As Tribal Leaders We Call For Collective Action For West Alaskan Salmon Now

Updated: 5 hours ago Posted: 6 hours ago

Last summer, fish racks, smokehouses and fishing lodges across the Yukon, the Kuskokwim rivers and the Norton Sound area in the western part of our state were empty. Chinook and chum salmon are essential to the lives of nearly 100 regional tribal communities and are central to our cultures. However, they did not return this year to a large part of our regions. Our people are now facing a winter without this essential food source and missing an essential part of our traditions and way of life.

While the tribes along our rivers were not allowed to harvest a single salmon or were severely limited in their harvests last summer, the industrial fleet of Bering Sea hake trawlers, widely located outside the State, is authorized to catch large quantities of salmon as bycatch. In 2021 alone, 12,000 chinook salmon and over 500,000 chum salmon have so far been caught as bycatch in the pollock fishery in the Bering Sea. Waste is not acceptable according to our cultural values, which guide us to take only what we need and to use whatever we take. This level of bycatch – viewed by the industry as rejected salmon – is disrespectful and should not be allowed.

Tribes and communities have done their part to help protect and restore our salmon runs by forgoing our subsistence crops, undertaking research and bearing witness to our experiences in the midst of this salmon collapse. Earlier this month, we called on the North Pacific Fisheries Management Board to do its part by reducing this bycatch to zero by 2022 and taking strong action towards a long-term solution to eliminate the bycatch of salmon and restore the abundance of salmon runs.

[Special report: ‘We’ve never seen this before’: Salmon collapse sends Alaskans on Lower Yukon scrambling for scarce alternatives]

While the Council pledged to take longer-term action, it ignored our call to recognize that the subsistence fishing families of Western Alaska deserve to harvest the fish they we’ve been catching, cutting and sharing for at least 12,000 years. Their failure to eliminate bycatch of salmon from the pollock trawler fleet in 2022 is a huge disappointment to us as it proves that industrial fishing is privileged over our subsistence lifestyles.

Additionally, the State of Alaska has a majority on the Council and the ability to make decisions that are in the best interests of the State and our people. State decisions through the Council have a direct impact on our lives as fishermen, but our 229 federally recognized tribes do not have a vote in their processes.

The (in) actions of the Council make it clear that there is a need to change the laws governing our federal fisheries, in particular the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Representative Huffman (D-CA) introduced a bill to re-authorize the MSA, which includes two tribal voting seats and strengthens the requirement to reduce bycatch. It is high time that the tribes had seats at the decision-making table, as they do in the Pacific Northwest Parallel Council.

We all share a common goal of restoring our salmon runs. We need the State of Alaska and Federal leaders including Home Secretary, Commerce Secretary, Rep. Don Young (R-AK), and Senators Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), eliminate salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea, provide tribal leadership and decision-making in these processes, and fund salmon restoration programs and co-management and research efforts tribal.

Our tribes prefer to be totally immersed in our subsistence way of life, harvesting abundant chinook and chum salmon with our families, rather than participating in management systems that we lack. Yet as it becomes clear that our Bering Sea ecosystem and salmon populations are collapsing around us, it is essential that tribes are no longer excluded from management decisions that have the power to help – or continue to harm – our lifestyles.

Our fish racks, smokehouses and fishing camps remain empty. The trawler fleet continues to catch and waste salmon. The Council may not have acted, but our work to restore abundant salmon populations and continue to practice our lifestyles is far from over. The well-being of our descendants now depends on our collective action.

Marie peltola is the Executive Director of the Kuskokwim River Intertribal Fish Commission, which represents 33 tribes along the Kuskokwim River.

Brooke woods is the Executive Chairman of the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, which represents 28 tribes along the Yukon River.

Melanie Bahnke is the chairman of Kawerak, a tribal consortium representing 20 tribes from the Bering Strait region of Alaska.

The opinions expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a wide range of views. To submit an article for review, send an email comment (at) adn.com. Send submissions under 200 words to [email protected] Where click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and comments here.