SB 160-DNR: HUNTING GUIDES, CONCESSION PROGRAM  3:31:24 PM CHAIR GIESSEL announced SB 160 to be up for consideration. She said the committee had received letters both of support and opposition to it. 3:31:30 PM CHAD HUTCHISON, staff to Senator John Coghill, Alaska State Legislature, Juneau, Alaska, said there were compelling reasons to pass SB 160. It's good for the resource and the resident hunters and, to a certain extent, it stops BLM and the federal government from filling the void if the state does not act. 3:32:33 PM CLARK COX, Natural Resource Manager, Division of Mining, Land and Water, Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Anchorage, Alaska, said he had been involved with this program since 2007 and that issuing land use and commercial recreation permits is one of those commercial use activities that they authorize and it's their primary interaction with the big game guides. MR. COX said they had heard a lot about how both boards regulate the industry and it's important to note that they both support development of the guide concession program (GCP). He said the Board of Game can deal with conflicts and issues as they relate to wildlife, but it's difficult for them to deal with land use issues and overcrowding. It can affect the number of hunters in the field by reducing the overall hunting opportunity but not by regulating spacial distribution; only the DNR can do that. He said the Big Game Commercial Services Board has rules in statute limiting and regulating guides and where they register, and any changes would have to be done through legislative action. 3:34:19 PM He touched on a couple of the primary comments the committee had heard, the first being about how new guys can get into the industry. He explained that the primary difference between the full and the limited concessions is the number of employees that each one could employ. The full concession holders are allowed to employ up to six assistant guides and the limited are allowed to employ only one assistant guide. This allows for the selected full concession holders to offer more hunts, employ more staff, and operate a larger business while the limited concessioners run fewer hunts and smaller operations, and this gives them a chance to be able to compete for a full concession at some point in the future by gaining experience in an area. 3:35:23 PM MR. COX said another common comment they had heard was about transferability, and they do understand the desire to be able to sell and transfer these areas, but the Owsichek decision made it very clear that that was one of the primary faults of the prior system. The common use clause in the Alaska Constitution also makes that "a pretty steep hurdle to climb." They heard a lot about how a GCP will or will not benefit the Alaska resident hunter. It is designed to benefit hunters by reducing the number of big game guides in the more controversial areas, thus reducing conflicts in the field, and increasing the quality of the hunting opportunity and wildlife conservation. Additionally, the whole concession concept is based on the competitive nature of the applicants who will be scored on a number of factors, including their history of user conflicts and their strategies to avoid future conflicts. The GCP seeks to award concessions to those guides with cleaner histories in the field and in the court room. 3:36:36 PM He said they also heard that problems are only in certain "hot" areas, and they agree. They talked about addressing this by staggering areas so as to not impact the whole state at once, but then they realized that just dealing with small areas would push unselected guides into other outlying areas and create problems there. They have heard from the very outset about transporters and believe this group can be addressed after conducting further research and evaluation with them. They heard that implementing this program would reduce the number of guides by 50 or 60 percent, so he provided a graph showing the number of guides who actually ran a hunt and the number of available opportunities there would be should this program exist. In addition, 44 million acres of private land in Alaska is available to use. MR. COX said they also heard that the application process was simply a test for guides to hire someone to prepare a fancy application to win an area, but DNR wants the operation plan and commitments made therein to be incorporated into the authorization that will be evaluated annually to assure that concession holders are operating consistent with the terms they were granted. In closing, Mr. Cox said, they heard from many parties, both in support and not, that problems exist in the guiding industry and in the field and that those issues need to be addressed. This program would be an additional tool for DNR, the Board of Game, and the Big Game Commercial Services Board to use to address industry issues. The mission of the program is to encourage land stewardship, support wildlife conservation, and to promote a healthy guiding industry for the benefit of the people of Alaska. He said this is their first crack at developing a program like this and they are remaining flexible to make changes to it. CHAIR GIESSEL said she was waiting for a quorum and set SB 160 aside. 3:40:20 PM At ease from 3:40:20 to 3:40:27 p.m. 3:40:27 PM SENATOR MICCICHE joined the committee. SENATOR DYSON moved SB 160, version 28-LS1399\A, from committee to the next committee of referral with attached fiscal notes and individual recommendations. There were no objections and it was so ordered.