FEATURE - Panel taking stock of Alaska's ocean health
Date: 28-Sep-01
Country: USA
Author: Yereth Rosen
In rural stretches of the state, global warming has thinned Arctic pack ice, making travel dangerous for Native hunters.
Traces of industrial pollution from distant continents is showing up in the fat of Alaska's marine wildlife and in the breast milk of Native mothers who eat a traditional diet that includes such items as seal and walrus meat.
The population of sea lions, fur seals, sea otters and varieties of sea birds has plummeted for reasons yet undetermined by scientists.
And fishery managers in Anchorage, though more successful than their counterparts elsewhere in the nation, are still struggling to reduce the millions of pounds of species that are accidentally harvested, then thrown away, by commercial fishermen.
Although Alaska is far from the polluted shorelines of southern industrial centers and the decimated fisheries off the New England coast, even its waters are affected by environmental strains, a private, non-profit organization has discovered.
The Pew Oceans Commission, an independent group of marine experts, political leaders and academicians, heard Alaska's concerns about marine health during a stop here on a national tour.
The commission, formed by the Pew Charitable Trusts and based in the Washington, D.C. area, is gathering information from around the nation's coastal regions for a report due to Congress next year on recommended ocean policies.
CUTBACKS IN SEAFOOD HARVESTS
The report will cover the general issues of pollution, coastal development, fisheries management and governance.
The panel already traveled to Maine, South Carolina, Hawaii and California, is headed next to Portland, Ore. At all stops, overfishing has been a major concern, said Justin Kenney, spokesman for the panel.
"Everywhere we've gone, we've heard about the current status of fishery management," Kenney said during a week-long visit to Alaska.
Drastic cutbacks in seafood harvests are not necessarily the answer, but the oceans do need a new harvest system that encourages better conservation, said commission member Eileen Claussen.
"All the incentives are set up so they want to take everything now," said Claussen, a former assistant secretary of state for oceans, environment and science.
The stint in Alaska included a boat tour of Kenai Fjords National Park near Seward - where commission members got glimpses of the endangered sea lions sunning themselves on rocks - a public hearings in Anchorage and Kodiak.
Alaska's fisheries are much healthier than those elsewhere in the nation, and managers here have tried to avoid the mistakes that led to collapses in places like New England, Dave Benton, chairman of the Anchorage-based North Pacific Fishery Management Council, told the commission at the Anchorage hearing.
"The reason our council works is we have some basic ground rules. We don't overrule our scientists, for example," he said.
Still, Benton said, managers need a better system to reduce what is called 'bycatch,' or taking in unwanted fish. "We've made a lot of progress but there's still allot that needs to be done," he said.
Global warming and the ensuing climate change is also considered a growing problem in Alaska.
SEA LION POPULATIONS
Some blame it for the precipitous declines in the Alaska sea lion population and for declines of other marine mammals in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.
Around his Lower Yukon River village of Marshall, global warming is believed to have contributed to deaths, said George Owletuck, a Yupik Eskimo and member of the Alaska Oceans Network.
Some villagers traveling by snowmobile have fallen through the thinner-than-normal river ice and drowned, Owletuck told the commission at the Anchorage hearing. "Generally, it's younger men, young men in their 20s who have not learned to traverse the country safely," he said.
The concern is echoed by Carlotta Leon Guerrero, a commission member and former legislator from Guam.
She fears for the fl
