. If she can’t walk her talk, she is lying every time she repeats these things.
June 6th, 2009 at 6:27 AM
22 Say NO to Palin in Politics Says:
Palin likes to “brag” about the Alaska’s “Frontier Spirit” and Alaskans “Unique way of life”, yet she doesn’t protect it.
——————
The ghastly gov has no understanding of how government supports the people who live under it…
At whatever level we submit to be governed , those we choose to govern us must have the vision to see us ALL… even with those silly glasses the ghastly gov can’t see beyond her narrow view of Wasilla as the center of the universe. What happens on the Yukon is beyond her ken…
And her ears don’t work very well either. Mr Naneng’s voice here, Mr Tucker’s voice months ago…
We just need to keep acting as megaphones for the bush… blow her off her feet if nothing else.
June 6th, 2009 at 7:26 AM
Is there any way to get some version of this post on the Huffington Post? Maybe on the Green page? More light needs to be given to the plight of these villages.
June 6th, 2009 at 9:19 AM
Quyana Myron for keeping attention on this issue. So many questions and no answers. Seems like we are just being placated with empty promises. I suppose ADF&G and other State agencies including the Governors Office think if they just keep making promises and never actually doing anything then eventually we will just give up.
Hmmm if that is the ASSumption they are making they are dead wrong. There is no way we can afford to give up. We desperately need our salmon fishing not only commercially but also subsistence to keep our families fed.
They really need to look at the science of this. Basing everything on guess work isn’t going to solve anything. Nor will letting the big pollock fisheries benefit at the cost of subsistence.
We need to realize that we have rights and if we don’t speak up for those rights our people will go hungry this winter. For too long we have just been dictated to/ruled over and this needs to stop!
Quyana Cakneq Myron for using your voice and speaking up on this very important issue!
Ann
June 6th, 2009 at 9:54 AM
What I find interesting is that Walt Monegan told sarah that this was going to happen last/this year in SW Alaska, but she ignored his concerns for the well being of Alaska and of Alaskan citizens.
We know that Sarah can not admit to making mistakes even at the expense at others well being.
June 6th, 2009 at 9:57 AM
Just found the Reference to Validate what I posted above.
http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/national/hawaiialaska/38665642.html
Letter to the world from rural Alaska
Whether the correspondence reached state officials may be up for debate, but news reports mentioning the impending crisis can be found dating back at least six months. In July KTUU, an Anchorage TV station, ran a story on the poor fish runs and its impact on the Yukon Delta and on Emmonak residents. On July 12 departing Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan wrote a letter to state officials asking them to pay special attention to the looming crisis in rural Alaska.
June 6th, 2009 at 11:20 AM
I’m with Super Bee:
“Call me crazy but I don’t see why we need to impose any restrictions on indigenous people who are trying to feed their families. Restrict the commercial fisherman who are fishing for money not food.”
There is way too much money in politics, and not nearly enough respect for indigenous cultures, common sense, or justice.
June 6th, 2009 at 5:28 PM
Quyaana for the information. I really mean that. Please dont let my words below dimish my quyaana, okay?
If, our dipstick of a govenor,
is so hell bent on not letting
“the Feds” take over WHATEVER,
her mosquito size brain might dream up,
she sure is setting up the perfect storm,
for Federal takeover of the Canada treaty!
The clueless wonder states she won’t get into fish politics. Total CRAP.
Denby, her Commissioner of Fish and Game, is Chair of “the Feds” side of fisheries management. Denby has got to be smilin, cause of Palin’s mosquito size ability to reason. Denby can sit back and make STATE residents comply for compliance to the Canada treaty. And our dipstick things she has any balls to say a word? NO WAY. Palin only practices, her families version, of political fisheries abstinence.
Denby manuvers to make state residents comply with the treaty and Palin whines, complains & spreads fear about “the Feds” taking over. She can’t see beyond her own nose.