I am attaching a story which ran in our local paper this morning to bring your attention to the plight of our brothers and sisters in Western Alaska. This serious problem was recently exascerbated by a recent vote of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) that voted to increase the chinook (king) salmon by-catch for the pollock industry to 60,000 fish. That number is almost twice the amount of by-catch than the 10 year average of chinook caught by the industry.

Our brothers and sisters in Western Alaska are crying out for support. They will go hungry, and as winter begins to show its signs of arriving, I am affraid their plight will become even worse. They are, by this action, doing what we at Greenpeace have always done: peacefully protest. However, the difference is, it seems to me, is that for them it is a matter of survival immediately and personally.

Perhaps we can help by writing the Secretary of Commerce. His email address is: TheSec@doc.gov. Simply request that he reviews the decision made by the NPFMC to increase the chinook by-catch amount and bring that number down from 60,000 fish to at least 30,000 fish. When that number is reached, which is not likely, the pollock fishery would be forced to shut down for the season.

Please share this with your friends. Our people need our support. Perhaps they are taking a page out of our action book by doing this protest.

Troopers investigate Yukon River protest fishing YUKON RIVER: AVCP president says state should crack down on pollock fleet, not subsistence.

A Six boats left the village of Marshall on Friday night -- a time when subsistence fishing was supposed to be closed -- and caught roughly 100 kings, said Nick P. Andrew Jr., one of the fishermen and director of the Marshall-based Ohogamiut Traditional Council. Andrew said the state is neglecting the subsistence needs of the region and that the protesters gave their catch to local elders, widows and other villagers. The chinooks are a key source of food and cash along the Yukon, but Fish and Game predicted poor returns this year, banning commercial fishing altogether and sharply reducing subsistence opportunities.

Andrew said he hasn't heard from the authorities yet, but troopers said Tuesday that they're on the case. "If in fact a protest fishery occurred, I am very disappointed," said Colonel Gary Folger, wildlife troopers director. "We will conduct an investigation and if it discloses criminal behavior occurred, we will present our findings to the district attorney's office for review." The violation would be a misdemeanor. The state could also seize equipment.

The Association of Village Council Presidents, which represents 56 villages in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region, supported the protest. "Other villages that need king salmon should do the same thing," AVCP President Myron Naneng said this week. If the state is so worried about the king salmon run on the Yukon, it should have pushed for tougher restrictions on the Bering Sea pollock fleet that wastes thousands of king salmon a year, Naneng said. Fish and Game Commissioner Denby Lloyd sits on the council that overseas the Bering Sea fishery and voted in April to put an unprecedented cap on the number of salmon the fleet can waste. Regional leaders say the new restrictions go too easy on the trawlers. On Tuesday, Naneng called for Gov. Sarah Palin to replace Lloyd as Fish and Game commissioner, saying the state favors the giant Bering Sea pollock industry over the interests of village residents. Calls to speak to Lloyd on Tuesday were returned by John Hilsinger, the Department's director of commercial fisheries. He said he couldn't talk in detail about why the state didn't push for tighter restrictions on the pollock fleet because he wasn't involved in that discussion. But he noted the council's vote will put the first-ever cap on wasted salmon, one that would prevent massive bycatch like the 120,000 salmon that trawlers caught in 2007. The new cap could take effect in 2011.

"I know some people on the Yukon wish it was more than that, but it is definitely a step in the right direction," Hilsinger said. Camille Boliver, 73, is a retired fisherman who grew up in Marshall, a village of about 400. "Ever since I was young I had enough king salmons to feed my family all winter long," he said. But this year, most of the kings have already passed by the village and he only has three in his freezer. The protesting fishermen gave them to him, he said. Steve Hayes, who manages the Yukon chinook run for Fish and Game, said he sympathizes with fishermen concerned about bycatch but denounced the Marshall protest. "Not only are they jeopardizing the future returns, but it's unfair to the other people around them who are actually following the rules," he said. Talk of civil disobedience over the king salmon fishery had been simmering for weeks among regional leaders. The fishermen left the village Friday night carrying copies of a resolution by the local traditional council supporting the protest, Andrew said. "We were ready to send a message to the fishery managers, to the governor and to big business -- meaning the trawl fishery. That you waste, you know, you're allowed to waste all this fish. We only take a small fraction of the runs," he said. 'I'VE NEVER SAID THAT' Palin couldn't be reached for an interview Tuesday. But she wrote short updates on the region, and her rural advisor's trip to the Lower Yukon village of Emmonak, last week among her many dispatches on Twitter.

"Good update re Rural Advisor John Moller's recnt Emmonak trip, great news he reports; we'll twitter assuming press won't pick up good news," Palin wrote on Friday. Eight minutes later, she added another tweet: "John also met w/CNN reporter while in Emmonak & shared welcomed GOOD NEWS of region...as a result, highly unlikely interview will air" So what was this good news? "At the Federal Subsistence meeting in Emmonak last week, Nick Tucker reported that 50 percent of the residents have met subsistence needs and other 50 percent are confident they will meet their needs," Palin spokeswoman Sharon Leighow wrote in an e-mail Tuesday. But Tucker, an Emmonak resident who became a spokesman for the cash-poor region when his letter describing a local fuel and food crisis made national headlines, said Tuesday he never said that. He demanded a public apology from Palin's team for saying he did. "Ten times over, I've never said that. It was from one fisherman in Alakanuk," Tucker said in a short phone interview. "I do not believe that we in Emmonak -- Emmonak never said that." The governor's response? Moller, the rural advisor, is the one who knows about that, Leighow e-mailed. But he's on personal leave. "He is fishing today out of cell range," Leighow wrote. "John also said he talked with numerous residents who reported they have taken enough king salmon for their subsistence needs or would by the end of the season." WHAT ABOUT CHUM? Under a 2001 agreement between the U.S. and Canada, Alaska must deliver 45,000 king salmon up the Yukon and into Canada this year. For the past two years, the state has fallen short of those treaty goals and it's too early to tell if that will change this summer, said Hayes, the summer area manager.

To try and make it happen, Fish and Game closed the river to commercial king fishing and cut subsistence fishing in half. The first pulse of salmon is particularly important, with roughly 60 percent of those fish headed to Canada, Hayes said. The department also is closing subsistence fishing altogether in sections of the river as that first group of salmon pass through and is temporarily restricting gillnet sizes in some areas.

The state opened the lower Yukon to short windows of commercial chum fishing on Monday, but the Board of Fisheries voted Monday night that any kings that chum fishermen catch by accident can't be sold for profit, Hayes said. Asked why fishermen can't replace kings with more abundant chum salmon as a subsistence food, Andrew said it's not that simple. "Nothing compares to king salmon nutritionally because they carry oil that's needed for calories and for our well being... We can't substitute any species for that. That's our customary and traditional food," he said.

When the fishing gear, be they larger than football field sized nets that drag the oceans floor for fish, crab pots, longline fishing hooks, or other gear used to catch and kill fish, much more than fish are being destroyed. Lets look at one of them. The deep-sea trawlers that hunt and search for pollock and other flat fishes.

The first major commercial groundfish fishery in the Gulf of Alaska targeted Pacific Ocean perch. The size of the catch rose quickly through the early 1960’s until the resource was depleted.  The fishery then began targeting walley pollock. As happened with perch, the catch of pollock rose gradually through 1980 when a large spawning aggregation was discovered in the waters off of Kodiak Island. Over the next 5 years the spawning aggregation was heavily exploited and the fishery peaked and collapsed. (Trites 1991).

The same picture can be painted for these fisheries in the Bering Sea. Yellowfin sole catches rose from 1954 to 1961 until the stock declined due to overfishing. As the yellowfin sole declined, the fishery moved to pollock. (Trites 1991).

Now we know that the pollock fishery in the Kodiak waters, the Bogoslov Island waters, and the Aleutian Islands have either been shut down due to overfishing or their catchable amounts severely cut because of overfishing. So what’s new? Outside multinational fishing companies see an opportunity to exploit beyond reason, come into our waters and destroy. Sounds like a familiar tune when discussing other resources in our Great State? Oil and gas, minerals, forests, salmon populations and sadly, people.


Its beginning to sound like a problem that needs some serious attention from our state and federal governments. After all, our governments lay claim to represent all the people of both our State and Nation. Oh ya, we do have such oversight boards and councils. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Alaska Board of Fish (ABF) are legally charged with that responsibility. And to help in these processes, Advisory Councils are put in place to help give direction. NMFS has the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) and the ABF has regional advisory Councils. But guess what? The NPFMC and the ABF are stocked, not with fish, but with commercial fishing representatives and interests to make these decisions. And these councils and boards are ripe for the plucking. Industry lobbyists and lawyers often wine and dine these “representatives of the people’s resource” to get their quotas, no matter the science. And they often get their way. Take a quick look at the NPFMC’s web site and see who the Council members are and whom they work for.

&ldquorill, baby, drill” is not a new cry for resource development at any cost. In the 1980’s and 1990’s and up to this day it has been “fish, baby, fish” before there are no more fish to catch. With the problems of climate change, other animals’ populations crashing and people being dislocated, it is time to reappoint “representative” people to these councils and boards. Industry greed and ways of doing business has got to stop. There is a lot of talk these days about reform. If ever an industry needed reform, this is it.

Just last year, the NPFMC cut the total amount of pollock catch a whopping 24% from the year before! If that same amount of decline were done to, say, the oil and gas industries, you would hear a loud cry from the public. We need to pay close attention to the reasons for this kind of management of our resources. One of the reasons given for the drastic cut the pollock fishery took was lack of recruitment. Oh ya. I forgot to tell you that twice a year, millions of pounds of pollock roe, the caviar of the Bering Sea, is auctioned off to a hand full of “by invitation only” companies.
“Fish, baby, fish.”

This is the people’s resource put into the trusting hands of appointed Councils. We must hold them accountable. They work for us, not the industry.

I was in Anchorage last week for the Alaska Marine Science Symposium, presenting some of the findings from our 2007 Bering Sea Canyons Expedition.  I was presenting a poster, which is a common way to feature preliminary findings at scientific conferences, showcasing new coral data. Bob Stone, the NOAA ecologist who was on board the Esperanza with us, was the other author. 

I like poster presentations because you get a chance to interact with a large number of people, as opposed to oral presentations, where aside from a few questions it's largely a one-way lecture.  This way, I got to see people do a double take when they saw the paired NOAA and Greenpeace logos on the poster.  For those that read the conclusion, they saw that we - that's Greenpeace and NOAA - "recommend that canyon coral habitats be prioritized for protection and that additional research is undertaken to fully document the sensitive habitats in the region." 

Our findings also included several coral species that were previously unrecorded in the Bering Sea, as well as others that had never been found so far north.  Five corals were described as "common" or "abundant in one or both of the canyons we visited.  In all, we found at least fourteen species.   

Michelle Ridgway teamed up with legendary geologist David Scholl for a keynote presentation linking the physical structure of the canyons with the ecology of these highly productive features. Of the more than 600 scientists, policy makers, and industry lobbyists who attended the Symposium, I think it's safe to say that nearly all of them have a better understanding of the importance of the canyons than they did a week ago.

Meanwhile, the canyons will continue to face heavy fishing pressure until policy makers act to  protect these vulnerable habitats.  How much more damage will be done in the meantime?

John H
  

I hope I can shed some light on how this North Pacific Fishery Management Council process takes place, of course from a position of bias and not so happy.

I have been attending the Council meetings, off and on, for about 20 years or so. Began back in the day when we were fighting for the establishment of the Community Development Quota (CDQ) program which we hoped at the time would benefit the villages. It was a long battle and one you can read about just by goggling it, if you are interested. I want to, however say a few words about that later, as it sorely impacts the people in the villages.

If you want to know the details about the Council process you can also get on their web page at www.fakr.noaa.gov/npfmc. That is an interesting site. So I will simply give you a perspective from someone who is from a village, and also from my position as a Campaigner, time and space allowing.

Lets see. If I were living on St. Paul Island and I wanted to submit a comment on some issue the Council was addressing, it would probably go something like this.

The issue. Crab. How much? Well this year, some 63 million pounds. Sounds impressive, but when I was the pastor on St. Paul some 10 years ago, the quota was 250 million pounds, and the entire season began 15 January and lasted sometimes into May. Now its just about 2 weeks before the quota is caught. So lets say, I am an employee of the City government. We are interested because of the raw fish taxes we get from the processing of the product and the additional services, such as fuel sales, dockage fees, grocery sales and additional other services. So the local economy benefits from this activity. Now, keep in mind that I am working for a municipal government which probably can afford the rest of the story. The Tribes? Probably cannot afford to do this.

So, I write a position paper and submit it to the Council for consideration. Then it is decided that I should attend the meeting to submit verbal testimony to support our written position. I have to travel. Well, so, from St. Paul to Anchorage, where the meetings are usually held; sometimes they are held in Seattle Washington or Portland Oregon. So I have to buy a ticket. A round trip ticket to Anchorage from St. Paul on PenAir is about $900.00. Then I have to get a hotel and food, and maybe a car, but certainly a cab. So additional $180.00 per day per diem, or there abouts. So for one week, at $180.00 per day is? Ya, $1260.00. So now, with the air fare that totals, ya, $2,160.00 just to attend! For one person! There are other costs too, like being away from home, family, incidental expenses, etc.

So, usually the Council begins meeting on a Monday. The SSC or the Scientific and Statistical Committee begins bright and early in the morning. Now I have to follow the issue and try to figure out where and when the issue will be addressed by the committee. Sometimes, and more often than not, the agenda is moved around, often without much notice, so I have to sit there throughout the entire day and listen to hours and hours of stuff I have not idea about. This report, that testimony. Lots of stuff. Oh we get breaks, and when that happens, I will try to corner someone from the committee to lobby. But I am relatively unknown, and often the members have buds or other people who are "council groopies" that are better known and more attuned to the issues that get the time and the ears. So, I try to wiggle my way into some conversation with someone. Then back to the meeting and more listening. Now, the issue on the crab is being discussed. First there will be staff reports, scientist reports, and others who signed up to testify. Then, if I signed up, my time will come. I am called to the hot seat by the chairperson. The committee are all sitting at tables arranged usually in kinda a circle, with table cloths shrouded on them, microphones, lots of papers and folders and notebooks, really looking knowledgeable. So I walk up to the table, sit down, introduce myself and say what issue I want to address. Now, figure. An entire table of experts. An audience of about 30 people. Bright lights. Microphones. And I begin to talk. Usually I will have about 3 to 6 minutes to say what I wanna say. Then questions from the committee, if any, and I am done. Whew...public speaking. Not fun. 

But that is basically what happens, and happens both at the Advisory Panel (AP), which meets from Monday to usually Friday of the same week, and usually at the same time as the SSC is meeting, and sometimes the issue I wanna comment on is taken up at the same time there as in the SSC. Sometimes not. And all three meet in different rooms, and,yes, usually at the same times.  But with the AP, the process is the same, and same set up, but this time with about 25 or so members on the panel. And 3 to 6 minutes to talk. And with the Council itself, usually the same. They usually meet from Tuesday to Saturday or Sunday. But here it is more intimidating, cause, well, they are THE Council. They have a bigger room with bigger tables and bigger chairs and more of an audience. And here, you get 3 minutes for an individual and 6 minutes for an organization to testify, and no more. There are green, yellow and red lights to tell you how much time you have. And, the Chair will say, "...thank you, your time is up." Any questions from the Council? If not, thanks. And its done. Here again, with the AP and the Council you try to lobby during breaks, but you also have additional competition from the other folks there. Lobbyists, processors, lawyers, fishers and long time friends who usually have the ear of the people you wanna talk to. And if you are lucky to get a Council member to talk to its usually really quick. They are on a break and have to go to the restroom or do something else. I personally have found some more approachable when I have followed them into the restroom, at least I can talk to them. So it is very difficult and extremely intimidating.

So, when John Hovevar wrote about our experience? Well, it was really something else. Imagine a person who lives in a village trying to do this. Imagine a person who's second language is english trying to do this. The expense? The intimidation? Ya, very little gets done if you are from a village. Unless of course if you are representing a CDQ organization, well, thats totally different. You will have bocoo bucks and paid lobbyists and lawyers to help you and speak for you. I have heard some of the executive directors of these organizations get paid upwards of $300,000 a year. They do this stuff. It is intimidating and really frustrating when and if you are a Tribal president trying to effectuate change. To protect your foods and your homes. It is nearly impossible to do it through this process.

This is why, it seems to me, the cultural heritage zones are the best chance to get protections for our families. We need to have a flag to rally around, an issue that makes sense. We need to help the people. We need support. For this, I am so grateful that Greenpeace is stepping up to the plate, not only to work to protect the oceans and habitat, but to help and support the Tribes on this planet we call mother earth.

This process is not fun. Not developed for people who live in villages, thats for sure. Too expensive and too foreign to our ways of living and communicating. But....? 

 

Thirty six years ago this month, September 1971 President Richard M. Nixon said, perhaps from his oval office in the White House, “FIRE!” Suddenly the entire Island of Amchitka, in the Aleutian Island Chain, erupted. Boom! The ground heaved in sudden turmoil, ripped apart. Wildlife, unprotected and not even given a warning, suddenly were thrashed to the point that even the eyeballs of the sea otter slammed through their skulls. Birds ran, literally, and some flew, to find cover. The world shook and would never be the same. The largest underground nuclear test bomb in history was triggered on and in Alaska; on and in an Island Chain that is on the Great Pacific Ring of Fire. A big bomb, suddenly destroying a National Wildlife Refuge.

I was there last month as part of a team of people from Greenpeace to bear witness. I walked up steep unforgiving cliffs, slogged through deep tundra, crawling to the exact site of the test, of a nuclear bomb they called Cannikin. And it was….wow, lack of words. Scary. We did this on a National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. And today, although there is lots of greens, plants, berries and fresh water, we could not, dared not even taste of this dirge. It is, was, and perhaps forever will be dead.

Greenpeace went there because thirty-six years ago, we got started by a few people in Vancouver B.C. who felt, as we all do today, that this act was not acceptable, not in Alaska, not anywhere. We went there because we wanted to bear witness that we must not allow anything like this to happen anywhere in the world again. We must not build bombs to destroy anything; people, plants; animals; the earth, our Mother Earth.

While there, one has so much to think and meditate about. It is silent. Empty. It is alone. By itself. Not a part of any other thing. Not even a partner to its neighboring Islands. Not even a self-respecting jellyfish was seen. And we could not drink the water!

Now, we did this with the idea that perhaps we might be able to warn the Soviet Government of Russia that we have big bombs, that we are someone to be afraid of, that we are powerful. The result of that thinking? They built more and bigger bombs with nary an end in sight.

Sadly, being at Amchitka was like looking into a future devoid of life. Even more sad is that perhaps what happened there is in some sense happening again, but this time with another big bomb, and right under our noses. Like that bomb, legal and sanctioned by our United States Government, is the bomb of bottom trawlers, legal and sanctioned by the same Government. They are destroying the habitat of the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska, and are protected by our laws to do so. We saw that. We witnessed their destructive fishing practices by diving into the underwater canyons by the Pribilof Islands. Just like being at ground zero on Amchitka, by Cannikin lake, we were at ground zero in the Pribilof and Zumchug Canyons.  They are almost totally devoid of life and history is repeating itself. It is happening in Alaska, on the most productive Oceans and Seas of the North Pacific.

We planted a cross there. We wanted, when doing this, and want to, express our desire that no longer is it acceptable to kill and destroy, no matter the form or manner. Once life is gone, as was evident on Amchitka, we cannot pray or will life back. We saw the future and we must not allow it to come, not in that form. So, now comes the marine cultural heritage zones. Perhaps these zones will be our cross, one which we are told to pick up and carry. Perhaps by establishing some protections for our foods to survive, we will not allow someone, five thousand miles away to say, “FIRE!” Perhaps we can learn from our history and put an end to building and enabling ways to destroy. Perhaps we can. But you must help by doing your part. You must join us in commemorating an awful time in our history, if for no other reason than to say, we will not participate.

We are pulling into Dutch Harbor/Unalaska for the fourth and last time during this whirlewind tour of the Bering Sea. And it is both an end and a beginning for me. We came to the Bering Sea to bear witness to the world, to ourselves, to what is happening not only to the beautiful ecosystem of water and fish and mammals and birds and plants, but as equally important, how change is impacting an ancient people. And what a vision we had, looking and listening.

And because of what we heard and saw, there is no doubt what so ever, even if there was any to begin with, that the establishment of the marine cultural heritage zones is the only moral, realistic and honest way to the survival of this incrediable gift to humanity all over the world. This gift to our people, to all peoples, is a gift given by our ancestors following centuries of daily sacrifices, learnings, insight and fortitude to pass on to their decendents a responsibility we must not take lightly. A responsibility to cherish life.

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It has been, as two reasonably famous songwriters once put it, a long and winding road, one that has lasted, on and off, for more than eighteen years now.  And, theoretically, once we drop anchor in Dutch Harbor on Monday morning, it is a journey that—apart from a couple of days of post-expedition wrap-up and video editing—will come to an end.

Except that I have said as much many times before. It isn’t even the first time I’ve said it this year.

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After seeing Amchitka, one really wants to drink like a sailor. A bottle of rum would come in handy around now. But no. On this ship, we drink only wine and a brand of beer from Korea which promises "Fresh Taste Brewing System". If this is fresh, we would hate to see stale.
The Korean beverage is a brand called "Hite". We only need to add the 19th letter of the alphabet before "Hite" to title it even more appropriately. No doubt this extraordinary drink was scientifically concocted to function for drinkers just as the nicotine patch functions for smokers.
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I looked out of my porthole this morning and found myself channeling Martin Sheen.

"Adak. S***. I'm still in Adak."

Then I stripped down to my underwear, drank too much whisky, and cut my hand on the mirror while practicising kung fu.

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