KMXT 100.1 FM Public Radio in Kodiak, Alaska
Kayla Desroches/KMXT
The Scientific and Statistical Committee advises the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and met last week in Kodiak, at the same time as the Council and the Advisory Panel are also meeting in town.
Friday, the SSC spoke with the council and defended its idea to start a social science team in order to improve the Council’s next review of the crab rationalization program.
SSC Chair Farron Wallace said the group identified specific issues with its last five-year review.
“There’s need for description of active participation by quota holders, there’s need to develop methods to characterize how access and upward mobility has changed over time, data [is] not able to answer how much quota is held by new entrants, and the social impact analysis lacks a way to characterize how the change in the structure of harvesting jobs affects the participant.”
Wallace expressed the SSC’s dissatisfaction with how reviews have been conducted and suggested the council establish the social science team, or SSC sub-committee, to help the Council better develop its next analysis.
As detailed in the SSC minutes, the social science team would provide an “alternative process for program monitoring and evaluation.” It would meet once or twice a year to talk about “program evaluation strategies, refinements in data collection, and analytical methods.” Wallace said it would be a way to make sure the Council wouldn’t be in the same situation in another five years.
“The social science team could identify the types of surveys that are needed. Certainly they have a good handle on the type of surveys that are out there now and have ended, and so we’d be looking to the social science team to better inform the council and the SSC of the types of data that need to be collected for the 15-year review.”
North Pacific Fishery Management Councilman Kenny Down, from Seattle, asked about funds the SSC had previously used for its social impact assessment and how it might use the funds to get a different result.
“Those funds were used and that information was in the three and the five-year review maybe, but you still didn’t much care for that, so how do you see that reinstating those funds is gonna get to what you need to if it didn’t get to what you need to in the past? Looking at the document, it occurred to me if those funds were there, the SSC didn’t get much for the data in the three-year and the five-year review, so something didn’t work.”
Wallace suggested the social science team would help figure out what had gone wrong.
“We want individuals on that social science team to identify not only what we’re missing in the past, but be able to give us recommendations on future development of a program that can bring forth the types of information that we need. And you’re exactly right, often that information fell short of what was needed for the review.”
Chris Oliver, executive director of the Council staff, made a comment that he fears the sub-committee would be a “dream team” which would imagine goals the council has no ability to achieve.
Wallace said he sympathizes, but thinks the sub-committee would pinpoint realistic goals and help the Council find a better way to make informed decisions.
The Council began its meeting last Monday and will conclude Tuesday.
