Permit Migration and a Graying Fleet: Rural access to fishing permits declines.

• Author: Simonelli, Isaac Stone
• Position: FISHERIES

The high cost of entry into Alaska's limited permit commercial fishing industry appears to be fueling the graying of the fleet and the movement of licenses out of rural coastal communities to more urban locales and out of state. The ramifications of these shifts in the industry are cause for concern, says Paula Cullenberg, professor emeritus, UAF.

"This is a national, an international issue when you limit access to fishing--and there are lots of good reasons to do that--it does create barriers for succession, and that's one big root cause [of the problems in Alaska], there's no doubt about that," she says.

In Alaska's early statehood nearly sixty years ago, salmon stocks were dwindling due to overfishing. To combat this, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game employed management strategies designed to allow for long-term sustainability of fishery resources, says Marcus Gho, an economist at the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

However, the department's efforts were not viewed as sufficient to ensure the sustainability of commercial fishing in Alaska. In 1972, Alaskans amended the state constitution, allowing for limited entry, which is a system that requires permits to fish; some fisheries, such as salmon, allow only a certain number of permits to ensure both sustainability of the fish population and preservation of the economic health of the fishery, Gho says.

At the end of last year, there were 13,996 limited entry permits. Between 1975 and 2017, there has been a net gain of 431 permits to Alaska residents through transfers from nonresidents, Gho explains. During the same period of time, the net change of permits that accompanied people who moved outside of Alaska has been 1,148. This comes to an annual average of 16.7 permits leaving the state each year, an overall decrease of about 5 percent.

"Is 5 percent substantial? For many individuals any permits leaving the state of Alaska is substantial, but for others it is not," Gho says.

However, this decrease does not account for the movement of permit holders from rural Alaska to urban areas. A total of 54.2 percent of all limited permits were issued to rural Alaskans starting in 1975. By the end of 2017, rural Alaskans held only 48.1 percent.

"I think that the implications for the succession of the fishing industry in our state are significant. If we lose Alaska participation in fisheries, if we don't have a strong participation, we are losing job opportunities and economic input in our state," Cullenberg says. Not only does the state lose tax opportunities, it loses overall economic gains from the fishing industry...