ISER Working Paper 2009.1

In this report we calculate the economic importance of nature-based tourism in Southeast Alaska as measured by business revenue. Our estimates are based on field research conducted during 2005, 2006 and 2007. We define nature-based tourism as those tourism activities for which the natural environment is a significant input.1 Our key findings include the following: • Nature-based tourism generates about $277 million per year of direct business revenues in Sitka, Juneau, Chichagof Island, Prince of Wales Island, Petersburg and Wrangell. This number is most likely an underestimate of total revenues because not all naturebased tourism businesses and business sectors could be included in our estimates. Our numbers do not include tips – which in some businesses might add 25taxes and fess paid directly to local governments. In addition, the especially rainy weather of 2006 probably caused abnormally low sales for some businesses. • Average revenue per visitor varies considerably among communities and activities; ranging from about$140 per visitor in Juneau to more than $2,600 per visitor on Prince of Wales Island. These differences reflect the range of activities offered -- from half-day excursions to multiple, overnight all-inclusive lodge stays. • Nature-based tourism expenditures create a significant economic ripple effect that keeps money circulating through the economy. This money supports jobs in marketing, support services, food and beverages, accommodations, fuel sales, government, and other sectors. • Communities are clearly striving to differentiate themselves and capitalize on local amenities such as the Stikine River, Anan Creek, the LeConte Glacier, Tracy Arm, Glacier Bay, Pack Creek and exceptional fishing and scenic opportunities. • A large and growing portion of Southeast Alaska’s visitors are cruise ship passengers. Both cruise passengers and independent travelers are similarly interested in nature-based tourism services. The majority of cruise ship shore excursions offer nature-based activities, from hikes and glacier viewing to flightseeing and forest canopy zip lines. • Communities hosting large numbers of cruise passengers are actively developing new and creative tourism products such as forest canopy zip lines and mountain biking while those with fewer visitors tend to be focused on sport fishing. This appears to be the case even if local amenities exist to support a broader range of business and visitor activities. Thus, there appear to be unrealized opportunities in some communities, but these may also reflect an inadequate visitor base upon which to risk additional investment. • There is a complex and competitive system for pre-booking cruise ship shore excursions. Businesses with exclusive cruise line contracts make price and tour information available only to cruise passengers and often agree to sell tours only through the cruise line.• The tourism businesses in cruise ports of call that appear to be most successful either have a cruise ship shore excursion contract or are catering to overnight (non-cruise) guests with high-quality and high-value services. Examples of these types of businesses include sport fishing lodges and multi-day yacht cruises. • It is difficult to compete with established businesses holding existing cruise line contracts. Despite this hurdle, a number of companies are offering creative new products including zip lines through the forest canopy, glass-bottomed boats, and an amphibious “duck” tour. • Some operators attribute the increased interest in adventure activities to a change in cruise ship clientele. In recent years, cruise companies have been catering to a younger crowd, targeting families. In any event, increasing numbers of passengers are interested in more active pursuits. • Competition for cruise passengers exists both within and between communities, as people are booking their shore excursions in advance and look at all the options. Sitka companies mentioned they were carefully tracking zip line activity in Juneau and Ketchikan, dogsled tours on the Mendenhall Glacier, and other activities to see which market niche they could capture. • There is some evidence that visitors are willing to pay premium prices for higher quality experiences in more pristine environments. However, it is not clear what specific attributes (seclusion, fishing experience, food, services, perceived exclusivity, and environmental amenities) are the key components of this higher market value. • It is possible to design a community-based tourism program that provides employment to local residents as is occurring in Hoonah. However, Elfin Cove appears to bring in more in gross revenues than Hoonah with about one-eighth as many visitors because Hoonah’s operation relies on volume while Elfin Cove businesses rely on higher-priced fishing lodge experiences. Day trips seem to be relatively higher cost, lower profit operations. • Independent travelers appear to try to avoid crowds and many are repeat visitors. Most tend to stay longer and have more open itineraries than those on cruise ships or organized tours. These characteristics make independent travelers more difficult to contact. • Independent travelers also appear to seek communities with fewer visitors and those that they perceive to be more “authentic,” such as Petersburg, Wrangell, and communities on Chichagof Islands. A lack of transportation capacity, whether on scheduled jets or on ferries, may be limiting the opportunities for these smaller communities. Less marketing may also be a factor limiting visits by independent travelers. • The primary marketing mechanisms for smaller, non-cruise related businesses are the internet and word of mouth. In addition, many customers return to the same fishing lodge, yacht tour, or charter business year after year. • Wildlife viewing is highly attractive to visitors due to spectacular scenery and abundant wildlife including whales and other marine mammals. Companies in several communities expressed a desire to move toward more wildlife viewing and sightseeing and away from sport fishing. These operators preferred wildlife viewing as it was less stressful due to less pressure to catch fish. Some operators were making this shift, while others thought they would not be able to match the revenue generated by sport fishing. • Weather has a significant impact on business for companies whose tours are not prebooked on cruise ships. Operators noted a marked difference between the sunny, dry summer of 2004 and the remarkably wet summer of 2006. Visitors walking off a ship in the rain were much less likely to go on marine tours or hikes in soggy conditions, and seasonal revenues were down. Businesses with cruise contracts did not experience this setback as passengers are not reimbursed for pre-sold tours when weather conditions are poor. The one exception was flightseeing, where companies had to cancel tours due to unsafe weather conditions. • Promoting wildlife watching is an important marketing strategy for Southeast Alaska communities. Visitors bureaus currently produce pamphlets with charismatic large animals, such as whales and bears. Bureau staff cited studies showing the desire to see wildlife was attracting a large portion of out-of-state visitors. • A significant policy question emerging from this research is how the public lands might be managed to increase the economic returns from tourism to residents of Southeast Alaska communities, especially the smaller communities that can only accommodate smaller numbers of visitors at one time. Bear viewing is one example of a high-value activity that depends on controlled access to specific infrastructure.Alaska Conservation Foundation. University of Alaska Foundation. The Wilderness Society.Executive Summary / Introduction / Methods / Ketchikan / Juneau / Sitka / Norther Southeast Alaska Yachts / Chichagof Island / Prince of Wales Island / Petersburg / Wrangell / Conclusion

Evaluation of the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Signaling Pathway as a Therapeutic Target in Human Papillomavirus-Associated Disease

Human papillomaviruses (HPVs) are the most common sexually transmitted infectious agents. They are responsible for \u3e99% of all cervical cancers as well as subsets of other anogenital cancers. HPVs are also the causative agents of a growing number of head and neck cancers. As such, they present a significant health problem both in the U.S. and developing countries. Much is still unknown regarding the factors underlying progression from HPV infection to cancer or maintenance of viral oncoprotein expression following oncogenic transformation. Previous studies reported significant interplay between the epidermal growth factor (EGFR) pathway and HPV oncoproteins. HPV oncoproteins E5, E6, and E7 have been implicated in upregulation of EGFR signaling and expression. Additionally, downstream effectors of EGFR signaling were shown to upregulate HPV early gene expression. These reports led us to hypothesize that, in infected cells, HPV establishes a positive feedback loop with the EGFR pathway, wherein viral proteins upregulate EGFR signaling, which then leads to enhanced viral oncogene expression. We further postulated that interruption of this feedback loop, via inhibitors of the EGFR signaling pathway, would result in decreased viral oncoprotein levels and increased sensitivity to apoptotic stimuli. In a model of early, persistent infection, we found that EGFR signaling modulated HPV early gene expression, including upregulation of viral oncogene expression upon EGFR stimulation. We discovered that EGFR inhibition by cetuximab, a monoclonal antibody targeting EGFR, had antiviral effects including downregulation of HPV oncogene expression levels in this model. Furthermore, in cells harboring episomal viral genomes, inhibition of this pathway led to reduced viral genome burden and sensitization to apoptotic stimuli. Our study further reveals that EGFR/MEK inhibition can lead to downregulation of HPV oncogene expression in vivo, in subsets of HPV-positive xenografts, concomitant with delayed tumor growth. These results suggest a possible role for antiviral effects in the therapeutic outcomes observed following EGFR-inhibitor treatment of HPV-associated diseases in the clinic. Together, these data indicate that use of EGFR/MEK inhibitors may be beneficial in the treatment of HPV-associated diseases. Furthermore, the results of this study set the frame work to better understand the role of growth factor signaling in the HPV lifecycle

Plant closings and labor rights

[Excerpt] This report by the Secretariat of the Commission for Labor Cooperation responds to a request from the Council of Ministers for a study of the effects of plant closings on the principle of freedom of association and the right to organize in the three countries that negotiated the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC). In February 1996, the Council of Ministers called for this report following ministerial consultations initiated by Mexico on a plant closing that occurred in the United States during a union organizing campaign. This is the first special report by the Secretariat under Article 14 of the NAALC, which provides for special reports on any matter as the Council may request

FLEXIBLE PHENOTYPES, ENERGETICS, AND WHOLE-ANIMAL PERFORMANCE OF MIGRATORY SONGBIRDS

Animal life has evolved innumerable strategies to adapt to a great range of environmental conditions present on earth. The physiology of free-living animals has thus been shaped to allow for maximal performance under challenging conditions and has given rise to traits that enable animals to overcome daunting ecological pressures. Few life history stages in the animal kingdom rival the intensity of annual avian migration: the extreme metabolic requirements of long-distance flight coupled with navigating vast and hostile ecological barriers results in enormously high mortality for young birds. It is therefore the main focus of this thesis to identify physiological traits which are important in assisting successful songbird migration. In the subsequent chapters, I focus analysis on the interplay between body composition, metabolism, and whole-animal performance in ecologically-relevant contexts. I investigated (1) how reduced body condition incurred during flight constrains whole-animal performance and the ways that birds compensate physiologically and (2) the relationship between lean body mass and metabolism, and its implications for interpreting the metabolic requirements of songbirds. The innovations in my methods are largely due to the use of an emerging technology, quantitative magnetic resonance (QMR), allowing for the rapid quantification of body composition in free-living animals. Furthermore, I’ve employed the use of high-throughput multiplexing for measuring metabolic rates, which has allowed me to compile a substantial dataset on the metabolism of migratory songbirds. I present empirical evidence which provides key insights for how birds cope with the challenges of migration. In the chapter II, I demonstrate that songbirds can rapidly modulate digestive enzymes during refueling to assist in replenishing lean tissue mass. Chapter III investigates the relationship between body composition, metabolic rates, and real-world refueling performance at stopover. My final chapter focuses on the interpretation of the basal metabolic requirements of songbirds, specifically how organismal size and evolutionary history may govern both intra- and interspecific variation in metabolism

THE POWER OF THEIR VOICE: PROMOTING EQUAL RESPECT AND REDISTRIBUTING POWER IN HIERARCHICALLY DIFFERENTIATED GROUPS

Todos Juntos New Mexico was a collaborative made possible through a multi-million dollar grant awarded by the Fellows Foundation to empower the community, students, and educators in New Mexico to affect positive change in our public educational system, leading to increased student success, not just for Hispanics, but for all students. Of particular interest to this study was the organizational structure of Todos Juntos and how successful it was, or was not, during its first years of operation. Many collaboratives are developed with members of the same education level and status who hold similar visions of what they need to accomplish to achieve collaborative goals and objectives. Todos Juntos, on the other hand, navigated uncharted waters by bringing together partners with all levels of education, including those who have historically been silenced by either a lack of formal education or an inability to navigate the complexities of educational institutions. Consider that most organizations operate through a hierarchal structure, starting at the top position with someone who sets the agenda, runs the meetings and who, most oftentimes, and makes the final decisions. Todos Juntos was structured differently, operating as a flat organization with a facilitator, hired by members of a leadership team, whose primary responsibility was to ensure a collaborative process that enabled a cohesive, unified and participatory unit. Essentially, flat meant that the voices of formally uneducated parents, students and community members would have the same merit as those of other more formally educated and experienced collaborative members, such as a university president and a school superintendent. The purpose of this study was to determine what factors contributed to a change in the Todos Juntos structure from a collaborative, flat organization into a hierarchal organization when initially, the collaborative founders and participants were strongly committed to an equalitarian, participatory, non-hierarchical structure. The primary goal of this study was to tell the story of Todos Juntos through its participants words: as individuals, as members of groups, and from the perspective of learning collaborative as a whole. Research findings indicate that the collaborative that set out to be a flat system, but ultimately failed due to multiple barriers including, but not limited to, the collaborative\u27s funding structure, gender issues, inner racial conflict, and discord among members. The collaborative was also found to be Latino male-dominated. Moreover, a subgroup of parents began to operate in a hierarchical manner against earlier expectations, and, lastly, university students turned out to be the most stable participants in the initiative since they operated internally as a small flat subgroup of their own. The students did not really pay attention to the conflicts within the collaborative, but managed instead to keep their attention on the younger students whom they were mentoring and tutoring. Many collaborative members wanted the collaborative to be based on a flat organizational structure and moved in that direction on a day-to-day basis. However, they could not sustain their efforts to make the collaborative a flat structure due to fiscal constraints and policies in addition to managerial controls of the university and public school educational systems from which they were operationalized. As such, study results indicate that the collaborative did not succeed in its larger goal of systemic change for educational institutions. However, the results do seem to give credence and support to a need for Latino-based initiatives in the United States. Further discussion of these results will show others in the future how they might identify and thereby avoid barriers to collaborative work that empowers minority groups. At the same time, these future reformers can take to heart the positive lessons from the Todos Juntos project found in the voices of the people themselves.\u2

Forage Selection and Nutrition of Sheep And Goats Grazing in the Tunisian Pre-Sahara

Nomadic pastoralism has been the traditional method of utilizing grazing resources in arid and semi-arid regions of Africa. However, increased sedentarization accompanied by growing human and animal populations during the past two decades is thought to be accelerating the desertification process, or desert expansion. The specific interactions of the grazing animal with this process has been speculated upon but not studied in detail. A comparative study was initiated during the spring grazing season of 1974 to determine sheep and goat nutritional and production responses, as well as patterns of vegetative selection and utilization under the pastoral system currently employed in the Pre-Saharan region of southern Tunisia. The study site was located on a sandy soil dominated by the perennial shrub, Rhanterium suaveolens. Annual herbs were co-dominants of this community in early spring. Four grazing treatments were employed during a month-long grazing season. These included; sheep grazing alone, goats grazing alone, sheep grazing with goats, and goats grazing with sheep. Stocking rates (1.9 sheep or goats per hectare per month) were comparable to those locally employed. Dietary composition was determined for randomly selected animals by a modified bite-count method, Forage intake was determined by the equation, I = F/1-D where I represented intake rate, F represented fecal output as determined from collections using standard fecal bags, and D represented digestibility of composite diets as determined by in vitro techniques. Animals were weighed weekly. Diets of all treatment groups, except goats in the mixed herd, consisted primarily of annuals during the first week. During Week Two there was a gradual shift to perennials and by the third week, all treatment groups selected primarily perennial species for their diets, Perennials comprised over 90% of the diets, except for sheep in the mixed herd, by the end of the fourth week. Also, by Week Four, Rhanterium comprised 71-92% of the diets. Estimates of forage quality indicated a declining trend in nutritional value of the forage over the grazing period. Dry matter consumption, digestibility of the diets, consumption of apparent digestible energy, dietary crude protein and apparent digestible protein all decreased from Week One to Week Four. These changes were probably attributable to a combination of factors including a decrease in plant species availability due to grazing, maturation of the remaining vegetation and a dietary shift from annuals to perennials. Young animals gained weight at generally increasing rates throughout the grazing trial. Adult animals gained weight after the initial week but their rate of gain indicated a leveling off or even a decrease by the fourth week, probably in response to declining forage quality. Animals in the mixed herd traveled farther during daily grazing periods than either of the single species herds. Goats grazing alone traveled farther than sheep grazing alone. Goats in the mixed herd may have influenced the sheep in that herd to travel more than sheep grazing alone

Flora & Fauna

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Report for NMDGF Permit: 5, Letter to Mr. Gaylord on exceeding the limit

Document from New Mexico Department of Game & Fish Commercial permit