The Conservation Value of Place-Based Subsistence Mapping in Northwest Alaska

In the Northwest Arctic of Alaska, engagement and motivation around wildlife conservation and natural resource use is growing alongside the need to protect healthy population dynamics for key subsistence species. Over the millennia that Native communities have occupied this landscape, they have accumulated acutely accurate place-based natural history knowledge that complements the information collected by, and available to, natural resource managers and land use planners. The Northwest Arctic Borough Subsistence Mapping Project is a prime example of how geographic information systems can bridge Indigenous knowledge and western science in constructing models for species’ distributions, migration patterns, and other ecosystem dynamics both spatially and temporally for use in conservation and land use planning.