Alaska Native, conservation groups support lawsuit over salmon

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Joaqlin Estus
ICT

A group of six Alaska Native and conservation organizations have filed a “friend of the court,” or amicus curiae brief, in a lawsuit against federal fisheries managers over salmon caught and discarded by factory trawlers.

The ships cast large nets to harvest tens of thousands of pollock in the Bering Sea off Alaska and catch thousands of salmon in the process. Meanwhile, in western Alaska, subsistence and commercial fishing of salmon have been shut down or severely limited due to low numbers of fish.

Trustees for Alaska filed the brief on behalf of the Ocean Conservancy, SalmonState, Native Peoples Action, Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, and the Alaska Marine Conservation Council on Nov. 22 to support a lawsuit by two regional Native nonprofits—the Association of Village Council Presidents (AVCP) and Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC)—and the city of Bethel against the National Marine Fisheries Service.

“Arctic, Yukon and Kuskokwim river salmon populations are in crisis, devastating food security and threatening food sovereignty, endangering ways of life central to who we are as Indigenous people,” said Laureli Ivanoff, executive director for Native Peoples Action, in a prepared statement. “Meanwhile, as our ability to harvest salmon is shut down or severely reduced, the National Marine Fisheries Service is relying on an outdated ecological analysis to increase the quota for the trawl fleet. With this potential ruling the court has the opportunity to set fisheries management on the right track for a better future for all Alaskans.”

“The Service’s 2023-2024 harvest specifications allow for the removal of millions of metric tons of groundfish — including 1.3 million metric tons of pollock, which represents a 17% increase over the previous year and a 40% increase over the 2010 quota. This approach is unsustainable,” reads the brief.

The suit contends the federal managers unlawfully authorized large-scale industrial fishing without considering impacts as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. Those impacts include environmental change, species collapse, and closures of in-river salmon fisheries, the group said in a prepared statement.

“Fisheries managers and associated scientists are telling the public that everything is changing wildly and rapidly in Alaska’s oceans, but when it comes to industrial-scale trawling they are locked into an outdated and inflexible management system not at all responsive to those changes,” said SalmonState’s Tim Bristol in the statement. “Everyone but the trawlers are giving something up. In some cases, people are giving up everything. Incredibly, at the same time, the agency is actually increasing the trawlers’ catch. We support this lawsuit because we see and feel the sense of urgency all around us. We need to stop the bleeding now.”

“We are fully supportive of AVCP and TCC’s litigation,” said Becca Robbins Gisclair, senior director of Arctic Programs for Ocean Conservancy, in the statement “… The National Marine Fisheries Service and North Pacific Fishery Management Council must make fundamental changes to prevent the collapse of our once-vibrant ocean ecosystems and the communities that have been part of them for millenia.”

“We know that many factors––including a lack of ecosystem-focused management of trawl fisheries––are contributing to widespread changes in the North Pacific, like the prolonged declines of Kuskokwim and other Western and Interior salmon stocks,” said Kevin Whitworth, executive director for the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

The amicus brief said climate change is also affecting overall ocean health and, particularly, salmon populations. Supporters of the trawl fisheries say the problem is complex and cutting trawling harvests won’t help increase salmon numbers. In initial filings, attorneys for the National Marine Fisheries Service deny that Plaintiffs are entitled to the relief requested or any relief whatsoever, and contend the lawsuit should be dismissed on jurisdictional grounds.

“The National Marine Fisheries Service … has evaded comprehensive environmental review for trawl industry operations in the Bering Sea region for decades.,” said Joanna Cahoon, a staff attorney with Trustees for Alaska, which filed the brief on behalf of five Alaska Native and conservation organizations. “(The agency) needs to do a deep analysis of how the industry’s massive taking of salmon, crab, and other marine life impacts communities and ecosystems in a region now profoundly threatened by climate change. This amici brief asks the court to ensure the agency sees the science, hears local people, and complies with the law without further delay.”

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