The State of Alaska's failure to acknowledge the connections between commercial intercept and the viability of chum salmon escapement and the subsistence way of life, its prioritization of commercial fishery landings over state subsistence priorities and the health of subsistence fisheries, and its lack of any meaningful action to bridge the management of these fisheries, is inequitable, unsustainable, and inexcusable.
Their actions violate the policies and regulations set in place to protect and manage Alaska’s fisheries, such as:
5 AAC 39.220 (Policy for the management of mixed stock fisheries)
5 AAC 39.222 (Policy for the management of sustainable salmon fisheries)
5 AAC 39.223 (Policy for statewide salmon escapement goals)
Today, families and Indigenous communities throughout the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim (AYK) Region of Alaska are suffering a multi-species salmon collapse that has devastated regional food security and traditional ways of life. Recent returns of chinook, chum, and coho salmon to the Kuskokwim and Yukon are the worst on record, with little sign of recovery.
Indigenous and rural subsistence users are bearing the brunt of salmon conservation, while commercial fisheries outside the AYK region that target and/or incidentally catch AYK salmon stocks face little to no consequences for their impacts on these stressed stocks. The commercial fisheries outside the AYK region continue to manage themselves while more decrees and regulations are placed on communities all along the Kuskokwim and Yukon River watershed.
Using both Traditional Knowledge and Western Science is like using a two-step authentication. This is especially true now that there is increasing recognition that management focuses on human behavior. An ecosystem-based approach should not only move away from managing single species, but it should also move away from single-disciplinary approaches as well as single culture and single-epistemological views that have characterized so much of Western science, policy, and management.
An ecosystem-based approach should also integrate ocean and river management, and improve federal and state cooperation on fisheries science and management matters. Fish stocks, harvesting activities, and management activities extend across these divides, impacting subsistence communities unequally.
