Saturday, June 6, 2009

Will Southeast gillnetters go for marketing magic?

Salmon fishermen in two parts of the state, Bristol Bay and the Copper River and Prince William Sound, have self-imposed 1 percent landings taxes to pay for regional marketing associations.

Now the 475 gillnetters in Southeast Alaska are voting on whether to also fund a regional marketing effort under the banner Rainforest Wild.

You might recall the Southeast gillnetters held an election in 2006, but the vote failed.

Rainforest Wild organizers figure each gillnetter would pay an average of $373 a year to the marketing association.

Mail-in ballots must be postmarked by June 16, so we should know shortly thereafter if the Southeast fleet goes for a marketing association this time around.

Two people who think it should are Bob Waldrop and Beth Poole, who head the Bristol Bay and Copper River/Prince William Sound marketing groups.

They wrote this essay on why regional seafood development associations make sense.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry if I don't agree that just any old marketing group is worth the price.
Copper River went about it right and have done an excellant job.
BB - jury is still out but it is NOT popular with the on the grounds fishermen. Considering the vote allowed for less than a majority of permit holders to give it the OK is wrong.
Also there is no clear marketing effort, instead just lots of trying to promote stuff like icing.Something that needs to be done but a MARKETING group is not the group to do it.
Also paying for managers like BW are not a great way to instill trust that it is not just a local job maker for some guy's buddy, as this appears.
RR

Anonymous said...

We are in competition (for profits) with our fish buyers. They just dropped the price of dressed Taku kings to 2.50 white, 3.00 red. I think that's a low price !!! What are YOU going to do about it ?
FG

Anonymous said...

never head of any voting, iam a gillnetter