BSU Professor Welle to conduct study on the economics of Red Lake fisheries

By Michael Barrett

Freelance Writer

            The Red Lake Department of Natural Resources, during their presentation at the September 9, 2003 Regular Tribal Council Meeting, introduced Dr. Patrick G. Welle, Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies at Bemidji State University. Professor Welle had been involved with Red Lake in the past with economic development activities.

            “He’s here today to discuss a proposal for research on the economics of Red Lake fisheries,” Dave Connors from Red Lake DNR stated. “The research he’s proposing would look at the two Red Lakes, off the Reservation and on the Reservation–and look at, “what is the potential economic impact of this system, in terms of tourism, recreational fishing, commercial fishing–just a whole gambit from the whole approach.”

            Connors said the research was not intended to promote one type of fishing activity over another, but there wasn’t a lot of data on what the potential was in this area, so it was being done to try to increase the knowledge base about what this areas potential is.

            “One component of the research would include a survey of tribal members on their views of the future use of the fishery, and whether that future use is substance fishing, commercial fishing, and probable recreational fishing, or some combination of that,” he said. “So that is one component that he’ll talk about.”

            He added that since the study looked at the whole lake including off reservation portions, the potential information of the study could be useful to the Tribe if it should pursue activities in the Waskish area.

            “It’s a pleasure to be here,” Professor Welle said. “Like Dave said, I’ve had the privilege of doing some work, commissioned by the Red Lake Tribal Council in past years. We had the issue of the original economic development work and basically a baseline study on the Red Lake economy for the first Economic Development Summit that we held, then five years later we did a follow up.”

            Welle said in some respects he saw the new study proposal as a belated sort of follow-up in terms of economic potential for the Red Lake Nation.”

            “Again, what we would like to do as the issues would be to look at it, as Dave said, as a whole system looking at the sustainable resource for the economic potential both off the reservation and on the reservation, and looking at basically the tourism economy and the recreational economy, in comparison to the evidence on what the potential is for commercial fishery economics as well.”

            He said Jeremy Leets was a graduate student in their graduate studies program and had a good deal of economics. Leets wanted to look at the Red Lake fisheries and the economics for his Master’s thesis. He said they thought the research plan ought to be as broad and comprehensive as possible.

            “My involvement would be to go out and to look at some of the potential on the reservation,” Welle said. “So in any case we do intend to do research on the Red Lake fisheries and the economics of it. We’re here to propose to you that we would like to do it as broadly as possible.”

            Welle said he hoped to provide information that would be useful to the Tribe in looking at economic development possibilities and the pros and cons in terms of on-reservation activities.

            In his Power Point presentation he explained some of the ideas formulating their plan and what they would like to do.

            “One of the things we propose is that we could help and facilitate a survey to get an idea on how tribal members feel about the commercial/recreational fishing trade-offs and so forth,” Welle said.

            He said they would look to tribal members as being the ones who would actually do the content of the survey with a sample of tribal members. In the economic survey they did previously, they helped provide the design of it and worked closely with the Planning Department.

            “That sort of opinion would just be one part of it, I would say, and not the central focus of what we would like to do, as we would like to lay out the economics of where the economic potential is, what the potential is for revenue and income to tribal members, and what the potential is for job creation under different scenarios with the Red Lake fishery.”

            Secretary Judy Roy asked for a clarification of the term ‘fishery’ they were referring to, if he was referring to a building or the lake as a whole.

            Welle said they were talking about the natural resources of the fish population and the lake that provides for it–like the term ‘fishery’ refers to “the lake and the fish in it”.

            He explained they would be looking at both Upper and Lower Red Lake areas for the study. He also explained the process, and what was motivating the study, which was the anticipation of the return of legally catching walleyes, and that had important social economic implications in both on-reservation and off-reservation areas.

            “In doing the research we’re looking to gain knowledge of these potential impacts and how getting and gaining that knowledge could inform future fisheries management decisions about the significant resource,” Professor Welle said. “The research goals promises to increase our understanding of these economic aspects, what’s going on on Red Lake–harvest and so forth. We want to look at the trends over the last twenty-five years, indicating what might happen in the future...”

            They planed on doing a limited number of their research goals, as well as they hoped the Tribal Council would be a partner and give them direction for broader content. Of interest, was they wanted to understand how people were currently spending money for tourism and how they might spend money if one were to develop further infrastructure for tourism in the Waskish area. Another interest was how money was changing hands relating to the fishery.

            The third goal was to estimate the eonimic value of the private lakeshore property off the reservation–to see how trends in the fishery success have affected private lake shore areas around Upper Red Lake.

            Welle said they would have a 16 month time frame to complete the project and the total cost involved was over $30,000, of which $15,120 would be committed by the Red Lake Tribal Council through Red Lake DNR.

            Conner said their department did receive the money in 2003 from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to assist with various research activities relating to the Red Lake Walleye Recovery Project, therefore they did have these funds available for use.

            Other discussions were held about the Red Lake Walleye Recovery Project, the Red Lake Fisheries Technical Committee, of which Redby Representative and DNR Director Al Pemberton stated he had planned on having Pat Brown, Fisheries Biologist, come in and give a presentation in the very near future.

            The Tribal Council by unanimous vote, authorized Professor Welle’s special economic and environmental study with BSU on the Red Lake fishery.