Sitka's 'Alaskans own' seafood: subscribers get their fish from local waters.

• Author: Swagel, Will
• Position: FISHERIES

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Sitka ranks as a top commercial and charter fishing port and many locals have big chest freezers filled with their catch. But others, like Cindy Litman, a Sitka-based educational researcher, don't fish and have to depend on family and friends for handouts. Despite its location right on the fishing grounds, Sitka's retail choices of local fish have been limited and expensive.

So Litman was delighted to buy a subscription last summer to "Alaskans Own" seafood--a new Sitka-based Community-Supported Fisheries (CSF) program. For a $390 share, Litman was able to pick up half a dozen allotments of five to six pounds each of a variety of local species caught in season by local fishermen. Every other week during summer, she and the 17 other subscribers drove, walked or biked to a large, weathered, old waterfront sawmill building, where enthusiastic young men and women dispensed vacuum packages of high quality, flash-frozen fish. A definite air of celebration made each pickup a pleasant task.

Litman said she felt good when she found out among the commercial fishermen supplying Alaskans Own were a few of her friends. And she found the product to be top-notch.

"What was really surprising was how good the fish tasted," Litman said. "That was an extra benefit I hadn't expected. It was the best fish we ever had."

GETTING THE COMMUNITY ON BOARD

Alaskans Own is one part of a larger effort created by two marine organizations--the Sitka-based Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association (ALFA) and the North Pacific Fisheries Trust, which promotes sustainable fisheries. Together they formed the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust, which is a nonprofit organization that invests in community-based fishermen who have a commitment to conservation of the fishing stocks and the marine environment.

Linda Behnken, a Sitka leader in fish politics and former member of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, is ALFA's long-time executive director. She said the Alaskans Own subscription program is one of three components.

* A conservation effort that ALFA runs where fishermen map habitat and work together to control bycatch--species that they catch while targeting other species. A certain amount of bycatch can be kept as part of the multi-species fisheries, but bycatch above that level is best avoided.

* Marketing local fish to local consumers both to raise money for conservation efforts and to get non-fishers interested in the health of the...