Nelson alumni help lead transformative conservation and development efforts in Southeast Alaska
June 27, 2012
After years of defensive land protection and opposition to development, many environmental organizations are coming to see smart, sustainable economic growth as a benefit to both communities and ecosystems. In the small coastal town of Sitka, Alaska, the Sitka Conservation Society is one organization that has dramatically shifted its focus over the past decade.
A view of Sitka, Alaska, from above Bear Mountain.
The group's innovative work to protect the Tongass National Forest while supporting the sustainable development of communities nearby has received support from all sides. Many of the organization's recent benchmarks have come through collaboration within the Sitka community.
"It has become increasingly apparent that we, as a community, need to work together to solve problems," says Sitka Conservation Society Executive Director Andrew Thoms. "The energy we used to put into the conflict can go toward creating solutions."
Thoms, a graduate of the Nelson Institute Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development program (M.S. '05), is one of several Nelson Institute alumni among the organization's staff who have seen striking advantages in promoting proactive environmental programs.
On the rebound
Throughout the mid-20th century, Sitka's economy centered on large-scale, clear-cut logging. As the industry expanded and began to threaten forest areas surrounding the town, a group of concerned citizens formed the Sitka Conservation Society to help protect the last pristine, uncut temperate rainforest in the world.
Amid growing disdain for large-scale Tongass logging and a shift in world markets that changed the economics of the pulp industry, the Sitka pulp mill closed its doors in 1993. The closure greatly impacted Sitka's economy, but created opportunities for change. Commercial fishing was entering a period of rapid growth, soon employing about 10 percent of the Southeast Alaskan workforce.
With Sitka's transition from industrial logging to more sustainable resource use and land management, the Sitka Conservation Society began looking into projects to restore the salmon habitat that had been destroyed by clear-cut logging. As Sitka continues to change, the Conservation Society is committed to introducing activities that support the economy while achieving conservation goals.
Nelson alumnus Andrew Thoms, pictured netting
sockeye salmon in Tongass National Forest, serves
as executive director of Sitka Conservation Society.
Zia Brucaya, who holds a master's degree in urban and regional planning from UW-Madison, serves as the organization's conservation solutions coordinator and leads a number of its restoration projects. She coordinates with the U.S. Forest Service, local organizations and residents, integrating community input into management decisions.
"A big part of Zia's work is figuring out how forest habitat restoration and salmon habitat restoration can be done in a way that benefits everyone," Thoms explains.
The group's most recent restoration and sustainable development projects have produced results that would encourage even the most avid economic growth supporter.
The organization's work repairing salmon habitat in the Sitkoh River Watershed, an area heavily damaged by logging, helped show local citizens that restoration initiatives can have a positive impact on business. The project created family-supporting, blue-collar jobs with contracting firms while simultaneously increasing the amount and quality of salmon spawning habitat.
School of salmon
Nicolaas Mink coordinates salmon education and outreach programs for the Sitka Conservation Society. A 2010 graduate of UW-Madison with a Ph.D. in history and a Culture, History and Environment graduate certificate from the Nelson Institute, he works to help the Sitka community understand the crucial connections between a healthy forest and a robust salmon population.
"Anadromous fish like salmon are supported by the forest," Mink explains, referring to the salmon's migration from the sea into the Tongass Watershed, where they need well-shaded, cool streams to spawn. Five species of Pacific salmon reproduce in the Tongass National Forest. The fish serve as a keystone species -- hundreds of other species depend on them, including humans.
"If you don't have a healthy national forest, you don't have a healthy sustainable fishery," he says.
Nicolaas Mink leads a Sitka
Salmon Tour. Photo: Helen Schnoes
With Sitka having one of the world's most abundant populations of salmon, the organization works to educate visitors and residents about the importance of the fish to the region's economy, environment and culture.
"At one time, salmon were the most numerous fish in all the North Atlantic and all the North Pacific," says Mink. "Now we're down to a few remnant pockets of what those bigger, broader salmon ecosystems were. We have more spawning salmon just in Sitka Sound than the entire North Atlantic has."
In an attempt to connect consumers to the salmon industry, Mink and the Sitka Conservation Society created an outreach program called Sitka Salmon Tours, which offers locals and the 250,000 people who visit Sitka each year the opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes look at the city's sustainable wild salmon industry.
The project has brought together a variety of stakeholders and collaborators, including the National Park Service, the Sitka Sound Science Center, a dozen fishermen, and several processors and local restaurants. In its first year, Sitka Salmon Tours saw 300 participants, a number Mink is hoping to increase significantly in coming years.
"We need to do everything in our power to promote this new economy based on sustainable fisheries, recreation, pristine environments and tourism, in a more diversified manner than it was 40 years ago," Mink says.
Branching out
In addition to celebrating a world-class salmon fishery, the organization has begun looking to the timber industry to find ways to support the local economy and ensure a healthy forest habitat. Zia Brucaya insists the conservation society is not anti-timber; its members are just concerned with scale.
Thoms seconds that sentiment. "We're looking for ways to sustainably manage the resources, rather than log the Tongass in the boom-and-bust cycle as was done in the past," he says.
The Sitka Conservation Society believes Sitka can support a small-scale timber industry centered on family-owned mills. Products made in the mills will remain in the community, further enhancing the local economy.
While the initiative is still in its beginning stages, Brucaya is excited about the progress made so far. "We're building relationships with people that we never would have before," she says.
world we want to see,
rather than fighting
the world we don't."
Bringing together unlikely partners with equal interest in an issue is an area where the organization has seen success.
"I work very closely with contractors and loggers," says Brucaya. "We're both learning from each other and finding that we have the same goals... They don't want this place destroyed; they hunt here, they recreate here. We have come to an understanding to make sure we're doing things as sustainably as possible."
The organization will focus on second-growth forest managed in a way that creates timber resources while providing habitat for deer, bears and other wildlife that depend on temperate rainforest.
Since the focus in the Tongass has been on old-growth timber, it is uncertain how second growth can be used. In hopes of finding ways to use second-growth timber and introduce it to the community, the organization plans to bring it into local school shop classes. Students will be able to get hands-on woodworking experience while their families and the community can see firsthand the quality of the timber.
Sustainable communities
The Sitka Conservation Society also dedicates time to working in schools and teaching young people about the need for sustainable management of the Tongass.
Zia Brucaya, conservation solutions coordinator
for the organization, is also a UW-Madison alumna.
"It's so important to get kids learning at a young age," Brucaya says. "The schools love the programs, we're helping with their educational programming, and they love to get kids out there with professionals."
Schools aren't the only source of positive feedback. "The community has responded incredibly positively and has seen how the work that we're doing brings the community together rather than drawing lines and divisions," says Thoms.
Thoms' staff and the diverse cross-section of collaborators that have developed around the conservation society are critical to the organization's progress. Heavy recruitment from the Nelson Institute has shaped it into an organization based on interdisciplinary action.
"We recruit heavily from Wisconsin and the Nelson Institute because the students have a background in applied knowledge," Thoms explains. "It's not just about academics; they have the ability to get something done on the ground."
This younger cohort is helping change environmental discourse, a shift Brucaya believes has created an identity crisis for old-school environmental organizations. Promoting assets instead of focusing on negatives has opened a window of opportunity for the Sitka Conservation Society and other progressive organizations to work with unlikely partners, making headway that would have seemed impossible in the past.
"We're promoting the world we want to see, rather than fighting the world we don't," says Mink.
Boat to table
Community-supported agriculture is turning to the sea, bringing wild Pacific salmon to tables in the Midwest, and Nic Mink is at the helm.
In collaboration with the Sitka Conservation Society, Mink has launched Sitka Salmon Shares, an initiative that combines entrepreneurship with sustainability. The community supported fishery, or CSF, will connect consumers directly with sustainable salmon producers and salmon fishers in Southeast Alaska. It's modeled after a CSA (community supported agriculture) program, where members receive weekly shares of a local farm's produce.
Sitka Conservation Society interns prepare salmon
from Sitka's Seafood Producer's Cooperative for
delivery in the Midwest. Photo credit Peter Bailleye.
A lack of transparency in the fishing industry is part of what encouraged Mink to create Sitka Salmon Shares.
"The statistics are horrendous," Mink says, referring to a University of Washington-Tacoma study showing that more than 38 percent of salmon sold in the Puget Sound area was labeled as wild Pacific salmon when it was actually farm-raised Atlantic salmon. A separate investigation by the Boston Globe found that nearly half of tested fish samples were being sold as the wrong species.
"It's a real health issue," Mink says, since mislabeling can put consumers at risk. "It's an issue that shows our system is broken. We're in need of a new model and that's what Sitka Salmon Shares intends to provide."
Sitka Salmon Shares was launched in Madison, Minneapolis, the Chicago metropolitan area and Galesburg, Illinois, in May. The first deliveries will take place mid-July, once the fisheries open in Alaska. Mink has also connected with CSA programs in Illinois that will offer Sitka salmon as a supplementary item, and he is hoping to sell the fish at local farmers markets. He believes this is the first community-supported fishery model operated in the Midwest.
With the project well underway, those involved see it as another step in promoting the positives Sitka has to offer while growing sustainable economies that support small producers, both in Alaska and the Midwest. And Mink is being recognized for his innovative idea: The Entrepreneurial Support Network of West Central Illinois recently named him Entrepreneur of the year for starting Sitka Salmon Shares.
"It's for consumers, it's for producers, it's for the environment," explains Mink. "We'll be funneling a percentage of the proceeds back into salmon habitat restoration and enhancement while putting more money into the pockets of small-boat family fishermen who subscribe to a set of production practices."
He says the stakes are high and the time is right. "The fish economy is a billion-dollar-a-year industry in Southeast Alaska, and we'd like to continue to see that grow in a sustainable manner by offering new, more transparent avenues on which it can thrive."
Sitka Salmon Shares follows on Mink's other efforts to promote sustainable fishing in Alaska, including Sitka Salmon Tours, which takes people for a behind-the-scenes look at the city's sustainable wild salmon industry. He has also authored a new book, Salmon: A Global History, which will be published in the fall.