Last month, Tribal leaders gathered in Bethel to provide testimony to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs (SCIA), led by Vice-Chair Senator Lisa Murkowski. The field hearing was called in short order and is titled, “The Impact of the Historic Salmon Declines on the Health and Well-Being of Alaska Native Communities along Arctic, Yukon, and Kuskokwim Rivers.”
“The Tribes along the Yukon have completely shouldered all of the ramification of the Salmon collapse yet they were not the cause of it,” said Chief/Chairman Brian Ridley of Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC) during his testimony, “As of today, prohibited species catch of salmon is over 130,000 salmon. While federal staff and NPFMC managers say it’s only 1-3% of the catch – we know that every salmon counts. Trawlers throw away our fish and keep fishing, while our fisheries are closed, our smoke houses are empty and our people are criminals for catching just one fish. Our children have never handled salmon, our fisherman are depressed and the results are devastating our communities.”
Chief Ridley insisted that the Congressional delegation and federal agencies uphold their trust responsibility to Alaskan Tribes, the purpose of which is to provide for the “survival and welfare of Indian Tribes and people, “I am here to ask you, the SCIA, Congress and the Federal Government, to uphold the promise Congress made to our people during land claims. I am here to ask you to uphold your trust responsibility to our Tribal Governments and citizens as enshrined in Federal Indian Law.
Chief Ridley has several asks of the committee which included:
- Stop subsidizing the Pollock and cod industries, remove all support and authorization of the unsustainable USDA practice of purchasing tens of millions of dollars annually of ‘surplus’ polluck and cod trawled from the Bering Sea under the section 32 program.
- Stop minimizing the impact of trawlers and of bycatch, and long-term cumulative impacts. In any other harvest of fish and wildlife in the nature of ‘bycatch’ is called wanton waste.
- Amend and reauthorize the MSA to: adequately provide for Disaster Declaration and subsequent relief for loss of subsistence fisheries.
- Add at least two Tribal seats to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council appointed by the Secretary of the Interior.
- Relocate the National Marine Fisheries Service from the Department of Commerce to the Department of the Interior to center sustainability of fisheries ecosystems over economic interests of multi-billion dollar industrial commercial fishing corporations.
- Introduce legislation recognizing Alaska Native Tribal Hunting and Fishing Rights.
“If we made a mistake – it was trusting the State to manage a resource that we have managed for thousands of years. In the short 65 years – our fish are nearly going extinct. The bottom line is the only path forward is co-management or management by our native people. We are not trying to shut down trawl but get them to cut back and share in the conservation,” Chief Ridley stated at the end his testimony.
TCC hopes that the SCIA, Congress and the Federal Government listen to the Tribal Leaders and subsistence fishers across the State who have been demanding action to protect our salmon resources. The time for action is now and every salmon counts.