Collaborative Research: Sustainability of critical areas for eiders and subsistence hunters in an industrializing nearshore zone

在整个北极地区，土著人民面临着艰难的选择，是工业化带来的现金利益，还是生存狩猎的潜在退化。维持生计的狩猎通常提供很大一部分食物，从长远来看，可能比以不可再生资源为基础的现金经济更可靠。对于某些物种来说，维持生计的狩猎也可能具有远远超过其饮食贡献的文化意义。在楚科奇海岸，连接海上油井和陆上终端的管道必须穿过一条近岸走廊，大多数迁徙到北美北极西部的海洋鸟类和哺乳动物都使用这条走廊。这些动物被当地人猎捕以维持生计。在春天，这些动物穿过陆地冰和移动的浮冰之间形成的开放水域。如果石油管道在这个浅层区域被春季冰冲刷破裂，石油在迁移过程中可能无法从破碎的冰中从开放的水域中移走。这样的事件不仅会限制可生存栖息地的范围，还会消除当地的狩猎区。因此，在管道放置中应该避免通常可以进入的关键栖息地。在这项研究中，我们将对楚科奇近岸地区一种曾经被猎杀但现在受到威胁的物种（眼镜绒绒，SPEI）和一种经常被猎杀的物种（国王绒绒，KIEI）的栖息地需求进行建模，并绘制可行的猎物密度图，并确定这些物种的长期变异性。通过冰层进入这些区域。我们将利用传统的生态知识来完善这些地图，了解通常发生KIEI狩猎的条件和区域。然后，我们将估计在迁徙过程中，由于沿着四条替代路线建造的管道泄漏的石油，可以通过冰面进入并有利于狩猎的不同绒鸭觅食区域被消除的可能性。我们将利用这些信息为我们将在土著社区举行的结构化决策研讨会提供信息。这些研讨会将有助于建立一个当地可持续发展的愿景，考虑到不同管道路线对鸭绒的生存和文化价值的潜在风险，以及当地建筑项目的现金收益。当地村民将参与创建和塑造数据集，并将成为结构化决策讲习班的主要参与者。我们将把我们的工作与美国鱼类和野生动物管理局在这些村庄开展的外展和教育项目结合起来。我们的项目将为未来濒危物种和候鸟管理办公室的评估和决策提供重要信息。随着油田开发的进行，我们的现代科学和传统生态数据以及促进社区建立共识将加快BOEM和其他机构随后进行的影响评估。在半球范围内，我们开发的方法将作为一种原型，适用于整个北极地区正在发生的许多此类情况。

Throughout the Arctic, indigenous people are faced with difficult choices between the cash benefits of industrialization versus potential degradation of subsistence hunting. Subsistence hunting often provides a large fraction of foods, and may be more reliable in the long term than a cash economy based on nonrenewable resources. Subsistence hunting for certain species may also have cultural significance that far exceeds their dietary contribution. On the Chukchi Sea coast, pipelines connecting offshore oil wells to onshore terminals must be built across a nearshore corridor used by most marine birds and mammals that migrate to the western North American Arctic. These animals are hunted for subsistence by local Natives. During spring, these animals travel through a zone of open water that forms between landfast ice and moving pack ice. If an oil pipeline were ruptured by spring ice scour in this shallow zone, oil could probably not be removed from open water within broken ice during migration. Such an event could not only restrict the extent of viable habitat, but also eliminate local hunting areas. Thus, key habitats that are usually accessible to hunting should be avoided in pipeline placement. In this research, we will model habitat requirements and map viable prey densities for a formerly hunted but now threatened species (Spectacled Eider, SPEI) and a commonly hunted species (King Eider, KIEI) in the Chukchi nearshore zone, and determine long-term variability in the eiders? access to those areas through the ice. We will refine these maps with traditional ecological knowledge on conditions and areas where hunting for KIEI typically occurs. We will then estimate probabilities that different eider feeding areas that are accessible through the ice and conducive to hunting would be eliminated during migration by oil spills from pipelines built along four alternative routes. We will use this information to inform structured decision-making workshops we will hold in the Native community. These workshops will help create a local vision for sustainability, in terms of potential risks of different pipeline routes to subsistence and cultural values of eiders, relative to cash benefits of local construction projects.Local villagers will be involved in creating and shaping the data set, and will be the main participants in structured decision-making workshops. We will integrate our work with outreach and education programs conducted in these villages by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Our project will yield important information for future evaluations and decision-making by Endangered Species and Migratory Bird Management Offices. Our modern scientific and traditional ecological data, and facilitation of community consensus-building, will expedite later impact assessments by BOEM and other agencies as oilfield development proceeds. On a hemispheric scale, the approach we develop will serve as a prototype applicable to the many such situations developing across the Arctic.