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villages. All six CDQ groups have successful joint ventures with 

 factory trawler companies that are providing work and income for 

 local residents. 



We went with the factory trawlers because they offered the best 

 price for our quota, the highest paying jobs for our people and bet- 

 ter long-term fishery opportunities for our area. The money we re- 

 ceived for our quota is being invested — or will be invested in fish- 

 eries projects that will help our local economies over the long haul. 

 Senator Stevens, Henry Mitchell, John Binkley, and other long- 

 term supporters of this program deserve much credit for these re- 

 sults. 



These developments may have come as a surprise to some people. 

 We now have a closer relationship to the high seas fisheries and 

 the offshore fleet than anyone would have expected a couple of 

 years ago. As a result, we shared many of the same concerns, and 

 I would like — and Harvey would like to talk a little about two of 

 them. 



Even though more than 15 years have passed since the Magnu- 

 son Act was adopted, the Americanization goal of the act has not 

 been reached yet. Major Japanese fishing companies, such as 

 Nippon Suisan, Taiyo, and others, won a large majority of the 

 salmon and groundfish shoreside processing plants in our coastal 

 communities. These companies continue to dominate the Japanese 

 market for fishery products as well. 



Policies like the inshore/offshore scheme was adopted during the 

 Bush administration, which guarantees the Japanese-owned shore 

 plants in Dutch Harbor a share of the U.S. pollock and give these 

 companies control of raw fish and seafood prices. I do not think it 

 is an accident that the prices paid to U.S. fishermen for delivering 

 to those plants, and that our CDQ operations get from competing 

 product, have dropped through the floor since inshore/offshore was 

 approved. 



We need your help in creating more competition among proc- 

 essors. This means preventing large companies like Nippon Suisan 

 and Taiyo from controlling our resources and the markets into 

 which we must sell our product. It also means helping the industry 

 develop new markets at home and overseas for American seafood 

 products. 



The other area where we need your help is stabilizing the catch 

 effort of the groundfish in the Bering Sea and international waters. 

 CDQ's have shown us that individual fishing quotas will lead to 

 lower bycatch of salmon and other fish important to our culture 

 and economy, better efficiency, less waste, and higher, more stable 

 prices for our products. 



We cannot afford to let the fishery in the Bering Sea fail for any 

 reason. Native people on our Bering Sea coast depend on these fish 

 for their livelihood. Your committee should not forget the people 

 who will be hurt if we do not do everything that we can to protect 

 and conserve our salmon and other fisheries in the Bering Sea. 

 This means we should go as far as closing down the entire Bering 

 Sea fishery if our salmon and other fisheries are in danger by 

 overfishing, bycatch or waste. 



