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IQALUIT - A Nunavummiut fishing group is becoming impatient with the pace of bureaucratic approval for its turbot quota application.

The Arctic Fisheries Alliance is worried it won't have time to arrange its participation in the 2009 fishing season if the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board keeps to its current schedule of considering applications.

Qikiqtarjuaq mayor Loasie Audlakiak, left, supports the Arctic Fisheries Alliance appeal for turbot quota. Also from Qikiqtarjuaq, Nattivak HTO chair Lootie Toomasie, centre, is AFA chairman. From Grise Fiord, Ivik HTO chair Jaypetee Akeeagok is an AFA director. The three were in Iqaluit to make their case to the Nunavut Wildlife Management board on Jan. 26. - Gabriel Zarate/NNSL photo

"I am very upset to be told yesterday (Monday, Jan. 26) that it will be the second week in February until the committee meets to consider our response," said AFA chairman Lootie Toomasie, also chair of the Nattivak hunters and trappers association of Qikiqtarjuaq. "Do they not understand we are trying to establish a successful commercial fishery operation with fishing due to begin at the end of April?"

Earlier in January an advisory committee to the wildlife management board rejected the AFA's turbot quota applications in its preliminary recommendation. On Jan. 26 the AFA lodged an appeal. The NWMB's Fisheries Advisory Committee will likely meet in February to review it. Once the committee has made its decision, it goes to the NWMB, who will then pass it on the federal government's Department of Fisheries and Oceans for final approval.

The time frame leaves the Arctic Fisheries Alliance in a vulnerable position since it still needs to make preparations such as buying boats, hiring crews and finalizing funding.

Harry Earle, an advisor for the AFA, said the group has interested financing agencies but the group is in a "chicken-and-egg" situation: the wildlife board wants the AFA to have funding, but to get the funding the AFA needs to have part of the quota, he said.

The wildlife board has declined to comment on any turbot quota applications including that of the Arctic Fisheries Alliance until the final decisions are made.

According to the AFA's written response to the preliminary rejection, the board had reservations about the Nattivak HTA's spending and lack of transparency in the past.

The AFA's response is that things have changed at the Nattivak HTA since Toomasie was elected chair in January 2008 and is providing the board with financial statements to show it.

Toomasie also said it was unfair for the board to penalize the AFA, which consists of four hunters and trappers associations, for the problems it perceives with Nattivak alone.

The AFA consists of the hunters and trappers associations of Qikiqtarjuaq and the high Arctic communities – Arctic Bay, Grise Fiord and Resolute. The high Arctic communities have never had a turbot quota.

Jaypetee Akeeagok, chairman of the Iviq Hunters and Trappers Organization in Grise Fiord and a AFA director, said, "The high Arctic communities are adjacent to the resource and we should not be denied access to quota. Benefits from the commercial fishery must be expanded beyond the existing quota holders. There is a double standard being applied here. We are a 100 per cent Inuit-owned organization and all our board members are Inuit beneficiaries from our four communities. We don't have any foreigners on board."

That was an indirect swing at the Baffin Fisheries Coalition and Qikiqtaaluk Corporation, two potential rivals in the turbot fishing industry whose operations are partly directed by executives from Iceland.

Akeeagok said apart from jobs on the fishing vessels, the spin-off benefits from the income would help communities as they strive towards self-sufficiency.

The Arctic Fisheries Alliance's application asked for a quota to harvest 3,500 metric tonnes of turbot out of the waters east of Baffin Island.

Their request amounts to almost half of Nunavut's annual turbot quota.