In this chapter,

(1) “commission” means the Alaska Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission;

(2) “economically healthy fishery” means a fishery that yields a sufficient rate of economic return to the fishermen participating in it to provide for, among other things, the following:

(A) maintenance of vessels and gear in satisfactory and safe operating condition; and

(B) ability and opportunity to improve vessels, gear and fishing techniques, including, when permissible, experimentation with new vessels, new gear, and new techniques;

(3) “entity” means a corporation, company, partnership, firm, association, organization, joint venture, trust, society, or other legal entity other than a natural person;

(4) “fishery” means the commercial taking of a specific fishery resource in a specific administrative area with a specific type of gear; however, the commission may designate a fishery to include more than one specific administrative area, gear type, or fishery resource;

(5) “gear” means the specific apparatus used in the commercial harvest of a species, including but not limited to purse seines, drift gill nets, set gill nets, and troll gear;

(6) “optimum number” includes an optimum range of numbers;

(7) “person” means a natural person; “person” does not include a corporation, company, partnership, firm, association, organization, joint venture, trust, society, or other legal entity other than a natural person;

(8) “present ability to actively participate” means the person applying for a permit is physically able to harvest fish in the fishery and has reasonable access to commercial fishing gear of the type utilized in that fishery;

(9) “priority classification” means the allocation of potential permit applicants into reasonable groupings of similarly situated applicants and the priority ranking of those groupings according to the extent to which they satisfy the standards of preference;

(10) “type of gear” means a customary and identifiable classification of gear and shall include:

(A) those classifications for which separate regulations were adopted by the Board of Fisheries and for which separate gear licenses were required by former AS 16.05.550 - 16.05.630; and

(B) distinct subclassifications of gear such as “power” troll gear and “hand” troll gear;

(11) “unit of gear” means the maximum amount of a specific type of gear that can be fished by a person under regulations established by the Board of Fisheries defining the legal requirements for that type of gear.