The Long Road to Seafood Sustainability in Alaska
Prior to becoming a fully-fledged state in 1959, Alaska was a place that served as a sort of stomping grounds for various interests, in many cases inflicting major damage on the natural habitats that make Alaska such a unique and gorgeous place.
Anybody with historical memory in the state knows that the plight of Alaska's salmon populations-damaged by years of over-fishing and mismanagement by national administrators in the first half of the 20th century-was in fact one of the catalysts that propelled Alaska to statehood.
The unimaginable shrinking of Alaska's famed salmon runs was simply too much to bear, and from the very first moment of becoming a state Alaskan legislators made sure to put real and effective clauses in place to revert the situation and make sure it never happened again.
Specifically, they wrote environmental sustainability right into the state's constitution-making it the first and only state to ever do so.
With a heavy focus on the marine resources that are such a dominant component of Alaska's cultural heritage and economic viability, the process was set in march to return Alaska's salmon and other seafood populations to their historically glorious levels and to ensure that the state's coastal marine habitats preserved the state of health they need and deserve.
Starting back in 1959 it may have seemed like a very daunting process, but looking back in retrospect from the second decade of the 21st century it is undeniably evident just how worth it the journey down that long and hard road really was.
Today, Alaska's salmon runs are full of life and color just the way they should be, and in recent years the state has managed to celebrate record seasonal catches whilst simultaneously celebrating practically ideal conditions for the species in the wild-always limiting commercial harvests to levels that respect the future sustainability of this renowned species as well as all the other species that are caught along Alaska's shores.
As a result, today the state of Alaska is looked up to across the planet as a shining example of the catchy adage that states: "where there is a will, there is a way.
"
Anybody with historical memory in the state knows that the plight of Alaska's salmon populations-damaged by years of over-fishing and mismanagement by national administrators in the first half of the 20th century-was in fact one of the catalysts that propelled Alaska to statehood.
The unimaginable shrinking of Alaska's famed salmon runs was simply too much to bear, and from the very first moment of becoming a state Alaskan legislators made sure to put real and effective clauses in place to revert the situation and make sure it never happened again.
Specifically, they wrote environmental sustainability right into the state's constitution-making it the first and only state to ever do so.
With a heavy focus on the marine resources that are such a dominant component of Alaska's cultural heritage and economic viability, the process was set in march to return Alaska's salmon and other seafood populations to their historically glorious levels and to ensure that the state's coastal marine habitats preserved the state of health they need and deserve.
Starting back in 1959 it may have seemed like a very daunting process, but looking back in retrospect from the second decade of the 21st century it is undeniably evident just how worth it the journey down that long and hard road really was.
Today, Alaska's salmon runs are full of life and color just the way they should be, and in recent years the state has managed to celebrate record seasonal catches whilst simultaneously celebrating practically ideal conditions for the species in the wild-always limiting commercial harvests to levels that respect the future sustainability of this renowned species as well as all the other species that are caught along Alaska's shores.
As a result, today the state of Alaska is looked up to across the planet as a shining example of the catchy adage that states: "where there is a will, there is a way.
"
