Glacier Bay Commercial Fishing Compensation Plan

by Lena Boesser-Koschmann

The battle over whether fishing could continue in the Park had already been raging for years when in 1991, a proposed rule was published in the Federal Register to phase commercial fishing out of Glacier Bay.  The proposed amendment would allow commercial fishing to continue until December 31, 1997, at which point all commercial fishing activity would stop.  Continuation of commercial fishing past this date would only be allowed if the park were to find definitively that such uses are compatible with protection of park values and purposes. 

In the fall of 1995, park officials met with ADF&G deputy commissioner and fisheries managers, deciding together that a true resolution of this issue would require input and communication from "key stakeholders" in the issue, including commercial fishermen, local residents, Native groups, and conservation organizations. Over the next few years, a series of meetings, information exchanges, workshops, and public hearings took place in affected communities throughout the region. Friends of Glacier Bay's representative Bill Brown attended many of these meetings.

In April of 1998, the Environmental Assessment was published by the NPS describing the socio-economic and environmental effects of a phase-out. Over the next month, 7 public hearings and open houses were held. These efforts were thwarted, however, when congress intervened with a rider introduced by Senator Stevens to stop all parties from continuing with the rulemaking. The hope of reaching a negotiated resolution among all of the stakeholders was never achieved.  The resulting Appropriations Act was signed in 1998 by President Clinton.

Soon after, the National Park Service published the Final Rule, which incorporated some of the issues and concerns that had been raised in the stakeholder meetings and public comment. The publication of this rule initiated a series of discussions between the state and federal government in hopes of resolving the issue.

This Final Rule, made official on January 1, 2000 does the following:

1.  Closes all Wilderness areas to commercial fishing immediately

2.  Prohibits Dungeness crab, king crab, and groundfish fisheries throughout the bay

3.  Establishes a phase-out of halibut, salmon, and Tanner crab fisheries

4.  Limits commercial fishing within the bay to only fishermen with qualifying histories, and only for their  lifetime

5.  Provides financial compensation to Dungeness crab fishers who have fished for at least 6 of the last 10 years in designated Wilderness waters, and who must immediately stop their activity in these waters

In addition, supplemental additions to the Appropriations Act appropriated $23 million to compensate fishermen, fish processors, crewmembers, communities and others negatively affected by the Final Rule and phase-out of commercial fishing.  This compensation is an effort to accommodate for the local losses incurred due to the phase-out of commercial fishing in Glacier Bay.

While the sincerity of the park service in their attempt to compensate those negatively affected is unquestionable, the compensation plan does not address the other losses incurred by the phase out.  While the monetary compensation will address the economic losses of fishermen, crewmembers, and processors who are eligible, it cannot address the cultural and lifestyle losses by those who fished in Glacier Bay.  While fishermen seem to be gladly taking what monetary compensation is due to them, there is a consensus among them that money is not enough to make up for their other losses.

The Park Service has made a sincere effort to learn about the unique culture and ideology of the commercial fishermen whose livelihoods are in jeopardy due to the phase out, but are left with no toolssave monetary compensationto adequately compensate these fishermen and women.  The fact remains that the ecosystems of Glacier Bay are being affected by commercial fishing, and ending commercial fishing in the bay will not only help boost the fish populations outside the bay, but will provide unparalleled and unique opportunities for scientific study.  At the present, there are almost no areas of ocean in the world that are not being fished, or have not been fished in the past, save those few reefs and hard-to-reach places that technology has not yet been able to access.  Glacier Bay will soon become one of the only places in the worldand certainly one of the only in Southeast Alaskawhere fish populations can develop and flourish without the impacts that fishing can cause.  While in no way trying to undermine the importance of commercial fishing in Southeast Alaska, the health of the fish populations in the entire region can be helped through the creation of this marine reserve in Glacier Bay.  

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