Background Articles

In Southeast Alaska, and across the state, climate change is bringing more rainfall, less winter snowfall and hotter temperatures. According to the project’s lead researcher Alex McCarrel, those changes disrupt berry development because a berry plant’s life cycle is precisely tuned to its environment.

Commercial fishing openers are only available to individuals registered as catcher/sellers. On the Kuskokwim, the only one registered is Fran Reich.

The Permafrost and Infrastructure Symposium this month brought together over 50 scientists, engineers and residents this month, creating a space for them to exchange their perspectives on the effects of thawing permafrost in the Arctic.

Amid the collapse of chum and chinook salmon on the river, the Smokehouse Collective is trying to build sustainable, resilient food systems for Native communities.

The forces of climate change that are reducing ice cover and opening up the Arctic to more activity are making Alaska more important in regards to Homeland Security. For the Department, which has a combination of public safety, emergency response and law-enforcement functions, climate change is creating new challenges for which old responses are no longer adequate.

$513,000 was vetoed in state budget that would have looked into the origin of salmon caught by the Bering Sea pollock fleet.

The Bureau of Land Management, in partnership with the Salcha-Delta Soil and Water Conservation District and Trout Unlimited, are restoring mining-impacted streams along the upper Yukon River watershed. Projects will improve water quality and fish habitat along Nome and Wade Creeks.

This film is for young people and anyone in the Northwest Arctic who is curious about how (and why) to siifish, and how to process the fish after catching.

A group of Indigenous communities from Alaska and B.C. has declared a state of emergency related to Pacific salmon populations, and says First Nations need to be more involved in managing traditional resources. 

Following a thaw slump, the water becomes cloudy and full of sediment, potentially suffocating the eggs of spawning sheefish. Scientists are concerned that permafrost thaw could lead to declines in the sheefish population, a staple food for many Alaskans.

After decrease tourism during the pandemic Unalaska prepares for summer tourism season and a way for the community to share the history, culture, and environmental stewardship of the Unangan people,

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Subsistence Management held the second public hearing on May 2 about the proposal to reduce the caribou harvest limit for resident hunters across the range of the Western Arctic Caribou Herd from five caribou per day to four caribou per year, only one of which may be a cow.

This summer, Kenai Peninsula beaches from Ninilchik to Kenai will be empty of setnets and buoys. Family-run commerial fishing businesses, a major economic force in the Cook Inlet region since territorial days, have been shut down and may not be coming back.

Charitie Ropati, 21, wants to reimagine scientific research to include her traditional values, like community and collective wellbeing.

The whaling industry and whale experts believe Norway must promote whale meat. The Minister of Fisheries fears that this could ruin the sale of other Norwegian seafood.

Today, they can look out over spruce forests and fields. But where the forest stands, there can be a solar power plant the size of 80 football fields.

Ambler Elder Virginia Commack said that the borough's decision does not reflect the opinion of many Northwest Arctic residents. This month, almost 80 Northwest Arctic residents, current and former, signed the petition against the development of the Ambler road project. When the Alaska Department of Natural Resources held two public hearings last year, out of about 37 people who called, only two spoke in support of the project.

“We’re not going to say we’re not going to use gas and oil. That’s not reality,″ Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said Friday.

The musk oxen attract a lot of tourists, and generate a lot of traffic into reindeer areas.

First Nations groups in the Yukon Territory and Alaska GOP Gov. Mike Dunleavy's administration are advancing discussions about whether hatcheries could help stem a steep crash in salmon populations on the Yukon River.