Bristol Bay Subsistence Harvest and Sociocultural Systems Inventory

Abstract

In 1975, in response to a lack of published information on which to base environmental impact statements, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) began to sponsor a series of social and economic studies in a variety of offshore areas. The goal of these studies is to provide information necessary in the development of accurate and defensible environmental assessments and to make possible the monitoring of environmental effects from OCS development, should such effects occur. Because harvests of naturally-occurring, renewable (wild) resources are important to rural Alaskan communities, much work has focused on subsistence issues. The need for Bristol Bay subsistence-harvest and sociocultural information had been identified in several MMS Alaska Regional Studies Plans. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G), Division of Subsistence, as a result of an FY-1988 study, supplied MMS with a computerized data base and technical papers from baseline subsistence studies they had conducted in Bristol Bay communities beginning in 1980. The general purpose of this study was to describe and analyze the harvest and uses of wild resources for the Bristol Bay region. Specific study objectives were: 1) development of a typology of subregions within Bristol Bay based on multivariate analysis of subsistence harvesting and processing; 2) examination of the ethnographic meanings and context of subsistence; and, 3) analysis of the key political, economic, social and cultural factors that affect subsistence pursuits.