Wherever your home port, commercial fishermen know all too well what happens when the land, water, and habitat supporting a fishery is abused. Far too many have declined due to loss of habitat, oil spills and other environmental calamities. And we’ve also seen that billions of dollars cannot fully restore fish stocks impacted by inappropriate development. In hindsight, it’s obvious too, that efforts to restore habitat are more expensive and less effective than preventing damage in the first place.

Robin Samuelsen, Bristol Bay resident, commercial fisherman