Enclosing the Fisheries: People, Places, and Power

The Community Quota Program in the Gulf of Alaska: A Vehicle for Alaska Native Village Sustainability?

Steve J. Langdon

doi: https://doi.org/10.47886/9781934874059.ch8

Abstract.—In 1995, the harvestable quotas for Pacific halibut Hippoglossus stenolepis and sablefish Anoplopoma fimbria in the Gulf of Alaska were fully privatized primarily as individual fishing quotas. By 1999, initial quota held by rural, predominantly Alaska Native fishermen resident in the region had declined dramatically. Recognizing that quota loss posed a serious threat to the viability of the villages and small communities, a coalition of Alaska Native villages developed and submitted a proposal to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to establish a community fisheries program for Gulf of Alaska villages. While partially designed along the lines of the Community Development Quota program in the Bering Sea, one of the features of the Gulf of Alaska program was the requirement that the community-based groups, known as community quota entities, would have to purchase quota on the market from other holders. This paper provides background to the emergence of the program, placing it in context of other Alaskan fisheries rights programs; discusses the diversity in the communities across the region; and considers a number of factors that contribute to the problems of implementation. The paper concludes that there are serious barriers to the successful fulfillment of the program’s goal of local community ownership of halibut and sablefish quota as it is currently constituted. Achieving that goal will require significant policy changes or new programmatic initiatives.