Decker explains proposed seafood

development tax for SE gillnetters

Mike Tozzo

April 20 , 2006.

Gig Decker, Secretary Treasurer for Rainforest WILD, was in Petersburg Tuesday night to field questions and information about the proposed seafood development tax for SE gillnetters. According to Cynthia Wallesz, a board member, Decker is sort of the founding father of Rainforest WILD.

“Rainforest WILD is the regional seafood development association for Southeast Alaska,” said Decker. There are 12 regional seafood development associations in Alaska and are used as economic development tools. Decker said the best example of that economic development is Copper River.

Copper River was a regional branding effort that tried to increase the quality of their seafood and promote and advertise the attributes of the Copper River area. “Regional Seafood Development Associations can also educate, research and get behind projects such as the public cold storage facility,” said Decker.

According to Decker the legislature has left it pretty open as far as what seafood development associations can do for their areas fisheries. “The main component is to increase the value of seafood coming off the boats, so they’re a tool to make more money for fisherman and their products,” said Decker.

Decker said that on Tuesday night people wanted to know what they are going to get for their money. “There is a varying level of understanding of what an RSDA is and one of the things we’re trying to do is get people to understand that it’s a much broader concept than just doing promotions.”

Each of the 12 RSDA’s has different focuses. In Southeast Alaska there are 69 different gear cards and each one of the gear cards has the opportunity to become a part of the RSDA. “We are like the cornucopia of seafood products for all of Alaska,” said Decker. “We have a number of attributes here in Southeast that are attractive to the seafood buying market.”

People in other areas of the country are very interested in fresh seafood, the sustainability of the fishery, the socioeconomic effects and in the fisherman’s efforts to deliver the highest quality fish possible. “Quality is going to save this industry, so for us, job number one is quality,” said Decker.

Decker said that the second thing they want to do is figure out how to promote their efforts to the buying public. “RSDA’s by nature are cooperative and an inclusive operation, so to be successful we have to include not just harvesters but processors and we have to include the communities,” said Decker. Most of the funding for Rainforest WILD and other RSDA’s comes from grants.

“We’re having elections right now to determine a self assessment of one percent,” said Decker. “If that’s successful it sort of gives us a place at the table when we go to look for grants.” One of the things an RSDA can do is develop funding for an area like Southeast. “It’s very important to recognize the inclusiveness and the whole cooperative nature and that everyone involved is successfully marketing the attributes of an area.”

Because of farmed fish, Decker said there has been a tremendous evolution in the nature of the security of our futures. “We can never go back to competing as a commodity, so now we have to separate ourselves from farmed fish and be something more,” said Decker.

The intrinsic value for fresh fish is here says Decker, but it’s the way we treat the fish after the catch that has really been the problem. “This is exactly where farmed fish has out competed us, we have a higher intrinsic value but the extrinsic value is where they have gotten ahead of us,” said Decker.

One of the largest goals for Rainforest WILD is to put together a two or three-year promotions for Southeast gillnet fish. “What we’re going to try and do is put together a very realistic plan for promoting Southeast gillnet fish,” said Decker. This will be a two-part plan, with one aspect figuring out how to assist the harvesters in developing more premium quality fish.