This press release comes from Bob Penney and the board of the Alaska Fisheries Conservation Alliance Inc. This initiative represents an effort to eliminate by public ballot initiative the set gillnet fleets in Cook Inlet and other non-subsistence parts of Alaska.<\/p>\n
Dear Alaska Legislator;<\/em><\/p>\n As you may have heard, in the near future we will be pursuing an initiative to be placed on the 2016 ballot\u00a0to ban the use of set nets in the non-subsistence areas of Alaska.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n This initiative will do the same thing in portions of Alaska that has been done in the states of\u00a0Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, New York, California, and most recently in the Columbia River in Washington and Oregon.\u00a0 In\u00a0each of those\u00a0instances, the public\u00a0voted to restrict the use of set nets\u00a0and since that first\u00a0vote over 25 years ago, no set nets\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n What would our initiative do?\u00a0It would only\u00a0ban set nets in the five,\u00a0present-day non-subsistence designated areas of Fairbanks, Anchorage, Valdez, Juneau, and Ketchikan. That is less than 10% of the state, but encompasses over 70% of the state’s population. Set nets in the rural or other 90% of our state would still be allowed as a\u00a0means of fishing. This vote will not affect the rural areas.<\/em><\/p>\n