Diagnosing water security in the rural North with an environmental security framework.

This study explores the nature of water security challenges in rural Alaska, using a framework for environmental security that entails four interrelated concepts: availability, access, utility, and stability of water resources. Many researchers and professionals agree that water insecurity is a problem in rural Alaska, although the scale and nature of the problem is contested. Some academics have argued that the problem is systemic, and rooted in an approach to water security by the state that prioritizes economic concerns over public health concerns. Health practitioners and state agencies, on the other hand, contend that much progress has been made, and that nearly all rural households have access to safe drinking water, though many are still lacking 'modern' in-home water service. Here, we draw on a synthesis of ethnographic research alongside data from state agencies to show that the persistent water insecurity problems in rural Alaska are not a problem of access to or availability of clean water, or a lack of 'modern' infrastructure, but instead are rooted in complex human dimensions of water resources management, including the political legacies of state and federal community development schemes that did not fully account for local needs and challenges. The diagnostic approach we implement here helps to identify solutions to these challenges, which accordingly focus on place-based needs and empowering local actors. The framework likewise proves to be broadly applicable to exploring water security concerns elsewhere in the world.

Climigration? Population and climate change in Arctic Alaska.

Residents of towns and villages in Arctic Alaska live on "the front line of climate change." Some communities face immediate threats from erosion and flooding associated with thawing permafrost, increasing river flows, and reduced sea ice protection of shorelines. The term climigration, referring to migration caused by climate change, originally was coined for these places. Although initial applications emphasized the need for government relocation policies, it has elsewhere been applied more broadly to encompass unplanned migration as well. Some historical movements have been attributed to climate change, but closer study tends to find multiple causes, making it difficult to quantify the climate contribution. Clearer attribution might come from comparisons of migration rates among places that are similar in most respects, apart from known climatic impacts. We apply this approach using annual 1990-2014 time series on 43 Arctic Alaska towns and villages. Within-community time plots show no indication of enhanced out-migration from the most at-risk communities. More formally, there is no significant difference between net migration rates of at-risk and other places, testing several alternative classifications. Although climigration is not detectable to date, growing risks make either planned or unplanned movements unavoidable in the near future.

Alternative perspectives on the sustainability of Alaska's commercial fisheries.

Many believe commercial fisheries in Alaska (U.S.A.) are sustainability success stories, but ongoing socioeconomic problems across the state raise questions about how this sustainability is being defined and evaluated. Problems such as food insecurity and the disenfranchisement of Alaska Natives from fishing rights are well documented, yet these concerns are obscured by marketing campaigns that convey images of flourishing fishing communities and initiatives to certify Alaska's fisheries as responsibly managed. Fisheries management mandates and approaches built on such metrics and technologies as maximum sustainable yield and systems of tradable quotas actually serve to constrain, circumscribe, and marginalize some Alaskans' opportunities for effecting change in how the benefits of these fisheries are allocated. Beneath the narrative of sustainability, these management technologies perpetuate a cognitive ecological model of sustainability that is oriented to single-species outcomes, that casts people as parasites, and thus assumes the necessity of trade-offs between biological and social goals. Alternative cognitive models are available that draw metaphors from different ecological concepts such as keystone species and mutualisms. Such models, when used to inform management approaches, may improve societal outcomes in Alaska and elsewhere by promoting food security and sustainability through diversified natural resource harvest strategies that are more flexible and responsive to environmental variability and change.

Understanding change, complexities, and governability challenges in small-scale fisheries: a case study of Limbe, Cameroon, Central Africa.

Climate change, globalization, and increasing industrial and urban activities threaten the sustainability and viability of small-scale fisheries. How those affected can collectively mobilize their actions, share knowledge, and build their local adaptive capacity will shape how best they respond to these changes. This paper examines the changes experienced by small-scale fishing actors, social and governance complexities, and the sustainability challenges within the fisheries system in Limbe, Cameroon. Drawing on the fish-as-food framework, we discuss how ineffective fishery management in light of a confluence of global threats has resulted in changes to fish harvesters' activities, causing shortages in fish supply and disruptions in the fish value chain. The paper uses focus group discussions with fish harvesters and fishmongers to present three key findings. First, we show that changes in the fisheries from increased fishing activities and ineffective fishery management have disrupted fish harvesting and supply, impacting the social and economic well-being of small-scale fishing actors and their communities. Second, there are complexities in the fisheries value chain due to shortages in fish supply, creating conflicts between fisheries actors whose activities are not regulated by any specific set of rules or policies. Third, despite the importance of small-scale fisheries in Limbe, management has been abandoned by fishing actors who are not well-equipped with the appropriate capacity to design and enforce effective fishery management procedures and protections against illegal fishing activities. Empirical findings from this understudied fishery make scholarly contributions to the literature on the fish-as-food framework and demonstrate the need to support small-scale actors' fishing activities and the sustainability of the fisheries system in Limbe. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40152-023-00296-3.

Coral reefs: Moving beyond Malthus.

Environmental problems are often construed as having straightforward causes, such as human population growth or greed. Yet, the social sciences offer more elaborate theories that allow for a much more accurate and actionable understanding of these causes. A new study puts the explanatory power of some such theories to the test on coral reefs.

Regenerative food systems and the conservation of change.

In recent years, interest has increased in regenerative practices as a strategy for transforming food systems and solving major environmental problems such as biodiversity loss and climate change. However, debates persist regarding these practices and how they ought to be defined. This paper presents a framework for exploring the regenerative potential of food systems, focusing on how food systems activities and technologies are organized rather than the specific technologies or practices being employed. The paper begins with a brief review of debates over sustainable food systems and the varying ways that regenerative food systems have been defined and theorized. Then, it provides the theoretical backing of the framework-the conservation of change principle-which is an interpretation of the laws of thermodynamics and theories of adaptive change as relevant to the regenerative capacity of living systems. Next, the paper introduces the framework itself, which comprises two independent but intersecting dimensions of food systems organization: resource diversity and livelihood flexibility. These two dimensions result in four archetypical regimes for food systems: degenerative, regenerative, impoverished, and coerced. The paper defines each and offers real-world examples. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of pathways for transforming food systems and opportunities for additional research.

Managing environmental risks: the benefits of a place-based approach.

CONTEXT: Effective management of environmental risks such as food and water contamination requires both high quality scientific information and effective, informed social policy. Not only must health practitioners and policy-makers recognize the complexities of human health as a social phenomenon, they must also negotiate the vagaries of uncertainty, precaution, and ethics in their implementation of public health guidelines and advisories. For example, some health practitioners in Alaska have argued against implementation of US Environmental Protection Agency and World Health Organization's standardized consumption advisories for methylmercury (MeHg) in fish, in favor of place-based approaches to evaluating and communicating risk. They stress the importance of traditional subsistence foods and lifestyles, along with other local environmental, economic, and cultural drivers and determinants of environmental health. Such place-based approaches have been successful in improving health outcomes in Alaska and elsewhere. ISSUE: Nevertheless, debate continues regarding the validity and ethics of place-based approaches to developing and communicating standards and advice for managing environmental risks. Recent critiques suggest that place-based approaches to environmental health represent an undesirable kind of regional 'exceptionalism': the implication of which is that precaution, in respect to acting on the best available objective science, is undermined by attention to subjective local values. In this article we comment on this debate, a debate rooted in concerns regarding the delineation between science-based and policy-based decision-making. LESSONS LEARNED: Our experience with the social and ecological dimensions of MeHg contamination of fish and game in Alaska and elsewhere offers three considerations regarding the potential benefits available through place-based approaches: (1) they can contribute to the accuracy and systematic characterization of risks and their relationship to multiple direct and indirect health outcomes; (2) they are more likely to inform actual changes in behavior; and (3) they afford greater transparency to the risk management process and therefore facilitate environmental justice. We stress that standardized risk assessments and advisories remain important for providing a precautionary baseline that can inform the management and enforcement of industrial and other polluting activities at the state level. However, the management of environmental health at the regional and local level requires an approach that is cognizant of local circumstances and needs, and addresses health in a systemic and integrative fashion capable of incorporating qualitative social, cultural, and economic drivers and determinants. Thus, we recommend a two-tiered approach that blends state-based and place-based environmental risk management.

Evaluating patterns and drivers of spatial change in the recreational guided fishing sector in Alaska.

Understanding the impacts of recreational fishing on habitats and species, as well as the social and ecological importance of place to anglers, requires information on the spatial distribution of fishing activities. This study documented long-term changes in core fishing areas of a major recreational fishery in Alaska and identified biological, regulatory, social, and economic drivers of spatial fishing patterns by charter operators. Using participatory mapping and in-person interviews, we characterized the spatial footprint of 46 charter operators in the communities of Sitka and Homer since the 1990s. The spatial footprint differed between Homer and Sitka respondents, with Homer operators consistently using larger areas for Pacific halibut than Sitka operators. Homer and Sitka showed opposite trends in core fishing location area over time, with an overall decrease in Homer and an overall increase in Sitka. For both Sitka and Homer respondents, the range of areas fished was greater for Pacific halibut than for rockfish/lingcod or Pacific salmon. Spatial patterns were qualitatively different between businesses specializing in single species trips and those that operated multispecies trips and between businesses with one vessel and those with multiple vessels. In Homer, the most frequently cited reasons for changes in the location and/or extent of fishing were changes in trip type and the price of fuel, while in Sitka, the most frequently cited reasons for spatial shifts were changes to Pacific halibut regulations and gaining experience or exploring new locations. The diversity of charter fishing strategies in Alaska may allow individual charter operators to respond differently to perturbations and thus maintain resilience of the industry as a whole to social, environmental, and regulatory change. This research also highlights the importance of understanding fishers' diverse portfolio of activities to effective ecosystem-based management.

Toward a Theory of Coexistence in Shared Social-Ecological Systems: The Case of Cook Inlet Salmon Fisheries.

Coexistence theory (CT) in community ecology provides a functional perspective on how multiple competing species coexist. Here, I explore CT's usefulness for understanding conflict and coexistence among human groups with diverse livelihood interests in shared resources such as fisheries. I add three concepts from social science research on coexistence: adaptability, pluralism, and equity and apply this expanded theoretical framework to the case of salmon fisheries in Alaska's Cook Inlet, synthesizing catch records with anthropological research. The analysis addresses issues of inequity, such as who bears the costs of conservation measures, a lack of pluralism, in that people have come to devalue their neighbors, and a decline in resilience for some sectors, all of which undermine the likelihood of these groups continuing coexistence. I discuss policy options for addressing escalating conflict in the region, such as improving equity in management and the resilience of some fishing groups to temporary closures. Finally, I discuss points of engagement for CT with other areas of sustainability science such as resilience thinking.

Rebuilding northern foodsheds, sustainable food systems, community well-being, and food security.

BACKGROUND: Multiple climatic, environmental and socio-economic pressures have accumulated to the point where they interfere with the ability of remote rural Alaska Native communities to achieve food security with locally harvestable food resources. The harvest of wild foods has been the historical norm, but most Alaska Native villages are transitioning to a cash economy, with increasing reliance on industrially produced, store-bought foods, and with less reliable access to and reliance on wild, country foods. While commercially available market foods provide one measure of food security, the availability and quality of market foods are subject to the vagaries and vulnerabilities of the global food system; access is dependent on one's ability to pay, is limited to what is available on the shelves of small rural stores, and, store-bought foods do not fulfill the important roles that traditional country foods play in rural communities and cultures. Country food access is also constrained by rising prices of fuel and equipment, a federal and state regulatory framework that sometimes hinders rather than helps rural subsistence users who need to access traditional food resources, a regulatory framework that is often not responsive to changes in climate, weather and seasonality, and a shifting knowledge base in younger generations about how to effectively harvest, process and store wild foods. OBJECTIVE: The general objective is to provide a framework for understanding the social, cultural, ecological and political dimensions of rural Alaska Native food security, and to provide information on the current trends in rural Alaska Native food systems. DESIGN: This research is based on our long-term ethnographic, subsistence and food systems work in coastal and interior Alaska. This includes research about the land mammal harvest, the Yukon River and coastal fisheries, community and village gardens, small livestock production and red meat systems that are scaled appropriately to village size and capacity, and food-system intervention strategies designed to rebuild local and rural foodsheds and to restore individual and community health. RESULTS: The contemporary cultural, economic and nutrition transition has severe consequences for the health of people and for the viability of rural communities, and in ways that are not well tracked by the conventional food security methodologies and frameworks. This article expands the discussion of food security and is premised on a holistic model that integrates the social, cultural, ecological, psychological and biomedical aspects of individual and community health. CONCLUSION: We propose a new direction for food-system design that prioritizes the management of place-based food portfolios above the more conventional management of individual resources, one with a commitment to as much local and regional food production and/or harvest for local and regional consumption as is possible, and to community self-reliance and health for rural Alaska Natives.

A risk-benefit analysis of wild fish consumption for various species in Alaska reveals shortcomings in data and monitoring needs.

Northern peoples face a difficult decision of whether or not to consume wild fish, which may contain dangerous levels of contaminants such as methylmercury (MeHg), but which also offer a number of positive health benefits, and play an important role in rural household economies. Here, new methods for developing consumption advice are applied to an existing data-set for methylmercury (MeHg) levels in Alaskan fish. We apply a quantitative risk-benefit analysis for eight freshwater, saltwater and anadromous fish species, using dose-response relationships to weigh the risks of MeHg bioaccumulation against the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA) toward cardiovascular and neurodevelopmental health endpoints. Findings suggests that consumption of many of the fish species reviewed here, including northern pike, Pacific Halibut, and arctic grayling, may lead to increased risk of coronary heart disease and declines in infant visual recognition memory. However, we also identify significant variation among regions, among studies within the same region, and also within studies, which make it difficult to craft consistent consumption advice. Whereas salmon consistently shows a net-benefit, for instance, data for arctic grayling, pike, sablefish, and some halibut are all too imprecise to provide consistent recommendations. We argue for more detailed local-scale monitoring, and identification of possible thresholds for increased risk in the future. We caution that MeHg and omega-3 FA are just two variables in a complicated calculus for weighing the risks and benefits of locally-available and culturally-significant foods, and argue for future work that takes both a place-based and plate-based approach to diet and contamination.

Transitional states in marine fisheries: adapting to predicted global change.

Global climate change has the potential to substantially alter the production and community structure of marine fisheries and modify the ongoing impacts of fishing. Fish community composition is already changing in some tropical, temperate and polar ecosystems, where local combinations of warming trends and higher environmental variation anticipate the changes likely to occur more widely over coming decades. Using case studies from the Western Indian Ocean, the North Sea and the Bering Sea, we contextualize the direct and indirect effects of climate change on production and biodiversity and, in turn, on the social and economic aspects of marine fisheries. Climate warming is expected to lead to (i) yield and species losses in tropical reef fisheries, driven primarily by habitat loss; (ii) community turnover in temperate fisheries, owing to the arrival and increasing dominance of warm-water species as well as the reduced dominance and departure of cold-water species; and (iii) increased diversity and yield in Arctic fisheries, arising from invasions of southern species and increased primary production resulting from ice-free summer conditions. How societies deal with such changes will depend largely on their capacity to adapt--to plan and implement effective responses to change--a process heavily influenced by social, economic, political and cultural conditions.