What To Make of All This

So. Now that we've seen a bunch of photos, read a bunch of facts, and seen some charts, what's to be made of all this??

1. How have people impacted this ecosystem?

• I know you're getting nervous. I would say that in terms of human impact, it's OKAY. Commercial fishing has threatened local animal life that feeds on certain fish and as long as Alaska's oil reserves remain active, big businesses will have their foot in the door and crises such as the '89 Exxon oil spill and invasion by logging companies becomes more apparent. 

2. What is the status of the protected areas?

• Alaska has strived to protect it's rich resources and unique wildlife. Aside from the earlier mentioned laws and regulations that Alaska and the US government has implemented, protected areas are only as safe as people choose to make them. Unfortunately, certain sectors of the industrial world don't always choose to stick to quotas or limitations. 

3. What is likely to happen in the future to this ecosystem?

• It depends...

SOURCE: Witherell, D., Pautzke, C. and Fluharty, D. (2000) An ecosystem-based approach for Alaska

groundfish fisheries. ICES Journal of Marine Science 57:771-777. 

• The US National Marine Fisheries service (NMFS) includes “overfished” but not “collapsed” in its stock status categories. NMFS 2009 lists no overfished species. Several groundfish are presently underutilized and cannot be fully harvested without exceeding the bycatch limits for Pacific halibut. Gulf of Alaska groundfish stocks in the US are considered to be in a healthy condition as a result of ecosystem-based management actions by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which include public participation, reliance on scientific assessments, conservative catch quotas built around annually determined overall fisheries biomass yield catch, and total allowable catch levels for key species with the objective of long term sustainability of fisheries stocks 

SOURCE: Witherell, D., Pautzke, C. and Fluharty, D. (2000) An ecosystem-based approach for Alaska

groundfish fisheries. ICES Journal of Marine Science 57:771-777. 

I know by know, you're probably happy to hear that the gulf is doing "okay"

...But the truth is, and to repeat the point, these numbers are stable so long as people CHOOSE to obey the laws. Not just for legal purposes, but in order to preserve the BEAUTIFUL Alaskan Gulf Coast.

So know the question becomes...HOW?

Well, what can be done to maintain balance between people and the ecosystem?

-The answer is simple: Become involved where you believe you can. One of the biggest lessons that i've learned in this class is that people have more power than they think they do. If research went into finding stable and renewable sources of energy, oil would become a thing of the past. Next, by taking into account the effects onto the ecosystem, we can choose to write our congress to enforce the strict adherence to overfishing laws, and therefore can help protect the animals that thrive in the area. Ultimately, I believe that knowledge and awareness would serve best as the first step. Basically...