This award will fund Alaska Native and Bering Sea community members to participate in the workshop, Pribilof Islands Collaborative: Promoting a Strong Economy and a Healthy Ecosystem, to discuss the social, scientific, and ecosystem issues affecting their communities. This meeting will give the three major stakeholders in the Bering Sea Region, communities, NGOs, and commercial fishing companies the opportunity to communicate with scientific researchers, as well as each other, concerning the major social, scientific, and ecosystem issues in their regions.
This meeting has great value to the Arctic Social Sciences Program (ASSP) as the program develops its draft research plan as a component of the larger Bering Sea Ecosystem Study (BEST). As stated in the "Principals for the Conduct of Research in the Arctic," prepared by the Interagency Social Science Task Force in response to a recommendation by the Polar Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences and at the direction of the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee, "researchers should consult with and, where applicable, include communities in project planning and implementation. Reasonable opportunities should be provided for the communities to express interests and to participate in the research." The ASSP program director will be attending the workshop accompanied by Dr. Ben Fitzhugh, University of Washington, to consult with community members prior to the drafting of the research plan concerning their interests in social science research in the Bering Sea.
