If you live in coastal Alaska, you know how important investments in a community's harbor or port are to the local and regional economy. If you live in rural Alaska, you know how important investments in telecommunications are to promoting connections and information flow for your community. Throughout our developing state, we hear a lot about the importance of physical infrastructure for roads, schools, water treatment and health care facilities.
We're guessing you've heard less about the need for data on fresh water geochemistry and temperature -- let alone better information on even basic tidal patterns in Alaska. Just like physical infrastructure, accessible environmental data is critical for improving the health of our communities, safeguarding local economies, and ensuring sustainability of the natural resources Alaskans depend on.
Here in the Last Frontier, we are experiencing changes to our environment and lifestyles in a manner unequaled elsewhere in the country. However, the data and information needed to help us adapt to these changes is lacking, and acquiring it is an enormous task beyond any one agency or organization.
Right now tribal, local, state and federal governments as well as nongovernmental entities are working together in public-private partnerships called Landscape Conservation Cooperatives . Together we are working to make the necessary investments in the essential information needed to adapt to climate change and tackle other issues too large for any of us to address alone.
As science staff from two of Alaska's tribal consortiums, we are used to engaging with government agencies in an often frustrating regulatory framework. The LCCs are different. Administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, LCCs address real community and conservation needs in truly collaborative and creative ways across Alaska. We work together in these partnerships to understand what changes are occurring so that communities, resource managers, tribes, and agency managers can develop ways to adapt.
For example, LCCs are trying to make sure the traditional foods so many Alaskans rely on are safe to eat. We are increasingly concerned that the animals our communities depend on for traditional foods are being exposed to higher levels of mercury as thawing permafrost and melting glaciers release more of this toxic metal into our waterways. Right now, tribal, state and federal partners are working together through the Aleutian and Bering Sea Islands LCC to gather and analyze information on water geochemistry data and animal tissue records, to understand how this toxic metal might affect our traditional foods that are so vital to human health and cultural well-being.
There are few things as important to Alaskans as our fish. This is certainly true of Western Alaska, where fisheries dominate our cultures and economies. Western Alaska hosts some of the most productive primary freshwater habitats for salmon in the world, with Bristol Bay fisheries alone providing nearly 50 percent of the globe's commercially harvested sockeye salmon. These populations are the foundation of local subsistence economies and world-class recreational fisheries. Knowing how important these fisheries are to our local people and the global economy, it surprises us that important data, like water temperature for many of our streams, rivers and lakes, is nearly impossible to find.
Water temperature impacts growth rates, survival rates, and spawning time for fish. It is also strongly influenced by air temperatures and precipitation patterns, things we know are changing in this warming world. Better understanding those relationships will help us better manage our fisheries. Most of the country is able to access this kind of data -- even Washington, D.C. has more stream gauges than all of Western Alaska – but given our vast number of streams and lakes it is far too costly for any one entity to collect and pull together this information.
The LCC Network in Alaska is working to overcome this challenge by coordinating the activities of citizen scientist volunteers, universities, tribes, and agencies, so everyone can share their data and analyze it to understand patterns of change.
We just watched as weather forecasters worked to understand possible pathways for the blizzard of 2015. Powerful winter storms are no stranger to our coastal communities on the Bering Sea, and for two years, the Western Alaska LCC invested heavily in improving our understanding of the changes in coastal storms and their impacts. The LCC has helped lead efforts to pull together data on coastal water levels, topography and tidal patterns to improve emergency forecasting for communities and the storm surge models used by NOAA to make those forecasts. This same information is also helping our communities understand the impacts of coastal surges on habitat for important subsistence resources.
Alaska is a young state and still has many basic needs in infrastructure -- be they physical, digital or data and information. We must work together to ensure the health and security of our communities, economy and natural resources. Working in partnership through LCCs is one step in the right direction. You can learn more about LCCs at this week's Alaska Forum on the Environment and at absilcc.org and westernalaskalcc.org
Karen Pletnikoff is the community environment and safety manager for the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association Inc. She chairs the steering committee of the Aleutian and Bering Sea Islands Landscape Conservation Cooperative and serves on the steering committee of the Western Alaska Landscape Conservation Cooperative. She has long-term experience with tribal environmental programs, traditional foods contamination and environmental health issues. Courtenay Carty is the director of natural resources for the Bristol Bay Native Association. She currently serves as the chair of the Western Alaska Landscape Conservation Cooperative steering committee. She has long-term experience working with tribes and agencies in subsistence co-management, building local capacity in research and to engage in the public processes that regulate natural resources.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, e-mail commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com