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.

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 two Alaska grants are aimed at retooling mills to harvest young growth timber in the Tongass National Forest rather than old growth.

As king salmon decline in the Bristol Bay region, changes to king salmon harvest include reduced bag limits, area closures, as well as the introduction of youth-only fisheries in the Naknek River.

A federal appeals panel issued a last-second ruling Wednesday that will allow this summer’s Southeast Alaska troll chinook salmon fishery to open as scheduled July 1.

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.

The Bering Sea region is front and center for federal fisheries researchers after the 2019 heatwave produced extreme change in the marine ecosystem.

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.

Such a large, sudden die-off and a lack of sea ice were a red flag for scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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

Climate change is knocking some Pacific salmon out of alignment with the growth of the ocean plankton they eat to survive, new research says.

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.

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.

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.

"Siku" means sea ice in the Siberian Yup'ik language. But about a hundred other Yup'ik words describe different types of sea ice, including icebergs, floating pressure ice ridges, solid ice safe for travel — and "pequ," "an unsuitable area in ice field where the current causes ice to heave up or break up," Vera Metcalf said.

The Copper River Basin in Alaska has experienced less reliable snow and ice conditions in recent years, impacting winter activities such as trapping, hunting, and gathering firewood. This study, based on nine oral interviews with local residents, reveals that crossing rivers has become more treacherous and difficult, with significant changes in ice conditions observed since the 1970s. Decreased snowpacks and increased shrub growth have also posed obstacles for accessing winter trails, requiring individuals to cut through forests. These changes, combined with socio-economic and technological factors, have affected the way people engage in winter activities in the Copper River Basin. Overall, this research contributes to the understanding of climate change's impact on winter activities in Alaska and the Circumpolar North.

Climate change has been observed for hundreds of years by the plant specialists of three Odawa Tribes in the Upper Great Lakes along Lake Michigan. Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is the focus of two National Park Service (NPS) studies of Odawa Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of plants, ecosystems, and climate change. Data collected during these studies contributed to developing Plant Gathering Agreements between tribes and parks. This analysis derived from 95 ethnographic interviews conducted by University of Arizona (UofA) anthropologists in partnership with tribal appointed representatives. Odawa people recognized in the park 288 plants and five habitats of traditional and contemporary concern. Tribal representatives explained that 115 of these traditional plants and all five habitats are known from multigenerational eyewitness accounts to have been impacted by climate change. The TEK study thus represents what Native people know about the environment. These research findings are neither intended to test their TEK nor the findings of Western science.

Only certain Alaska Native people can hunt sea otters. But as otter populations have grown, so have calls to loosen federal laws protecting them.