Some SLiCA project results from Chukotka

This article is about the Chukotkan component of the international project “Survey of Living Conditions in the Arctic” (SLiCA). The research investigated various aspects of the lives of Aboriginal peoples in Chukotka and compared them with data from Aboriginal peoples of different countries. One of the advantages of the SLiCA project was that researchers worked with Aboriginal people as partners to design and implement the study. In this paper, statistical data obtained previous to SliCA and those collected during the SLiCA project are presented.Cet article concerne la composante «Tchoukotka» du projet international «Survey of Living Conditions in the Arctic» (SLiCA). Cette recherche a investigué des aspects variés de la vie des peuples autochtones de la Tchoukotka et les a comparés avec des données provenant de peuples autochtones de différents pays. Un des avantages du projet SLiCA était que les chercheurs travaillèrent avec les peuples autochtones en tant que partenaires afin de préparer et conduire l’étude. Dans ce texte, des données statistiques recueillies avant SLiCA et pendant ce projet sont présentées

Fuel Costs, Migration, and Community Viability

ISER researchers compiled and reviewed existing studies and data sources relating to the economic and social viability of remote rural Alaska communities. We particularly looked for possible linkages between high fuel costs and migration. Our review indicates the following: (1) migration from smaller places toward larger places is an ongoing phenomenon that is more noticeable when birth rates drop; (2) there is no systematic empirical evidence that fuel prices, by themselves, have been a definitive cause of migration; (3) the pursuit of economic and educational opportunities appears to be a predominant cause of migration; (4) however, currently available survey data are not sufficient to definitively determine other reasons for migration, which could include concerns about public safety and/or alcohol abuse; 5) most of the survey data pre-date the latest rapid increase (2006-2008) in fuel prices. We suggest several ways that better data could be collected on community viability and the reasons for migration.First Alaskans Institute. Alaska Native Policy Center.Introduction / Methods / Findings / Significant data collection opportunities / Conclusions / References / Data Sources Use

Migration in Arctic Alaska: Empirical Evidence of the Stepping Stones Hypothesis

This paper explores hypotheses of hierarchical migration using data from the Alaskan Arctic. We focus on migration of Iñupiat people, who are indigenous to the region, and explore the role of income and subsistence harvests on migration. To test related hypotheses we use confidential micro-data from the US Census Bureau’s 2000 Decennial Census of Population and Income and generate migration probabilities using a mixed multinomial and conditional logit model. Our findings are broadly consistent with Ravenstein’s (1885) early hypothesis of step-wise migration; we find evidence of step-wise migration, both up and down an urban and rural hierarchy. We also find that where migrants choose to live is a function of place, personal, and household characteristics.Migration, Hierarchical Migration, Rural to Urban Migration, Arctic Alaska

Indigenous social and economic adaptations in northern Alaska as measures of resilience

I explored one aspect of social-ecological change in the context of an Alaskan human-Rangifer system, with the goal of understanding household adaptive responses to perturbations when there are multiple forces of change at play. I focused on households as one element of social resilience. Resilience is in the context of transition theory, in which communities are continually in a process of change, and perturbations are key points in the transition process. This case study of Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska, USA, contributes to the understanding of cultural continuity and household resilience in times of rapid change by using household survey data from 1978 to 2003 to understand how households adapted to changes in the cash economy that came with oil development at the same time as a crash in the caribou population and state-imposed limits on caribou harvests. The research illustrates that households are resilient in the way they capture opportunities and create a new system so that elements of the old remain while parts change.Ye

Cultural Continuity and Communities and Well-Being

This paper describes a household survey of Inuit in northern Alaska and how the survey data were used to better understand the relative importance of jobs, wild food harvesting, and social ties for life satisfaction. It emphasizes the importance of non-material measures for life satisfaction. It builds on other research showing the importance of harvesting wild food and the persistence of a mixed economy—one that combines cash income and wild food harvests. An empirical model estimates the relationship between people's choices to work, and/or hunt and fish, and individual satisfaction with life. The model includes economic and non-economic measures of well-being as well as community characteristics and shows that what matters most for satisfaction are family ties, social support and opportunities to do things with other people. Jobs, income, housing, and modern amenities—are less important among arctic Inuit. This research addresses the purpose for the original survey project—to give a more realistic picture of life in the Arctic by showing why people who live in remote, isolated, communities, with low incomes, and substandard housing are very satisfied with their lives. It also contributes to public policy in remote regions and efforts to understand how people are adapting in a rapidly changing environment.Abstract / Introduction / Methods / Data / Modeling Subsistence, Jobs, and Well-Being / Conclusions / ReferencesYe

Chemical and biological investigations of Delonix regia (Bojer ex Hook.) Raf.

U radu je opisana izolacija pet sastojaka petroleterske i diklormetanske frakcije metanolnog ekstrakta kore biljke Delonix regia: lupeol (1), epilupeol (2), β-sitosterol (3), stigmasterol (4) i p-metoksibenzaldehid (5). Nadalje, testirano je antimikrobno djelovanje različitih ekstrakata difuzijskom metodom na disku (15 μg mm2). Zone inhibicije za sastojke topljive u petroleteru, tetraklormetanu i diklormetanu bile su 914 mm, 1113 mm, odnosno 920 mm, dok je zona inhibicije standarda kanamicina bila 2025 mm. U biološkom pokusu smrtnosti morskih kozica najveću toksičnost pokazali su spojevi topljivi u tetraklormetanu (LC50 = 0,83 μg mL1), dok je topljivost sastojaka topljivih u petroleteru i diklormetanu bila LC50 14,94, odnosno 3,29 μg mL1, a standarda vinkristin sulfata 0,812 μg mL1. Ovo je prvo izvješće o izolaciji sastojaka, antimikrobnom djelovanju i citotoksičnosti biljke D. regia.In this study five compounds, lupeol (1), epilupeol (2), β-sitosterol (3), stigmasterol (4) and p-methoxybenzaldehyde (5) were isolated from the petroleum ether and dichloromethane fractions of a methanolic extract of the stem bark of Delonix regia. Antimicrobial screening of the different extracts (15 μg mm2) was conducted by disc diffusion method. The zones of inhibition demonstrated by the petroleum ether, carbon tetrachloride and dichloromethane fractions ranged from 914 mm, 1113 mm and 920 mm, respectively, compared to kanamycin standard with the zone of inhibition of 2025 mm. In brine shrimp lethality bioassay, the carbon tetrachloride soluble materials demonstrated the highest toxicity with LC50 of 0.83 μg mL1, while petroleum ether and dichloromethane soluble partitionates of the methanolic extract revealed LC50 of 14.94 and 3.29 μg mL1, respectively, in comparison with standard vincristine sulphate with LC50 of 0.812 μg mL1. This is the first report on compounds separation from D. regia, their antimicrobial activity and cytotoxicity

Shareholder Employment at Red Dog Mine

Under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, Iñupiat of northwest Alaska organized as shareholders in the NANA1 Regional Corporation, Inc., and received title to 2,258,836 acres, including rights to the rich Red Dog zinc deposit. In 1982, NANA signed a joint-venture agreement with Teck2 to develop the mine, including provisions for preferential hire for qualified NANA shareholders. The agreement aimed for 100% shareholder hire by 2001. As of 2010, Teck had 220 NANA shareholders in full-time employment, which is 53 percent of the workforce. Other mines around the world have similar indigenous or local hire agreements with mixed success. The Voisey’s Bay mine sets the high mark for Canada with an Aboriginal hire rate of 54 percent (AETG 2008), followed by Ekati diamond mine at 50 percent (BHP Billiton 2011). So the track record for indigenous employment at Red Dog is high by global standards, although it falls short of NANA and Teck’s goal. What are the continuing barriers to increasing shareholder hire, retention and promotion

Suicide Among Young Alaska Native Men: Community Risk Factors and Alcohol Control

Indigenous residents of Alaska (Alaska Natives) die by suicide at a rate nearly 4 times the US average and the average for all American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/ANs).1---3 An astonishing 7% of Alaska respondents to a 2003 international household survey of Arctic Indigenous people indicated that they had seriously contemplated suicide within the past year.4 Studies have shown that alcohol is directly or indirectly involved in most of these deaths.5---9 Although Alaska Natives have encountered alcohol for well over a century, the high suicide risk is an entrenched but comparatively recent phenomenon affecting only the past 2 generations.9,10 Figure 1 shows that crude suicide rates for this group rose rapidly in the decade after Alaska achieved statehood in 1959. The 3-year moving average rate peaked at more than 50 per 100 000 in the early 1980s, before declining to a level of about 40 per 100 000 during the past decade. The dip in suicide rates in the late 1970s likely represents faulty data rather than a real departure from the secular trend.11 An emerging new pattern of risk drove the increase in suicide rates in the 1960s. Higher suicide rates among young men led the rise in suicide as a whole.9,12,13 More recently, another important pattern of differential risk emerged as more Alaska Natives moved to the state’s growing urban areas in search of jobs. Suicide rates among Alaska Native residents remaining in small rural communities are more than twice as high as those among Native residents of urban areas and vary greatly among communities even in the same region (Alaska Bureau of Vital Statistics, unpublished data).13 In fact, suicide rates may have declined since the peak in the 1980s (Figure 1) only because the lower risk population of urbandwelling Alaska Natives has grown relative to the more vulnerable rural population. The large disparities among populations with similar ethnicity and histories suggest that the elevated suicide risk is not simply an unfortunate side effect of rapid social change but may be influenced directly by contemporary living conditions. The associationYe