"We use elder's knowledge to hunt, fish, and survive. We use western knowledge to protect our subsistence way of life."

David O. David, Kwigillingok. Vice-Chair of the Bering Sea Elders Advisory Group.

In November of 2009, representatives of 22 tribes from the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta gathered in Bethel to discuss the possibility of bottom trawling in the northern Bering Sea and to further develop their plans to work together to address this potential threat to their way of life.

In February of 2010 representatives of the Bering Sea Elders Advisory Group, as well as other concerned citizens and members of other organizations, met in Anchorage with representatives of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council and the Alaska Fisheries Science Center to discuss the development of a northern Bering Sea research plan. This research plan (the details of which have yet to be worked out) will be the first step in determining if bottom trawl fleets will be allowed to move northwards.

At both meetings, representatives of the Bering Sea Elders Advisory Group expressed concerns that bottom trawling, if allowed to move north, will threaten their way of life and will negatively affect the species that they depend on for subsistence. Bycatch, habitat destruction, and population declines are all issues that members of the Elders Group are seriously concerned about. The following quotes are taken from these two meetings.

"...I would like to go back to the upcoming 2011 North Pacific plan summit for both sides to come to an understanding of those who trawl and those who depend on resources from the sea. When the 2011 summit is in session, I would like the white fishermen to understand that when there's a big bycatch, the species decline in great number...I would like for them to understand, to keep in mind for the species to be still available for our use as food. The trawlers are known to have thrown what they don't expect to catch in big numbers. Not only that, they also destroy the habitats where mammals and the fish feed. We all know that even a fish having no food will die out ...as well as the mammals that feed on clams. When I was fishing for herring in Bristol Bay, the trawlers used to leave a trail of clam shells in the wakes of the sea and on the shore. With this in mind, I would like both sides to come to an understanding to where the interpretation of subsistence is."

Paul John, Toksook Bay.

Translated from the original Yup'ik by Moses Chanar.

"What we need to do is we need to make a decision - how far north we want this trawl fleet to go with our permission, because right now where they're at they have no permission from us to do their commercial activities. If we say, "Okay, come to my backyard. Come fish in my backyard," in my hometown I'm going to run out of beluga whales. I'm going to run out of ribbon seals. I'll have no more tomcod. I'm going to run out of imukinuk (cisco), just because of this trawl fleet that is going out there and taking these fish in large numbers...

...I know we ain't backwards. I know we're right, because we've lived right here on this land. What comes from us from the land, the ocean, and the air - those are the things that we survive on. When something is taken away from our subsistence way of life, even if it might mean in the terms of food for my king salmon, food for my walrus, food for my beluga whales, they're going to effect me because I won't be able to go out there and be as successful as I was in the past. I'll have to burn more gas to go out and get the same amount as what I did ten years ago. How come I should be paying? Why?... My backyard, that's what I call the Bering Sea, my bread basket...that's where I get my food from. When that one is being affected, I'm going to have to go somewhere else."

Ted Hamilton, Emmonak.