Saving Seafood

Building the next generation of commercial fishermen

November 25, 2024 — From Alaska’s icy waters to the Gulf of Mexico’s warm tides, commercial fishing is critical to the economy and to support coastal communities.

With a graying fleet and evolving challenges, the industry’s leaders are stepping up to mentor, train, and inspire the next generation. The Workforce Development panel at this year’s Pacific Marine Expo brought together representatives from all corners of the U.S. to share innovative programs addressing these challenges within the industry. Hannah Heimbuch from Ocean Strategies moderated the panel and kicked things off by stating, “There’s a lot of really great work happening in this space with people encouraging fishing as a livelihood. Today, our panel is just talking about different programs around the U.S. coast that encourage workforce development in the commercial fishing industry.”

“The Graying of the Fleet is Real”

Andrea Tomlinson, executive director of the New England Young Fishermen’s Alliance, underscored the national and global issue of declining participation in commercial fishing.

“The graying of the fleet is real. It’s a nationwide problem. It’s also a worldwide problem,” she said, adding that young people face barriers to entry, from financial constraints to a lack of mentorship. Her organization’s Deckhand to Captain training program provides trainees with critical skills like business planning, public speaking, and marine policy education.

Tomlinson’s efforts are paying off. “As of our 2022 trainees, we have three out of four in their own vessel. We just had this year’s 23-year-old trainee, Alex Varner, buy his boat two days ago. He’s diversifying into both lobster and ground fishing.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Alaskan crabbers uncertain recovery, push for resilience

November 21, 2024 — The future for Alaskan crabbers remains uncertain as the fleet grapples with mounting costs, economic challenges, and an unpredictable recovery for crab stocks. As industry leaders gather at the Pacific Marine Expo (PME), the conversations are centered not just on the fisheries themselves but also on the resilience of the fishing communities and the lives that depend on them.

Jamie Goen, executive director of Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers (ABSC), and Gabriel Prout, a veteran Alaskan crab fisherman, illuminated the uphill battle facing the crab fleet. While relief programs do exist, many have proven ineffective, leaving the industry without a reliable safety net. “The disaster relief process is a disaster within itself,” Goen stated bluntly. “It takes so long for funds to reach the people who need them that by the time they do, the significance is lost.”

The landscape for Alaskan crabbers has always been challenging, but recent years have intensified these struggles. Financial institutions familiar with the regional fisheries provide some hope. “The banks are so regionalized within Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, they are relatively familiar and aware of the fisheries that they are directly supporting when they provide these loans,” noted Prout. “So, there’s a little bit of working room.”

Read the full article at National Fisherman

Unifying Efforts: Bipartisan Legislators Introduce Bill Ensuring Protection and Welfare of Commercial Fishermen

December 14, 2023 — U.S. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Dan Sullivan (R-AL), and Edward Markey (D-MA) led a bipartisan group of Senators introducing the Fishing Industry Safety, Health, and Wellness Improvement (FISH Wellness) Act. This legislation will build upon the success of the Commercial Fishing Occupational Safety Research & Training Program to further address the range of occupational safety and health risks that fishermen face, which include worker fatigue and substance use disorder. Authorized funding for the program will increase, and research and training grants will become more accessible by eliminating match requirements.

At this year’s Pacific Marine Expo, a group of commercial fishing industry members came together to discuss strategies for addressing commercial fishermen’s mental health. Generations of fishermen have indirectly dealt with mental health challenges, and the new generation wants to see these issues explored in a much more direct manner.

“Providing our next generation of fishermen and women with the mental health and substance abuse care that they need is vital to the success of our industry,” said Andrea Tomlinson, founder and executive director of New England Young Fishermen’s Alliance. “Commercial fishing is the second most dangerous job in the US after logging, and these workers require extra mental and behavioral health support due to the strenuous and challenging conditions of this valuable trade.”

Opening the conversations within the commercial fishing community can weigh heavy, but also normalize creating a solid support system with further support from U.S. Senators with the FISH Wellness Act. In addition to the work on this act, Senator Collins has worked tirelessly on the Working Waterfront Preservation Act to help preserve access for the nation’s fishermen and maritime workings to the waterfronts in coastal communities. Collins has helped keep the fishing industry alive since holding her seat in 1997.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Ocean Beauty, Seagrove Kelp, Alaskan Leader win Alaska Symphony of Seafood awards

November 22, 2021 — The Alaska Symphony of Seafood announced its 2021 winners at Pacific Marine Expo on Friday, 19 November in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.

Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation Executive Director Julie Decker was on hand to announce all winners in the competition, which was created to encourage more product development in Alaska’s seafood sector.

Read the full story from National Fisherman at SeafoodSource

Heydays of Bristol Bay, Alaska: Pushing back on Pebble

November 19, 2021 — We’ve got the most sustainable fishery in the world,” said Michael Jackson, board president of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association on Thursday in Seattle. “We didn’t do anything to earn that. But it’s there.”

Jackson spoke on behalf of the Alaska fishing organization for a Pacific Marine Expo panel discussing the future of Bristol Bay’s salmon fishery and the increasing hopes that locals, fishermen and other stakeholders may be able to put a wrap on threats from the proposed Pebble Mine.

News this week that the EPA put dates on the time line to reinstate Clean Water Act protections propelled the hopeful vibe at this standing Expo session, along with a robust projection for 71 million to 75 million salmon to return to the bay in 2022.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Alaska Symphony of Seafood competition features 18 entries and a new award

October 26, 2021 — Pollock Protein Noodles. Southern Style Alaska Wild Wings. Candied salmon ice cream. Fish oils for pets. Fish and chips meal kits. Fin Fish earrings.

That’s just a small sample of past winners of Alaska’s biggest seafood competition, the Alaska Symphony of Seafood, which has showcased and promoted new, market-ready products since 1993.

The annual event levels the playing field among Alaska’s largest seafood companies and the smallest “mom and pops,” whose products are all judged blind by an expert panel.

Eighteen entries are in the running for the 2021 contest, the first leg of which takes place next month at Pacific Marine Expo in Seattle. They will compete in several categories: retail and food service, salmon and whitefish, Beyond the Plate, and, new to the lineup, a Bristol Bay Choice awarded to the best new sockeye product.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

 

Northwest US maritime industry looks to a better 2021

November 27, 2020 — Battered by trade wars and COVID-19, the U.S. Northwest maritime industry is applying lessons learned from both crises, according to leaders who spoke at Pacific Marine Expo’s virtual Maritime Economic Forecast.

With China as its number-one trading partner, the Northwest Seaport Alliance of Seattle and Tacoma saw immense change as a result of U.S.-China trade disputes, followed by a steep falloff in vessel traffic as COVID-19 reverberated in the world economy.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ALASKA: At Pacific Marine Expo, Pebble worries dominate discussion

December 5, 2019 — Over 500 vendors exhibited at the 2019 Pacific Marine Expo in Seattle in late November. For commercial fishermen, processors and small businesses, it’s the place to be.

The expo was winding down on Saturday morning. But Naknek fisherman Reba Temple was causing a stir with her unusual get-up, made of the mesh netting that salmon tenders use to collect a catch.

“It’s made out of scraps of brailer material. So there’s grommets and mesh brailer material and black straps, and it’s a ballgown,” she said.

Temple said the expo is a great place to catch up with the people and the products in the industry.

“Everyone’s here, you can talk to your processors, you can talk to your friends, see hydraulic pumps cut open so you actually know how they work,” she said.

Stickers and signs saying NO PEBBLE MINE adorned booths, as they have for the past decade. The mine would tap large copper and gold deposits near the headwaters of two major river systems in Bristol Bay. And as the Trump administration breathes new life into the project, many people here are worried.

“Nothing in the world has zero risk — especially when you have a mine of this size with the existing data that show very definitively that there will be impacts,” said Daniel Schindler, director of the University of Washington’s Alaska Salmon Program.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Bristol Bay advocates push for new Pebble Mine assessment

November 22, 2019 — Advocates for the Bristol Bay said they need to keep pressure on federal agencies for an environmental reassessment of the Pebble Mine proposal – and on ways to keep the world’s greatest salmon fishery in the national eye.

At the keynote event for the Pacific Marine Expo in Seattle, a packed audience heard updates from longtime participants in the fight to protect the Bristol Bay watershed from a proposed gold and copper mine.

In Washington, D.C., Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, this week asked the Army Corps of Engineers to undertake a new environmental assessment of the mining plan that the Corps moved to clear in June, reported Mike Friccero, a 39-year Bristol Bay fisherman and activist.

Despite the federal Environmental Protection Agency under the Trump administration reversing its earlier position against the mine, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is also asking to revisit the mine’s potential impacts, Friccero told the audience.

In Congress, Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., has an amendment to the House appropriations bill that would prohibit the Corps of Engineers from spending money to work on permitting the mine, a process that on the current timeline could be finished in spring 2020, said Lindsey Bloom, a Bristol Bay gillnet captain and campaign strategist with the group Salmon State.

On the Senate side, Sen. Lisa Murkowski inserted language in a spending bill to express her concerns about Pebble Mine, but short of a spending block that advocates want to see, said Bloom. They hope that can be achieved in conference committee, she added.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Next steps to protect the industry from Pebble Mine

November 19, 2018 — Stakeholders in Alaska’s Bristol Bay have watched the federal and state regulatory landscape heave and buckle with the shifting sands of federal oversight.

Fishermen invested in other watersheds threatened by mining waste and potential mine development have watched this battle, as well. But the lessons to be learned shift at every turn. Join me and a panel of insiders on Monday at Pacific Marine Expo for a public meeting on Pebble Mine, where we will discuss next steps for the industry.

The Trump administration breathed life back into the prospects for Pebble Mine.

Pebble CEO Tom Collier wasted no time in penning a January 2017 editorial praising his company’s efforts to address the concerns of Alaska residents, the thousands of fishermen who make their living in the shadow of the potential mine and its caustic byproducts, and the millions of consumers who rely on Bristol Bay’s pristine rivers to welcome back the world’s largest wild salmon run year after year.

Read the full story at National Fisherman