(1) The cherry salmon hatchery proposed and endorsed by the participants in the September field trip to Agzu and Samarga river basin during September 1999

According to Dr. Anatoly Yu. Semenchenko, the senior research scientist of the Pacific Research Fisheries Center (TINRO) of Vladivostok, the cherry salmon run of the Samarga river has significant fluctuations from year to year. A well-conceived hatchery operation designed to augment and restore the runs of the weak years so that a sound and sustainable local fishery can be planned and implemented.
The Virtual Foundation Japan was asked to gather the necessary information and basic design and engineering data of a Japanese cherry salmon hatchery of the size and capacity comparable to what is needed for the Samarga river project. A special trip was made to Hokkaido and Nigata Prefecture in the early part of November and the preliminary information are being made available as of November 10 at this web site.

(2) Transportation to and from Agzu, or the mouth of the Samaraga River where there are no dependable surface land transportation or ocean docking facilities

The existing modes of transportation, which were used by the present mission are not at all efficient and inexpensive enough to enable the Agzu people to get into any meaningful, i.e., in the sense sufficient profit margins are possible, economic activities to sustain their life in the community.
Depending on what local business opportunities are to be seriously pursued, however, there are factors of feasibility which promise to provide a sound and renewable basis of economic development. For more details, check out the implications of the following two problems.

(3) Lack of dependable means of communication between Agzu and the outside world, including Japan.

At present, the only available means are conventional mail and e-mail. In both cases, the message does reach Vladivostok, but, from there on, it must be transported by air in printed form to Plastun, and then, someone must hand-carry it to Terney to have it airlifted by infrequent helicopter flight to Agzu. And even if all these things do go well and the message reaches Agzu, someone must personally hold it for indefinite periods for the addressees if they happen to be out of the village which is a very likely possibility during hunting season. In fact, it often took months last year before we got the answers back.
To resolve this problem once and for all, we must place a satellite phone and a computer so that we can directly communicate at all times via Internet e-mail. This is technically possible, but we must overcome the problem of funding and training of a reliable operator out there in the village. We shall do our best to get an environmentally socioculturally safe communication system as soon as possible.

(4) The quality of products locally processed, especially fishery products when combined with the difficulties in transporting them cross-ocean or over-land

There is no feasibility to install a large-scale processing facility for any of the commercially available resources. However, there are cutting-edge technologies available today which promise to make a small-scale operation economically feasible.

For example, check out the possibility offered by Japan Food Technology Association of Kyoto, Japan in the area of quality food processing technology.

(5) The problem of water quality deterioration and its contamination by fungi, microbes and viruses must not be neglected if healthy and sustainable food-processing and related operations including a hatchery are to be maintained

The wild salmon stocks of the Northern Pacific region are exposed today to a number of threats such as the continuing problems of (1) overfishing due to the lack of effective national resource management policies on the one hand, and the near total lack of authority/willingness to enforce whatever have been agreed upon by international conventions and treaties, (2) the ever-expanding commercial farming of salmon, especially of the Norwegian and Scottish varieties on both shores of the New Continent, and (3) the 20th-century concept of reproducing artificial salmon stocks by means of intensive hatchery systems which are exposed to the potentially deadly bacterial and viral attacks as it has been the case with the industrial shrimp farming in the Southern Hemisphere in the last two decade of the 20th century.

For example, check out the possibilities offered by Tokyo Life Science Laboratory of Tokyo, Japan in the area of new "information-age" technology in effectively combatting the diseases created by our own greed and shortsightedness.