After months of fighting to save Southeast Alaska’s Chinook salmon troll fishery from a misguided lawsuit filed by the Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC), our fleet is going fishing! On June 21st the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the District Court’s May decision to close the fishery while the National Marine Fisheries Service addresses technical […]
To celebrate National Seafood month, we’re highlighting the women and men who bring sustainable seafood to our dinnertables. We’ll start our October series with Network Policy Council co-chair Linda Behnken, who’s fished the waters off Alaska her entire adult life. This article appeared in the Network’s From the Waterfront blog in 2017 and is reprinted […]
Photo: Author Linda Behnken on the water off the coast of Alaska Small-scale fisheries support a way of life that has become increasingly rare in our industrialized world—a way of life that is inexorably tied to the natural world, where individuals face forces far greater than human power and thrive only through humility and a […]
Top photo: Linda Behnken Straight from the waters off Sitka, Alaska, Linda Behnken describes the hardships that the coronavirus pandemic has brought to America’s fishermen. 2020 has been a hard year for her and her fishermen peers, just as it has for all fishermen, coastal communities and many others across country. Fishermen provide our country […]
Photo courtesy of Linda Behnken As the COVID-19 pandemic creates a greater economic downturn with each passing day, many Alaskans are facing difficult decisions about how to cover daily needs with little or no income. With people out of work, many families are finding it increasingly difficult to put food on the table. Those who […]
Young people in Alaska face mounting challenges to entering commercial fisheries By Linda Behnken and Tara Racine. This piece first appeared in The Cordova Times and the Juneau Empire and is reprinted with permission. Top photo courtesy of National Fisherman, from the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. Limited entry programs have reduced the size of the […]
Reprinted with permission from Oncorhynchus, the quarterly newsletter of the Alaska Chapter of the American Fisheries Society Climate change and ocean acidification pose significant threats to both fresh and saltwater fishes. Phenomena such as the 2015–2016 Gulf of Alaska “warm blob” are identified as drivers in the 80% drop in Central Gulf Pacific Cod abundance […]
This post is part of an ongoing series profiling the Network’s partners and their good work. Photo by Eric Jordan. The Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association (ALFA) is an alliance of small boat commercial fishermen committed to sustainable fisheries and thriving fishing communities. ALFA has represented hook and line fishermen for more than 40 years, working […]
