MANAGING THE GROUNDFISH FISHERIES OF ALASKA - HISTORY AND PROSPECTS

Responding to a national "Americanization" policy, the groundfish fishery off Alaska developed rapidly after the 200-mi EEZ was established in 1976. This transformation was characterized by (1) rapid expansion in the domestic groundfish fishing fleet, permitting the U.S. to supplant a major foreign fisher; (2) creation and rapid growth of a foreign high seas fishery in the Bering Sea "doughnut hole"; (3) extensive shifts in domestic fishing patterns, especially from longline and small-scale trawling to large-scale groundfish trawling, and from shore-based fisheries to at-sea processing; (4) new requirements for domestic, at-sea fishery monitoring and surveillance capability; (5) growing evidence of overcapitalization in the fishing fleet; and (6) growing concern that commercial fishing may be implicated in the rapid decline of marine mammal populations. The two fishery management plans prepared in accordance with the Magnuson Act address the need for biological conservation of groundfish resources and provide the structure for achieving Americanization. Now, other Federal resource management objectives need to be addressed. These include economic efficiency, equity in distributing the economic benefits from the fishery, conservation of marine mammals and other wildlife affected by commercial fishing, and formation of an international conservation regime for fish stocks straddling the EEZ and high seas "doughtnut hole". The North Pacific Fishery Management Council continues to explore and evaluate limited access systems which address the economic issues, but has yet to implement an effective program. With seriously declining populations of northern sea lions, fur seals, and harbor seals, fishery managers need to reconcile the production-oriented concerns of fishery management with the conservation of noncommercial resources. Finally, effective management of the largest single groundfish resource, walleye pollock in the Bering Sea, will require extensive international cooperation and management.