September 11, 2023
National Fishermen
Linda Behnken and Aubrey Church
Fishery leaders around the country support updating federal fisheries guidelines to secure access to wild seafood
Catching fish from a small boat for a living is a tough business. The days are long, the gear is heavy, and even on a good day the work deck is rocking and rolling with the ocean. Hard days offer up the challenges of surviving inevitable storms, keeping the engine and machinery running, and interpreting the rapidly changing ocean.
But the biggest challenges for our community-based fishermen are access to fish itself and being heard in the noise of federal legislation and fisheries management. A new process at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) makes that clearer than ever.
Linda Behnken and Aubrey Ellertson Church are members of the Fishing Communities Coalition, an association of community-based, small-boat commercial fishing groups, representing more than 1,000 independent fishermen and business owners from Maine to Alaska, who share a commitment to the sustainable management of America’s fishery resources: www.fishingcommunitiescoalition.org. Behnken is a commercial fisherman and the Executive Director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association out of Sitka, Alaska; and Church is the Policy Manager for the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance out of Chatham, Mass.