Subsistence and commercial fisheries through the lenses of culture and economy in three coastal Alaskan communities

Thesis (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2017Commercial and subsistence fisheries in Alaska are complex social-ecological systems constituting interdependent components which include economics and culture at the local and regional levels. Each fishery has unique challenges and benefits; however, a commonality that can be found in coastal communities in Alaska is that salmon fisheries are for many a way of life that serve to link commercial and subsistence practices to family and traditions. This research investigated whether and how culture is a key component of subsistence and commercial fisheries in three core study communities in different parts of coastal Alaska; Chenega Bay in Prince William Sound, Kokhanok in Bristol Bay, and Tyonek in Cook Inlet, and includes summary research findings from 12 comparative communities on the south side of the Alaska Peninsula, Kodiak Island, and Southeast Alaska. The research sought to understand 1) how people in different areas of Alaska articulate the role of subsistence fisheries in their communities, 2) what factors are impacting participation in commercial fisheries, and 3) what methods could be used to assess the resilience and vulnerability of such diverse coastal communities in Alaska. Among the factors investigated in each community were the role of local level politics and how local knowledge is passed down through participation in subsistence salmon fishing activities. To examine methodologies for assessing community vulnerability and resilience within a larger system, quantitative data gathered through household surveys was used to provide a basic statistical assessment of the economic and subsistence landscape of coastal communities in Alaska. But it was through in-depth semistructured interviews, during which residents shared their own personal stories, that a broader, more accurate assessment of resilience and the complexity of community-based fisheries was achieved. During household harvest surveys administered in the core study and comparative communities, as well as through in-depth interviews conducted in the three core communities, residents articulated how participating in salmon fishing is an expression of a subsistence way of life and of cultural traditions. Commercial fishing as a way of life is also something they seek to pass on to their children. In all of the study communities, residents noted that the reasons they continue to live in their rural coastal communities include family, culture, home, a subsistence lifestyle, and a sense of freedom. Challenges to maintaining continuity in the commercial fishery, and to passing on this lifestyle to their children, include the price effects of the globalization of salmon markets, market access to sell one's fish, and financial difficulties of entering a capital-intensive fishery. However, there are and have been efforts in each of the three communities to revitalize participation in commercial fishing. Residents of these fishery dependent communities have a strong connection to salmon as an economically valuable resource through commercial fishing, and to salmon as a cultural and place-based resource by participating in subsistence salmon fishing

Maryland

While the State of Maryland is far from a traditional epicenter of conventional oil and gas development, the ubiquitous Marcellus Shale runs strong through two of Maryland\u27s western panhandle counties, Garrett and Allegheny, and the play for these reserves has many of the industry\u27s eyes squarely trained on this somewhat economically depressed area of Maryland. Several operators have begun preliminary work in the area, and a few large, mid-continental operators have charged headlong into western Maryland performing title examinations, securing leases, and obtaining title opinions in the hopes of pioneering a new geographic market and injecting a much needed boost of economic development into the sleepy, rural area. A few operators have applied for permits to drill and operate horizontal wells in Garrett and Allegheny Counties; however, this is where the fervor, activity, and excitement stops, and the development train leaps from its tracks. To date, the State of Maryland has yet to issue its first horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing permit

Narratives of Sexuality in the Lives of Young Women Readers

In recent years, research on adolescent sexuality in Young Adult (YA) Literature has included a discussion of its potential role in sex education. Based on the extensive yet problematic presentation of sexuality within these texts, it has gained both support and opposition. However, very few empirical studies have been done on how readers say YA Literature has informed their sexual lives. This thesis investigates how narratives of sexuality found within YA Literature may inform the sexual lives of young women readers by examining both readers’ experiences and YA texts. First, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 female participants (aged 18 to 24) on their experiences reading sexually-themed YA Literature. Thematic analysis was used to identify, analyse and report themes found within the interview data. Second, a sample of YA texts of different genres and formats was closely read for presentations of adolescent sexuality. Textual analysis was used to analyse themes within four texts that were thematically significant in relation to readers’ experiences. This study found that YA Literature has the potential to give a more nuanced portrayal of sexuality than traditional sex education, but it also lacks content that appeals to some readers’ sexual curiosities and information needs. The readers reported that YA Literature informed them on many aspects of sexuality, including the biological, social, emotional, pleasurable, and painful aspects of sexual relationships. However, in many cases, these readers also “read up” or turned to online fiction to read more complex, erotic, or diverse stories. Along with these responses, the author uses YA texts to demonstrate how themes, tropes, and codes about sexuality may inform the sexual lives of young readers, sometimes in ways that were unexpected or have yet to be examined. The findings both support and refute previous studies on sexuality in YA Literature, revealing that although there are many positive qualities of YA Literature when informing young readers on sexuality, improvements need to be made in the areas of female character development, descriptive sex scenes, and positive representation of LGBTQ relationships. The author also makes recommendations for how librarians can help to improve access to sexually-themed materials for young people

Cumulative Innovation, Growth and Welfare-Improving Patent Policy

We construct a tractable general equilibrium model of cumulative innovation and growth, in which new ideas strictly improve upon frontier technologies, and productivity improvements are drawn in a stochastic manner. The presence of positive knowledge spillovers implies that the decentralized equilibrium features an allocation of labor to R&D activity that is strictly lower than the social planner's benchmark, which suggests a role for patent policy. We focus on a non-infringing inventive step requirement, which stipulates the minimum improvement to the best patented technology that a new idea needs to make for it to be patentable and non-infringing. We establish that there exists a finite required inventive step that maximizes the rate of innovation, as well as a separate optimal required inventive step that maximizes welfare, with the former being strictly greater than the latter. These conclusions are robust to allowing for the availability of an additional instrument in the form of patent length policy

What determines the sign of the evapotranspiration response to afforestation in European summer?

Uncertainties in the evapotranspiration response to afforestation constitute a major source of disagreement between model-based studies of the potential climate benefits of forests. Forests typically have higher evapotranspiration rates than grasslands in the tropics, but whether this is also the case in the midlatitudes is still debated. To explore this question and the underlying physical processes behind these varying evapotranspiration rates of forests and grasslands in more detail, a regional model study with idealized afforestation scenarios was performed for Europe. In the first experiment, Europe was maximally forested, and in the second one, all forests were turned into grassland. The results of this modeling study exhibit the same contradicting evapotranspiration characteristics of forests and grasslands as documented in observational studies, but by means of an additional sensitivity simulation in which the surface roughness of the forest was reduced to grassland, the mechanisms behind these varying evapotranspiration rates could be revealed. Due to the higher surface roughness of a forest, solar radiation is more efficiently transformed into turbulent sensible heat fluxes, leading to lower surface temperatures (top of vegetation) than in grassland. The saturation deficit between the vegetation and the atmosphere, which depends on the surface temperature, is consequently reduced over forests. This reduced saturation deficit counteracts the transpiration-facilitating characteristics of a forest (deeper roots, a higher leaf area index, LAI, and lower albedo values than grassland). If the impact of the reduced saturation deficit exceeds the effects of the transpiration-facilitating characteristics of a forest, evapotranspiration is reduced compared to grassland. If not, evapotranspiration rates of forests are higher. The interplay of these two counteracting factors depends on the latitude and the prevailing forest type in a region

Biogeophysical climate impacts of forest management in Switzerland

Forests influence climate through biogeochemical and biogeophysical processes. Biogeochemical processes include greenhouse gas (GHG) exchange as well as emissions of other chemical compounds such as biogenic volatile organic compounds, which can act as aerosol precursors. The biogeophysical effect, on the other hand, refer to the alteration of land properties such as albedo, evapotranspiration and surface roughness. The climate impacts of land use activities such as forestry are routinely monitored in terms of GHG emissions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The associated biogeophysical impacts, however, are not accounted for as part of this framework despite the growing awareness that these effects matter regionally and should therefore be considered in the decision-making process. In this report, we synthetizes the current state of knowledge concerning the biogeophysical effect of forestry activities with a special focus on Switzerland. Beside reviewing the existing literature we also present new results for Switzerland based on observation-driven estimates as well as process-based modelling