By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
As part of an ongoing effort to encourage and enable participation in commercial fishing, the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust will use grant money received last month to purchase halibut and black cod quota, which will then be leased to new fishermen.
“It will all be available for Alaska fishermen to fish, and then we’ll use the revenue from it to support entry-level fishermen and enhance access wherever we see that we can help with the revenue from that quota,” trust acting director Linda Behnken told the Sentinel. “We’ll be using it to help bring quota and fishery access back into our communities.”
The trust will use a $475,000 grant from the Rasmuson Foundation – announced in December – to finance a “quota bank,” which launched in 2022 after a $600,000 grant from a nonprofit investment group called Catch Together allowed the fisheries trust to purchase quota without assuming debt.
In addition, the trust set up a loan fund four years ago to help fishermen purchase quota outright. Loan payments, Behnken said, were tied to the cost of fish.
“We established a revolving loan fund four years ago… that was low upfront cost and low risk, their payments were not fixed. (Payments are) based on what they made from fishing. Prices went down, so did their payments,” she said.
Lease payments for the quota bank will operate on a similar system.
But unlike the loan fund, which provides money for buying quota shares, the quota bank operates on a leasing system which guarantees that the quota shares remain in Alaska.
“It’s anchored in the community,” Behnken said. “The downside of our revolving loan fund is once people pay off their loans, if they decide to leave Alaska or sell that quota out of Alaska, we could still lose that quota from our communities. With this quota bank, since the trust will hold it for this purpose, it can’t leave Alaska… People can lease quota from us, build up capital and then go on to buy their own quota. And that’s what we’re hoping for, and we’ll look for ways to help people buy their own quota.”
The ASF trust also operates a seafood donation program in conjunction with the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association. More information is available at https://thealaskatrust.org/.
After taking a loan years ago and using the initial grant money in the summer of 2022, the trust now has 60,000 pounds of black cod quota, which is valued at about $20 per pound. Though the trust first bought black cod shares in 2019, she noted, the sizable debt burden that came with that made it impractical to lease those shares to new fishermen. However, thanks to the recent grants, ASFT’s options are open.
“With this grant money, where we won’t have debt, we can really use it to assist entry level fishermen and help generate revenue to support programs for entry level fishermen,” Behnken said.
The trust hasn’t been able to acquire class A halibut shares yet, but Behnken hopes to buy some to add to the quota bank. Halibut quota costs about $60 per pound.
“If someone that has some halibut A-shares and says, ‘I like what you’re doing and I’d be willing to sell them,’ that would be awesome,” Behnken said.
The precise amount of quota needed to make a living in pursuit of fish is variable, Behnken added.
“There’s really a range of business models and scales of operations… Since we’ll be targeting entry level, I’m thinking more of a 5,000-pound range, three to five maybe, to help people get started.”
She hopes the quota bank will bolster access to Alaska’s fisheries.
“Over the past 20 years, rural and especially Indigenous communities have steadily lost access to Alaska’s fisheries, a loss that has eliminated commercial fishing from some communities and reduced subsistence access and food security across the state,” Behnken said in a separate press release.
The quota bank is already up and running, she noted, and the quota purchased with the initial Catch Together grant was fished in the fall. The trust plans to purchase more quota with the Rasmuson money early this year.
Those interested in the quota bank program can call the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust at 907-747-3400 or send an email to asft.director@gmail.com.
