Alaska's community development quota program: A complex institution affecting rural communities in disparate ways

Lyons, Courtney; Carothers, Courtney; Coleman, Jesse

doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2019.103560

i

Alaska's community development quota program: A complex institution affecting rural communities in disparate ways

2019
By Lyons, Courtney ; Carothers, Courtney ; Coleman, Jesse

Details

Journal Title:

Marine Policy
Personal Author:

Lyons, Courtney ; Carothers, Courtney ; Coleman, Jesse
NOAA Program & Office:

NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service)
Description:

The Western Alaska Community Development Quota (CDQ) program created six regional CDQ groups, each of which were given fisheries quota to manage on behalf of qualifying rural Alaskan communities. Since its inception in the 1990s, the program has created dozens of jobs and millions of dollars' worth of revenue and is widely considered an example of successful community development. However, in mixed economies like those of the rural Alaskan villages covered by the CDQ program, economic metrics often fail to capture changes in non-economic factors of critical importance to residents. To address this lacuna, we examined how CDQ has influenced community well-being in four communities associated with four different CDQ groups. Interviews and focus groups in these communities indicated that CDQ's influence on well-being varied greatly. In some communities, CDQ increased local autonomy and, hence, well-being. In other communities, residents felt disenfranchised; control of their resources rested in urban board rooms to which they struggled to gain access. These findings indicate that power dynamics built into the design of the CDQ program have important ramifications for community well-being and that future development programs in fisheries management could benefit from better understandings of socio-cultural concepts such as well-being, in both program design and assessment stages.
Keywords:

Aquatic Science Economics And Econometrics General Environmental Science Law Management, Monitoring, Policy And Law Economics And Econometrics Management, Monitoring, Policy And Law Economics And Econometrics Management, Monitoring, Policy And Law
Source:

Marine Policy, 108, 103560
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2019.103560
ISSN:

0308-597X
Format:

PDF
Publisher:

Elsevier BV
Document Type:

Journal Article
Funding:

Grant no. NA16NMF4270253
Rights Information:

Accepted Manuscript
Compliance:

Library
Main Document Checksum:

urn:sha256:01b27663d974135190c029f72a0d4afa6bea330192d0881313f7bd2e73aaeae0
Download URL:

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/57553/noaa_57553_DS1.pdf
File Type:

[PDF - 595.34 KB ]

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