Alaskan Fishing Communities Feedback Submission Request

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance

for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback”

(OMB Control Number 0690-0030)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: Feedback from Alaskan Fishing Communities: Impacted/Respond or Adapt to Economic, Social, and Environmental Pressures

PURPOSE:

Social scientists from NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) are compiling and evaluating information to better understand how Alaskan fishing communities are impacted by and respond or adapt to economic, social, and environmental pressures. We are particularly interested in acquiring a better understanding of the ways in which NOAA Fisheries’ fishery management actions have impacted social and cultural institutions in fishing communities throughout the state of Alaska directly from members of these fishing communities.

As a starting point, the AFSC social science team has devised a set of “indicators” to measure a community’s vulnerability and resiliency to impacts of fisheries management actions (or to identify which communities have been most affected by past actions). Much of the data available for use as indicators is taken from existing secondary data sources (e.g., publications, websites, and online databases including demographic information from the Census Bureau and fisheries participation information from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and NOAA Fisheries).

In order to ensure that these vulnerability indicators adequately reflect the experience and perceptions of community members, AFSC researchers plan to conduct interviews in ten representative Alaskan fishing communities. Each interview will consist of a survey using a likert scale to measure respondents’ agreement with 17 statements about overall dependence of their community on fishing, the community’s ability to adapt to and cope with change, outside opportunities available to residents and local social capital. This will be followed by an unstructured interview to discuss the local significance of the concepts of vulnerability and resilience, individual perceptions of the characteristics of their community, and discuss how this information may be effectively used to minimize negative impacts and increase positive impacts of changes in fisheries management actions, as well as other environmental and social changes.

The goal of the survey and unstructured interviews is to effectively incorporate local knowledge about community vulnerability and resiliency to NOAA Fisheries’ management programs that would otherwise be missed using traditional research methods alone. Feedback will be solicited from as many sectors as possible, including vessel owners, vessel captains, crew members, processors, processing plant workers, shoreside business owners, and other relevant community members that are interested in talking about the issues the fishing community is facing.

Results of this “groundtruthing” survey and interview will be used to provide feedback as to whether our currently developed vulnerability indicators provide an accurate picture of current conditions within communities, as well as differences in vulnerability between communities. After the indicators have been determined to mirror the experience and concerns of local community members, they can reliably be used to assess impacts of fisheries management actions as well as other environmental and social changes on fishermen and their communities. This information will improve NOAA’s social impact assessments and will also assist local communities in developing strategies to cope with fisheries management.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

In order to collect this information, we propose to survey respondents representing a wide variety of fishing interests and members of the general public in each community. We will be recruiting vessel owners, vessel captains, crew members, processors, processor workers, shoreside business owners, and other relevant community members to be interviewed.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [X ] Customer Satisfaction Survey

[ ] Usability Testing (e.g., Website or Software [ ] Small Discussion Group

[ ] Focus Group [ ] Other: ______________________

CERTIFICATION:

I certify the following to be true:

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The results are not intended to be disseminated to the public.

5. Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions.

6. The collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the future.

Name:____Amber Himes-Cornell____________________________________________

To assist review, please provide answers to the following question:

Personally Identifiable Information:

1. Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [ ] Yes [ X ] No

2. If Yes, will any information that is collected be included in records that are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974? [ ] Yes [ X ] No

3. If Yes, has an up-to-date System of Records Notice (SORN) been published? [ ] Yes [ ] No

Gifts or Payments:

Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants? [ ] Yes [ X ] No

BURDEN HOURS

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents per community	Total No. of respondents	Participation Time per survey	Burden Hours
Individuals	30	300	10 minutes	50 hours
Totals	30	300		50 hours

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is $1,750 (Project staff for 50 hours @ $35/hour)

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or plan to employ statistical methods, please provide answers to the following questions:

The selection of your targeted respondents

1. Do you have a customer list or something similar that defines the universe of potential respondents and do you have a sampling plan for selecting from this universe? [ ] Yes [ X ] No

If the answer is yes, please provide a description of both below (or attach the sampling plan)? If the answer is no, please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and how you will select them?

AFSC will adopt both a purposive and snowball sampling approach to choosing individuals to include in the survey sample (Hall-Arber 2007). Networking through key individuals, we will contact key informants in each community that are representative of the major fisheries gear and species groups based in each community, fisheries support services (e.g., bait and tackle shops, shipping services, ice houses), fish processing plant workers, and city and tribal staff. “This method relies on interviewing key individuals who can then introduce the researcher to others in the community who are knowledgeable” about fishing and may have different perspectives. “Although this method is a nonrandom way of selecting people to interview, it is often the most effective method for identifying a wide variety of people in a fishing community. The snowball method is also appropriate in situations - such as in most U.S. fisheries - where there are few available datasets and other conditions necessary for random sampling” (Hall-Arber 2007).

Administration of the Instrument

1. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[ ] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[ ] Telephone

[ X ] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

2. Will interviewers or facilitators be used? [ X ] Yes [ ] No

NOAA Fisheries Alaska Fisheries Science Center social scientists will facilitate all interviews.

References

Hall-Arber, M. 2008. The Community Panels Project: Citizen's Groups for Social Science Research and Monitoring. NAPA Bulletin 28:148-162.