Alaska’s commercial herring fisheries are under evaluation for a Responsible Fishery Management eco-certification that could boost sales and harvest from statewide herring fisheries.
The state-run Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute commissioned the independent RFM certification study for all commercial herring fisheries that occur in the Southeast Alaska, Prince William Sound, Kodiak, Dutch Harbor and Togiak areas.
The RFM certification process for Alaska herring could be complete by fall of 2025, according to a report to the Board of Fish by Kodiak herring fisherman Bruce Schactler, a longtime ASMI leader.
Schactler, who has been working for more than 20 years to expand markets for Alaska herring, told the Board of Fish in January that buyers in Japan, Europe, East Coast USA, and Iceland "are all asking for/about Alaska herring, but are also needing a sustainability certification.”
Schactler said today that "all those different places had buyers that had shown interest," but asked that a sustainability certification be associated with the Alaska herring product.
"It's easy to show interest, and then the proof is in the pudding," Schactler said.
Once Alaska herring industry leaders secure RFM sustainability certification, they "can start looking at markets in more than just a theoretical way,” Schactler said.
Schactler worked with ASMI last year to secure funding for the RFM study process by an independent evaluator.
ASMI developed the certification program, and in 2020 transferred program ownership to Certified Seafood International, Inc.
Independent RFM assessments rely on standard guidelines to consider each fishery’s biological sustainability, social responsibility, and economic viability, CSI’s website states.
The company authorizes its RFM-certified fishery clients to use “CSI Certified” logos on their product packaging.
Alaska salmon, cod, pollock, crab, flatfish, halibut, mackerel and black cod fisheries are already RFM-certified under CSI.
Independent evaluators for CSI are now conducting meetings and visits with Alaska herring stakeholders as part of the RFM certification process.
Evaluators are scheduled to be in Juneau next week for a “site visit” that’s part of the process. The evaluators are setting up teleconference meetings with stakeholders, as well.
Anyone who is an Alaska herring stakeholder can submit information or request a meeting with the evaluators, with a deadline of 8 a.m. Sunday to “register as a stakeholder" in the certification process.
People can register by emailing certification@mragamericas.com with a description of their involvement with Alaska herring.
The ongoing certification process follows decades of work by ASMI to identify markets for different products made from Alaska herring, following market changes and the decline of demand in Japan for mature herring skeins that fueled Alaska’s sac roe herring fisheries.
In 2024, state fishery leaders forged the Herring Revitalization Committee, which joined the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission and Board of Fish with industry representatives to look at restructuring commercial herring fisheries to liberalize herring harvest and facilitate sales.
In a January interview, Schactler said that the committee last year explored how Alaska could "redo management away from any particular time of year” to allow sac roe herring fishermen to access sac roe harvest quota in the fall and winter months, when the fish have a higher oil content and are typically targeted in “food and bait” fisheries.
“If you only have access for a few weeks in the spring, you don’t have access,” Schactler said of the current structure of Alaska sac roe herring fisheries.
After serving on the committee, Schactler crafted a Board proposal seeking to allow Kodiak-area sac roe seiners to fish herring throughout the fall and winter months.
The Board unanimously passed a revised version of that proposal during a meeting in March, with the idea that Kodiak fishermen could supply new markets beginning this fall.
Under the new Kodiak regulations, sac roe seine fishing seasons are open for most of the year, and only food and bait fishery permit-holders can fish from Oct. 25 to Dec. 1. Kodiak is the only place in Alaska where food and bait herring permits are “limited entry," Schactler said.
