Matthew Berman

Estimating Net Benefits of Reallocation: Discrete Choice Models of Sport and Commercial Fishing

Increasing conflicts over allocation have heightened interest among fishery managers in reliable and comparable measures of the relative economic contribution of commercial and sport fisheries. This paper shows how discrete choice methods may be applied to develop comparable estimates of net economic benefits of a proposal to reallocate sockeye salmon from the commercial to the sport fishery in Alaskas Kenai River. The study estimates net benefits that include both market and nonmarket use values for three groups of fishers: sport anglers, commercial drift and setnet operators, and their crew members. Results for a midrange scenario for run size and price suggest that the commercial losses roughly offset sport gains. However, the particulars of this fishery are key to this result. The principal advantages of the discrete choice method are the flexibility of a micro decision model and comparable treatment of time and intangibles across different user groups. The principal disadvantages are increased data requirements and the difficulty of estimating confidence intervals.

Moving or staying for the best part of life: theory and evidence for the role of subsistence in migration and well-being of Arctic Inupiat residents

Abstract Although subsistence harvesting plays an important role in cultural identity and struggles for political autonomy among indigenous peoples of the Arctic, its role in local economies remains unclear. One view sees subsistence as the employer of last resort for people unable to find paying jobs, while another sees it as a productive activity contributing to the quality of life in rural Arctic communities. Migration provides a mechanism for determining which of these views has more empirical support, based on the theory that people consider moving to improve expected well-being. Data from the Survey of Living Conditions in the Arctic can be used to assess the extent that subsistence opportunities and wage-earning opportunities comparatively affect willingness to move from the community. The results provide insight into the value Arctic Inupiat residents place on subsistence opportunities, and the potential sensitivity of migration to changes in subsistence resource availability.

Seasonal Climate Variation and Caribou Availability: Modeling Sequential Movement Using Satellite-Relocation Data

Livelihood systems that depend on mobile resources must constantly adapt to change. For people living in permanent settlements, environmental changes that affect the distribution of a migratory species may reduce the availability of a primary food source, with the potential to destabilize the regional social-ecological system. Food security for Arctic indigenous peoples harvesting barren ground caribou (Rangifer tarandus granti) depends on movement patterns of migratory herds. Quantitative assessments of physical, ecological, and social effects on caribou distribution have proven difficult because of the significant interannual variability in seasonal caribou movement patterns. We developed and evaluated a modeling approach for simulating the distribution of a migratory herd throughout its annual cycle over a multiyear period. Beginning with spatial and temporal scales developed in previous studies of the Porcupine Caribou Herd of Canada and Alaska, we used satellite collar locations to compute and analyze season-by-season probabilities of movement of animals between habitat zones under two alternative weather conditions for each season. We then built a set of transition matrices from these movement probabilities, and simulated the sequence of movements across the landscape as a Markov process driven by externally imposed seasonal weather states. Statistical tests showed that the predicted distributions of caribou were consistent with observed distributions, and significantly correlated with subsistence harvest levels for three user communities. Our approach could be applied to other caribou herds and could be adapted for simulating the distribution of other ungulates and species with similarly large interannual variability in the use of their range.

Arctic Observing Network Social Indicators Project: overview

The Arctic Observing Network Social Indicators Project (NSF OPP0638408) is intended to contribute to the development of the Arctic Observation Network and to the science goals of SEARCH in two ways: (1) develop and make available to the science community relevant datasets and (2) identify gaps in the existing observation system and recommend appropriate actions to fill those gaps. The SEARCH Implementation Plan identified the following arenas of human activity likely to involve climate–human interactions: (1) subsistence hunting; (2) tourism; (3) resource development and marine transportation; and (4) commercial fishing. This project seeks to develop and assess datasets in these four areas. Again drawing from the SEARCH Implementation Plan priorities, the project also seeks to develop and assess datasets measuring social outcomes. This special issue of Polar Geography contains articles on each of the four arenas of human activity likely to involve climate–human interactions, an article on demographic indicators of social outcomes, an overview article, and a synthesis of recommendations for researchers and statistical agencies. The articles also introduce datasets now available to the research community.

Next steps toward an Arctic human dimensions observing system

The goal of The Arctic Observing Network Social Indicators Project (AON-SIP) was to develop a system of social observations that can answer the question, ‘Is the arctic system moving to a new state?’ Much of the project effort focused on compiling data on human activities in the arctic that might interact with climate change and social indicators of arctic well-being. This paper reviews the adequacy of the data analyzed in the project for three objectives: observing changes in well-being of arctic residents, observing arctic changes relevant to global society, and understanding ongoing social change in the arctic. The review highlights issues of comparability of data across different scales in different nations, as well as key observation gaps. Understanding change in well-being of arctic residents also requires observing additional less-climate-related drivers of change that the AON-SIP did not address, many of which also suffer from the same issues of comparability and data gaps. Two types of recommendations are offered for developing the arctic social observation system: (1) recommendations through the Arctic Council to national statistical agencies to achieve internationally comparable data, and (2) recommendations for essential new primary data collection.

Modeling Regional Dynamics of Human–Rangifer Systems: a Framework for Comparative Analysis

Theoretical models of interaction between wild and domestic reindeer (Rangifer tarandus; caribou in North America) can help explain observed social-ecological dynamics of arctic hunting and husbandry systems. Different modes of hunting and husbandry incorporate strategies to mitigate effects of differing patterns of environmental uncertainty. Simulations of simple models of harvested wild and domestic herds with density-dependent recruitment show that random environmental variation produces cycles and crashes in populations that would quickly stabilize at a steady state with nonrandom parameters. Different husbandry goals lead to radically different long-term domestic herd sizes. Wild and domestic herds are typically ecological competitors but social complements. Hypothesized differences in ecological competition and diverse human livelihoods are explored in dynamic social-ecological models in which domestic herds competitively interact with wild herds. These models generate a framework for considering issues in the evolution of Human-Rangifer Systems, such as state-subsidized herding and the use of domestic herds for transportation support in hunting systems. Issues considered include the role of geographic factors, markets for Rangifer products, state-subsidized herding, effects of changes in husbandry goals on fate of wild herds, and how environmental shocks, herd population cycles, and policy shifts might lead to system state changes. The models also suggest speculation on the role of geographic factors in the failure of reindeer husbandry to take hold in the North American Arctic. The analysis concludes with suggested empirical strategies for estimating parameters of the model for use in comparative studies across regions of the Arctic.

Statute and Implementation: How Phantom Policies Affect Tenure Value and Support:

Using survey responses from public school teachers and principals in Alaska, this article describes their understanding of tenure statute, and how that understanding affected support, perceived effectiveness, and valuation of tenure. Teachers and principals who inflated tenure protections were more likely to support it; the more teachers inflated tenure protections, the higher dollar value they placed on it. The article discusses the fiscal and policy implications of tenure inflation, noting that this garners the most criticism from education reformers, but concomitantly constitutes cost savings for taxpayers.

Measuring Community Adaptive and Transformative Capacity in the Arctic Context

Adaptive capacity (AC) plays a prominent role in reducing community vulnerability, an essential goal for achieving sustainability. The related concept, transformative capacity (TC), describes a set of tools from the resilience paradigm for making more fundamental system changes. While the literature appears to agree generally on the meaning of AC and TC, operational definitions vary widely in empirical applications. We address measurement of AC and TC in empirical studies of community vulnerability and resilience, with special attention to the problems of arctic communities. We discuss how some challenges follow from ambiguities in the broader vulnerability model within which AC is embedded. Other issues are more technical, such as a confounding of stocks (capacity) with flows (time-specific inputs or outcomes). We view AC and TC as forms of capital, as distinct from flows (i.e., ecosystem services, well-being), and propose a set of sequential steps for measuring the contribution of AC and TC assets to reducing vulnerability. We demonstrate the conceptual application in a comparative analysis of AC in two arctic Alaskan communities responding to an increase in the price of fuel. The comparative case study illustrates some key empirical challenges in measuring AC for small arctic communities.