1. Importance of Subsistence to Alaskan Residents Meredith Marchioni Subsistence Resource Specialist Division of Subsistence Alaska Department of Fish and Game
Thank you for having me here to talk today. My name is Meredith Marchioni and I am a subsistence resource specialist for the Division of Subsistence with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. I was asked to talk about the importance of subsistence in Alaska. I will first talk to you about what the Division of Subsistence is and what I do as a subsistence resource specialist, and then I will illustrate the economic, nutritional, and sociocultural importance of subsistence to Alaskan residents.

2. Division of Subsistence
In 1978 the State of Alaska enacted the Alaska Subsistence Law recognizing the customary and traditional uses of resources.
The Division of Subsistence was established to scientifically quantify harvests of wild resources by rural residents to determine the Amount Necessary for Subsistence (ANS) for each population or stock.
Since its inception, over the past 30 years, the Division’s small staff has conducted research in 271 rural communities in Alaska.
Just a brief overview of the Division of Subsistence. We are a small research based division of the Department of Fish and Game formed in 1978 after the State of Alaska enacted the Alaska Subsistence Law recognizing the customary and traditional use of resources. The Division of Subsistence scientifically quantifies harvests of wild resources by rural residents to determine the Amount Necessary for Subsistence (ANS) for each population or stock. Since its inception, over the past 30 years, the Division’s small staff of social scientists has worked in 220 rural communities throughout Alaska. As part of it’s Core Services the Division provides information to the Alaska Boards of Fisheries and Game on the customary and traditional use of resources by Alaskans and provides harvest data to determine the amount necessary for subsistence.

3. Research Foci Seasonality of fishing, hunting, and gathering
Methods of harvesting and processing
Sharing of wild foods
Areas of harvest and use
Cultural, social, and economic values
Trends in resource use patterns
Resource issues that need resolution
Our Division focuses on a wide variety of research needs. The Division’s team of social scientists, mainly anthropologists, provide data on seasonality of fishing, hunting, and gathering, methods of harvesting and processing, sharing of wild foods, areas of harvest and use through mapping, cultural, social, and economic values related to subsistence activities, trends in resource use patterns, and resource issues that need resolution.
When it becomes evident that research needs to be done in a particular area or community because of either management or community concerns over resource health or subsistence opportunities, the Division of Subsistence will seek funding to address the community’s needs.

4. Community Scoping Meeting
Prior to conducting any research in a community, a community scoping meeting is held. During the community meeting, the proposed research is presented to community members and the local government for approval. Once approval is obtained, research will begin.
Community scoping meeting in Togiak, Bristol Bay

5. Train Local Research Assistants
In an effort to engage the local community in our work, the Division of Subsistence trains and employs local researchers to conduct harvest surveys and help with interviews and participant observation. Local research assistants are also very helpful in communicating to research staff the current dynamic of every household they enter. Subsistence is so very important to all communities in rural Alaska, and so interwoven with family memories and structures that going into a household and asking questions about subsistence if someone in the household has recently moved away or passed on could be hurtful to the participant. Local research assistants are able to tell us about households that will make certain we are as sensitive to the households current situation as we can be.
Local researcher training in Noatak, Northwest Alaska

6. Research Methods: Subsistence Harvest Surveys and Mapping
Subsistence harvest surveys are conducted throughout the state in an effort to document the importance of subsistence to Alaskan communities. Comprehensive harvest surveys ask residents about every single wild resource they harvest and where, and if they either received or gave away a resource. The data these surveys produce creates an incredible illustration of how much rural Alaskan residents rely on subsistence foods as well as how important sharing is for acquiring the needed amount of food.
A harvest survey Chignik Lake.

7. Research Methods: Participant Observation
Participant Observation is a method used to document peoples contemporary subsistence practices. By both participating and observing, anthropologists are able to best understand subsistence practices. Only observing or only participating would leave the researcher without a holistic perspective of an activity and all that goes into it. I will often go fishing with people and process fish with them to achieve the best understanding of what they have to do in order to get their food.
Participating in subsistence salmon fisheries on the Alaska Peninsula and in southeast Alaska.

8. Research Methods: Key Respondent Interviews
Key respondent interviews are conducted with high subsistence harvesters and elders within a particular community. Key respondent interviews ask respondents about how they learned their subsistence practices, who taught them, how their community has changed since they were a child, how the resources and the environment have changed, where they used to harvest their subsistence versus where they do now, and many other open ended questions about these knowledgeable individual’s perceptions.
Interviewing an elder in Nondalton, Bristol Bay

9. 2012 Wild Resource Harvest Update for Alaska
I will now display some graphs and charts published from our data in 2010 that will show how our data is used to display the importance of subsistence to Alaskan residents.

10. The areas highlighted in green are the only areas within the state which are deemed non subsistence. Most of these areas are however open to personal use. The rest of the state is open to subsistence activities.

11. This graph shows the estimated wild food harvests in Alaska by area in The numbers represent pounds usable weight per person per year. As you can see, Alaska’s rural residents rely heavily on subsistence foods in order to live where they do and therefore harvest much more for subsistence than the state’s more urban centers whose residents have access to more reasonably priced alternatives and also have primarily cash based economies.

12. Nutritional value of fish and wildlife harvests
This graph displays the nutritional value of subsistence resources for Alaskan residents.
Subsistence foods are supplying well over 100 percent of the protein requirements for much of rural Alaskan communities.
They are also supplying well over 100 percent of the caloric requirements.

13. This pie chart shows the very small percentage of resources that are being harvested for subsistence and personal use.
Commercial fishing takes 98.3 percent of all harvested resources in Alaska.
Subsistence and personal use take 1.1 percent and sport harvest takes .6 percent.

14. This pie chart breaks down the total subsistence take by resource type.
As you can see, the largest percentage of rural Alaskan resident’s subsistence harvest is comprised of salmon.
The next largest is large land mammals and other fish (including halibut, cod, etc.) are the third largest.

15. This graph breaks the subsistence harvest down by location
This graph breaks the subsistence harvest down by location. Obviously the arctic is harvesting the most marine mammals and the least amount of salmon. Kodiak, being that it is primarily made of kodiak city is harvesting the least amount of resources of any subsistence area because the majority of the population is in Kodiak city which is based primarily on a money economy and has access to food stores. Western Alaska is harvesting the most resources as these areas have the most available resources and are often incredibly isolated communities with fewer residents.

16. Subsistence Lifestyle and Local Ecological Knowledge
The graphs I just presented give you a clear numeric picture of how important subsistence is to the people of Alaska. I do not have to tell the people in this room that subsistence is so much more to the people of Alaska then just their food source. It is a way of life that connects people to their environment, their resources, their families, their communities, their cultures and their beliefs and traditions. Out of this remarkably intertwined relationship between subsistence users and the environment is some of the most detailed knowledge about natural resources and how resources and the environment are changing.

17. Perceived causes for the decline in the chilkat chinook salmon population
Fluctuations in climate and weather
Increased pressure from fisheries
Environmental disturbances from human impacts (e.g. boat traffic, pollution, ecotourism, road maintenance, etc.)
Hatchery fish
Across the state of Alaska anthropologists are gathering ecological knowledge held by all resource users and subsistence users alone contribute a particularly important body of knowledge. I am currently finishing up research in the Chilkat River Valley of Southeast, Alaska where I have been collecting ecological knowledge regarding the Chilkat River chinook salmon run held by subsistence, commercial and sport fishers who have fished the area for over a decade. The study objective is to document local knowledge of the chinook salmon behavior, run timing and appearance, as well as discover what fishers feel is the cause of the chinook salmon decline and what should be done to conserve the stock.
So far while coding interviews and entering the data I have come across the following 4 observations made by both commercial and subsistence fishers that they believe are impacting the chinook salmon.
Climactic fluctuations
Increased pressure from fisheries
Environmental disturbances from human impacts (e.g. boat traffic, pollution, ecotourism, road maintenance, etc.)
Hatchery fish

18. The Future of Subsistence
Within the category of climactic fluctuations, one observation that local fishers made and area biologists had not was that the chinook salmon are behaving differently. They are hitting the gillnets with less velocity and are hitting at deeper depths then they ever have. Information such as this that is held only by those individuals who experience the resource day in and day out and have subsisted from it for either decades or generations….only these individuals hold the ecological knowledge that could explain what is occurring in our rapidly changing environment and what steps need to be taken to change the outcome. Subsistence is so important to so many people throughout the state of Alaska, but as any subsistence harvesters or users will tell you, subsistence is never just about putting food on the table, continuing traditions, and community and family relationships. It is always also about continuing the sustainability of natural resources and the environment so that future generations may have the choice to live the subsistence lifestyle as well.

19. Thank You

20. QUESTIONS?

21. For More Information ADF&G Website www.adfg.alaska.gov
Meredith Marchioni
Subsistence Resource Specialist
Rosalie Grant, ADF&G & Jessica Gill, Sitka Tribe of Alaska, process herring roe on branches in Sitka Harbor, April 2013
Courtesy of the Sitka Sentinel & Associated Press

28. Salmon
5 species
In terms of pounds of food, top resource almost everywhere except Arctic
Variety of harvest methods: gillnet, seine, fishwheel, hook & line
Variety of preservation methods
Extended families cooperate to harvest and process salmon at fish camps and villages

29. Other (Non-salmon) Fish
Wide variety of marine (halibut, herring, cod, etc) and freshwater (whitefishes, trout, pike, etc)
Total harvest ranks 2nd or 3rd after salmon
Many harvest and preservation methods
Spring ice ice fishing, Nondalton, Bristol Bay

30. Harvest of chitons (“bidarkies”), Ivanof Bay
Marine Invertebrates
Many species: clams, cockles, crabs, chitons, snails, octopus, etc.
People of all ages participate in the harvest
Harvest of chitons (“bidarkies”), Ivanof Bay

31. Large Land Mammals
Primary species = moose, caribou, deer; also bears, sheep, goat, muskoxen
Total harvests generally rank 2nd or 3rd after salmon
Generally hunted in fall and winter
A moose harvest at Chalkyitsik, Yukon River Flats

32. Small game and furbearers
Taken with snares, traps, firearms
Some taken primarily for their fur: wolf, wolverine, mink, otter
Some are also used for food: beaver, muskrat
Used for crafts and also sold
Lynx harvest, Emmonak

33. Harbor seal and sea lion oil rendered from fat, Akutan
Marine mammals
Co-management under the MMPA
Used in most coastal Alaska Native communities
Seals, sea lions, walrus, whales
Meat, fat, & hides used
Harbor seal and sea lion oil rendered from fat, Akutan

34. Glaucous-winged gull egg harvest, Kodiak
Birds and eggs
Migratory birds & eggs; also ptarmigan, grouse
Co-management under Migratory Bird Treaty Act: Alaska Migratory Bird Co-management Council
Subsistence spring and summer hunting authorized, 1997
Glaucous-winged gull egg harvest, Kodiak

35. Wild plants Many varieties used
Used for food (primarily berries, but others)
Medicinal uses
Used for fuel, crafts, smoking fish, etc.
Valerie Engebretsen, Nondalton, Bristol Bay

36. Other Findings: Specialization
Talkeetna: 70% of lb taken by 21% of HHs
Skwentna: 70% of lb taken by 31% of HHs

37. Other Findings: Networks

38. Other Findings: Food Security

39. Applications of study findings
Obligations at Board of Game and Board of Fisheries
C&T Determinations
ANS Findings
Regulations that provide reasonable opportunity
Obligations to Joint Board: nonsubsistence area findings
Informing resource development projects
Health impacts assessment
Other applications
Filling the smokehouse with sockeye salmon, Nondalton

40. Special Topics
Wage employment supporting the mixed economy in rural Alaska.
Current structure of commercial fisheries in Alaska: Supporting local economies
The interdependence of commercial and subsistence fisheries: Successful fishing communities in Alaska