Posted by pribilof on 06/20/2007 7:35 pm

One of the documents you are able to read as you log on to our Bering Sea 2007 site is a paper about Marine Cultural Heritage Zones. (MCHZ) I would like to make a few comments about this concept, one which I am sure is not new to many of you.

We Alaska Natives still take much pride in our heritage, our ancestory and our cultures. This surely is not new or unique to our people. What might be in many ways, is that we still practise cultural activities handed down to us by our ancestors. Although both the US and State governments have spent millions of dollars and initiated programs to "americanize" our people, we fight to maintain our identity and heritage. What is becoming more and more difficult however, is working to pass these centuries learned practises to our children. Western influences of entertainment and values are fast encroaching on our villages and into our lives on a daily basis. With the information age, such as it is, one may think that surly in the US all Americans are "modernized" and/or considered "civilized" in the worst defination of that term. In many of our smaller and isolated villages, and the larger ones in many cases, our people relish our traditional ways of living as given to us by our ancestors. Certainly there has been technology transfer opportunities and adoptions by many of our people. To do certain activities easier simply makes sense considering life and safety issues. But fundamentally, the activity remains the same. We are a traditional foods people. We live off the bounty which nature provides. The foods we eat have been eaten by our people for generations and are still our favorite foods. For sure, the foods we eat are more healthier than what western culture constantly pounds into our minds and palets daily as we watch television and visit our grocery stores. Sadly many of our people are contracting such illnesses as diabetes and cancer at a rate comparable to many thired world countries.

As the competition for healthy protien foods, such as the fish and other marine fauna provides, reach levels such that we are catching them in quantities measured by metric tons continues, these large industrialized factory trawlers, themselves mobile, begin to encroach upon our traditional harvesting grounds near and close to our homes, we begin to suffer. Our villages, established at sites where we are able to have easy access to them and, of all reasons, settled in recent years because our people "had to" by law get our children into schools, our villages are no longer mobile. The factory ships are. And they are taking advantage of that. Moving into areas where they claim the fish they are targeting are, without much consideration for our needs. Added to this dilemma is the fact that much of what they are targeting, the fish, are food for our traditional foods. So what is a man to do when his family is dependent upon foods we eat and have for generations? If in time of need, and he cannot feed his family, what is he to do? Not only do we need protections, our foods do as well. Thus the heritage zones.

 We are, for the most part, hunters and gatherers. We harvest our heritage daily. By that I mean, we harvest what foods we are dependent upon almost daily throughout the year. You have heard, for every thing there is a season. We live all seasons.

So a major part of our tour this summer is to promote the establishment of these heritage zones. Some of the zones may be close to home, others may be off into the distance. And as we visit the villages we are going to, and as we learn what is happening to the people and their foods, we hope many will see the wisdom in the need to protect our foods, obviously, and further to protect the foods upon which our foods depend. They too, our foods, have areas in the ocean from which they get their foods. That needs protection. As the sourthern Bering Sea, say from about St. Matthew Island south continues to get hammered by commercialized, big business fishers and companies, our grocery stores shrink and our villages begin to disappear. Add to this dilemma climate change and all that is bringing to our homes, heritage zones are at least an answere to a growing problem. Not only here in Alaska, but I am sure, all over in our oceans on this planet we call Earth!

 

Until next time,

 

George