| When the name "Alaska" is mentioned, the average | | | | national government that neither understood nor cared |
| person automatically thinks about the exceptional | | | | about ecological sustainability. Ever since becoming a |
| seafood specimens harvested there and shipped all | | | | state, however, Alaska has gone above and beyond |
| across the country and the world: the salmon, the crab, | | | | the call of duty to put things right: defending not only |
| the shellfish and so on and so forth. There are simply | | | | the sustainability of the principal economic activity in the |
| so many species of Alaska seafood to be found at | | | | state (and therefore the wellbeing of thousands and |
| the average supermarket or seafood market that | | | | thousands of families) but also the posterity of the |
| even the least informed person can't help but thinking | | | | most significant indigenous and non-indigenous cultural |
| that Alaska's marine habitats must be in pretty good | | | | legacy the state has to offer its future generations. |
| shape. And indeed they are, though that is an | | | | One of the most important ways in which Alaska's |
| accomplishment that doesn't just come "naturally;" to | | | | marine habitats are defended from excessive |
| the contrary, the state of Alaska (in many cases in | | | | commercial fishing is by vesting independent marine |
| collaboration with federal authorities and/or international | | | | biologists with real authority to dictate the continuation |
| non-profit organizations) invests lots of resources and | | | | or the suspension of the fishing season for virtually |
| employs a vast army of helpers to keep its coastal | | | | every species that is commercially harvested in the |
| waters and river systems in the best shape possible, | | | | state's waters. If such scientists detect the least |
| boosting species' populations and keeping ecosystems | | | | indicator that a given species is being put in danger |
| clean and healthy. | | | | from the perspective of overall sustainability, then |
| Of course, Alaska's marine habitats weren't always | | | | without any bureaucratic obstacles to impede them |
| showered with the generous attention and dutiful | | | | they can directly prohibit further harvesting of the |
| sense of preservation that they receive today. For | | | | species for the remainder of the season. It's a |
| various decades before achieving statehood Alaska's | | | | wonderfully effective and visionary mechanism that |
| waters were abused to a horrible extent by | | | | engenders the overall ethos of the management |
| commercial fishing operations that operated more or | | | | system in place that ensures Alaska's marine habitats |
| less at discretion, having been given free reign by a | | | | are healthy and will continue to be so...indefinitely. |