Privatizing the Right to Fish: Challenges to Livelihood and Community in Kodiak, Alaska

Privatizing the Right to Fish: Challenges to Livelihood and Community in Kodiak, Alaska Courtney CarothersSchool of Fisheries & Ocean SciencesUniversity of Alaska FairbanksAlaska Marine Science Symposium, January 2009

Dissertation Research Overview • Privatization of Fishing Rights Symbolic & Material Transformations • Discourses of privatization • Loss of fishing rights in Alaska villages • Lived realities in Alutiiqfishing communities • Possibilities for redistribution of rights

I. Discourses of Privatization • Framing of fisheries access privatization is key to understanding debate & impacts Catch Shares Revive FisheriesScience study confirms that this innovative approach is the best way to manage and restore fisheriesEnvironmental Defense Fund 2008

II. Loss of Fishing Rights in Villages • Why do small coastal communities in GOA disproportionately lose fishing rights? (1,000s)

Halibut IFQ holder survey • Sample buyers, sellers, & original quota holders • 14% of pop (n = 1,100); 46% response rate • 50% of respondents from small, remote fishing villages • How do community & demographic variables affect: • Buying and selling patterns • Opinions of privatized access programs

Logit Analysis • Relationship between individual attributes and buying and selling patterns? • Attributes: • Age • Income • Education • Ethnicity • Residency in small, remote fishing community • Fishing income dependence

Logit Analysis • Model the probability that an individual is a seller (not a buyer) • Three attributes influence Pr[sell] • Age • The older an individual is the more likely s/he is to sell. • Ethnicity • Alaska Native quota holders more likely to sell. • Income • The lower an individual’s income is the more likely s/he is to sell.

Likert Scale Composite • Alaska Native respondents show least support for privatization • Respondents who do not identify their community as “fishing dependent” show the most support.

III. Lived Realities in Alutiiq Villages • What factors explain trends of loss of fishing rights? • How are these changes experienced locally?

Ethnographic Research • 15 months (2005-2006) • Larsen Bay, Old Harbor, and Ouzinkie • >150 interviews • 71 household surveys • Participant observation • Social network analysis

Larsen Bay ○ Ouzinkie • 90 people • 70% Alaska Native • 190 people • 88% Alaska Native ○ ○ Old Harbor • 200 people • 89% Alaska Native

Dramatic Decrease in Fishing Participation

Why this decrease? • “It all started with the permit” • Cannery period (1880s to 1960s) • Flexible, informal commercial fishing relationships • Men ran cannery boats; women worked in canneries • System of wages and credit • Labor mobility – crew transition to skipper to owner • Maintenance economy: “getting through the winter”; “not getting ahead of your neighbors”

Privatizing the Right to Fish • Access privatization (1970s – present) • Right to fish individualized and commodified • Initial allocation of rights usually to boat owners • Subsequent allocation by market ($$) • Economic & social disconnect with cannery period “Before all this Ouzinkie was a fishing community, free enterprise…It was family fishing. (Permits) eliminated all that. (Before) you didn't have to own anything. It worked as a bartering system. You work for the cannery and they took care of you.”

Privatizing the Right to Fish • Kin-based fishing not rewarded • Capital investment over labor investment • Labor mobility restricted “With limited entry, most of the young people didn't want to be crewmembers their whole lives – they got out of fishing. (It would have) cost them $200,000 to get into the fishery.” • Right to fish become alienable disproportionate rate of sale

Disproportionate Rate of Sale • Higher discount rate (Langdon 1980) • Current cash flow more important than future earning potential • High-value capital asset detrimental • Limited access to collateral, financial institutions, knowledge of programs • IRS repossession • Other factors • Low wild salmon prices • Exxon Valdez oil spill

Social Change • Values • Individualism, competition • Status • Labor/class hierarchies • Wealth disparities • “Business style” fishermen gain political power • “Lifestyle fishermen” subordinated (Mason 1993) • Economy • Maintenance to accumulation

Social Change • The “Lost” Generation “When I was young, I grew up knowing that I’d be a fisherman and I knew one day I’d be a boat owner... Guys growing up today don’t know that; there’s no reason to think they can be boat owners – most of them can’t be.” Elder fisherman in Ouzinkie

Social Change • Loss of fishing rights not just income • Loss of identity, meaningful lifestyle, connection to place • New stratification altered community dynamics • Linking of loss of fisheries to increasing social problems • 50% decrease in village populations • Impact on subsistence economy

IV. Redistribution of Rights • Community-based rights • Community Quota Entity Program • Aboriginal claim to fish • Social movements • Collective planning • Kodiak Island Rural Regional Leadership Forum • “Commercial fishing is part of our future” • Economic diversification

Summary • Complex relationships b/tpeople, places, & resources • Privatization is remaking these relationships • Privatization constrains fishing livelihoods and connection to place • While effects not entirely predictable, tend to reinforce historical inequities based on class & ethnicity • Symbolic/ideological struggle over language, values, and assumptions

Acknowledgements • Dissertation Committee: • Eric Alden Smith (University of Washington) • Dave Fluharty (UW) • Ben Fitzhugh (UW) • Jennifer Sepez (NOAA Fisheries) • Funding Agencies • National Science Foundation • Wenner-GrenFoundation for Anthropological Research • Washington Sea Grant Program • Morris K. Udall Foundation

Quyanaasinaq • The people of the Kodiak Archipelago • Tribal Councils of Larsen Bay, Old Harbor and Ouzinkie • Mary Haakanson, Phyllis Clough, Mary Barb Christiansen, the Fields, Herman Squartsoff, Angeline Campfield, Jack Wick, Gwen Christiansen, RJ Zeedar

Privatizing the Right to Fish: Challenges to Livelihood and Community in Kodiak, Alaska