New Report Says SEAK SeaBank Contributed Billions to Area Economy

Image: Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust.

A report highlighting the value of Southeast Alaska’s terrestrial and marine environment, including its commercial fisheries, concludes that annual economic dividends from fisheries and tourism are valued at $1 billion and 16,500 jobs.

The 2024 Seabank Annual Report, released Nov. 17 by the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust in Sitka, notes that in 2024 the SeaBank had a value of $5.3 billion in ecosystem services such as marine nurseries and wetland buffers from 850,000 acres of estuaries and 2.7 billion metric tons of carbon sequestered in the SeaBank forest. The report also identifies threats to that natural capital—industrial logging, trawling, mining and climate change.

“This incredible bank supports over 72,000 human shareholders in 33 communities, along with citizens worldwide, yielding valuable annual returns such as local livelihoods and climate mitigation across the planet,” Linda Behnken, a veteran commercial fish harvester and Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust board member said.

The term SeaBank was coined by cultural anthropologist and writer Richard K. Nelson and financier Sam Skaggs. They recognized Southeast Alaska’s ecosystem as a bank that supplies natural capital to fuel regional economies.

Their stated goal was to help people understand the value of this capital and the dividends it pays each year in fish, forest, water and socio-economic well-being, among other contributions.

“Thanks to abundant rainfall and the cooling effect of glaciers, our SeaBank is a climate refuge,” 2024 SeaBank Annual Report author Paul Olson said.

“That refuge benefits both local and global communities, buffering the impacts of climate change and creating a stronghold for vulnerable species, but even the SeaBank has its limits,” he added. “We have to take care of the old-growth forest, the estuaries and the rivers if we want the SeaBank to take care of us and future generations.”

The report notes that Southeast Alaska has over 10,000 estuaries that flow into bays, fjords and channels, then coalesce to form a single overarching estuary system. For communities in the Panhandle, this amounts to a literal fish factory, producing over $1 billion worth of commercial fish for worldwide consumption every year.

The economic health of Southeast Alaska is directly tied to the stability and health of the environment, according to the report. The study draws from research on the dollar value of marine resources harvested in the region, most importantly salmon, halibut, shellfish and black cod. 

The report further includes the value of tourism and ecosystem services that also depend on the natural environment.

Every town in Southeast Alaska has one or more harbors, veritable forests of trolling poles and docks. Seine fishermen and gillnetters mend their nets there, longliners tie up after delivering their catch and charter boat fishermen arrive with clients on dream fishing trips.

Subsistence fishing also plays a large role in the economy, in the harvest of salmon, halibut, rockfish, crab and shrimp, providing staple foods with serious cash equivalent value.