State of Alaska’s salmon and people: introduction to a special feature

Ecology and Society: a journal of integrative science for resilience and sustainability

article

Peter A. H. Westley¹  Jessica C. Black²  Courtney Carothers¹  Danielle Ringer¹ 

[1] Department of Fisheries, University of Alaska Fairbanks;Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development, University of Alaska Fairbanks

关键词: Climate change;    data accessibility;    equity;    Indigenous knowledge;    natural resource management;    scarcity;    well-being;   

DOI  :  10.5751/ES-12910-260433

学科分类：生物科学（综合）

来源: Resilience Alliance Publications

【 摘 要 】

The connection between salmon and people in Alaska runs deep.Few, if any, species on Earth have more profoundly shaped humanculture and well-being than wild Pacific salmon, and in recenttimes, few species have been the center of more conflict. Despitewide-ranging migratory life histories, salmon connects people toplace by returning with high fidelity to the streams of their birth.Origin stories, oral histories, art, songs, and customs illustrate thedeep-time ties between salmon and Indigenous Peoples. Recentarchaeological studies have provided complementary andconsistent evidence that Alaska Native societies were harvestingsalmon at least 11,000 years ago (Halffman et al. 2015). In just afew generations following colonization by western settlers, thelandscape of relationships between people and salmon in Alaskatransformed dramatically. Dominant Indigenous worldviews ofsalmon as sentient relatives deserving of respect and stewardshipwas in many ways usurped by western views of salmon as aneconomic commodity. Complex systems of Indigenousmanagement, governed on a commitment between Tribes and theCreator, were suppressed, often violently, and eventually madeinvisible in a new dominant paradigm from the burgeoning fieldof western natural resource management: maximum-sustainedyield, recruits and spawners, and density-dependence. Althoughmuch has changed in a small period, the connection betweenAlaskans and salmon has remained constant, though sometimesstrained, and ever important.

【 授权许可】

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