Community-Based Documentation of Ice Seals and Walrus in the Bering Strait Region

白令海的冰海豹和海象种群，以及利用它们为生的使用者，目前面临着许多挑战。其中包括海冰的减少和发展的扩大、渔业活动和白令海北部的海运。人们越来越担心这些物种的未来，但现有的科学并不能最终预测这些因素将如何影响冰海豹和海象或依赖它们的群落。当地对这些物种的生态和生物地理知识，以及当地的利用模式，可以帮助社区和决策者了解这些环境和人为变化的当前和未来影响。这是一个基于社区的研究项目，由阿拉斯加土著地区非营利公司Kawerak Inc.开展。作为该项目的一部分，Kawerak研究人员将与当地社区成员合作，实施民族志和GIS空间测绘方法，以增加我们对白令海峡地区Iñupiat，中央尤皮克和圣劳伦斯岛尤皮克与两种重要生存资源，冰海豹和海象的关系的了解，这些资源的栖息地正在受到环境变化的影响。通过绘制关于冰海豹和海象栖息地、生态和生存利用区域的时空知识，记录狩猎冰海豹和海象的文化重要性，以及狩猎生存冰海豹和海象所面临的挑战（从猎人的角度来看），该项目将有助于加深对北极社会环境动态复杂性的理解。该项目将为当地对这些问题的分析和解决方案发出声音，进而为野生动物管理者和政策制定者提供信息。此外，该项目将为国际保护组织Oceana正在开发的北极重要生态区地图集（IEAs）做出贡献，这将反过来成为该地区社区的工具。

The ice seal and walrus populations of the Bering Sea, as well as the subsistence users who utilize them, currently face many challenges. These include loss of sea ice and the expansion of development, fisheries activities, and marine shipping in the northern Bering Sea. Concern over the future of these species is growing, but existing science cannot conclusively predict how these factors will affect ice seals and walrus or the communities that depend on them. Local knowledge of the ecology and biogeography of these species, in addition to local use patterns, may help communities and policy makers understand current and future impacts of these environmental and anthropogenic changes. This is a community based research project through Kawerak Inc., the Alaska Native regional non-profit corporation. As part of this project, Kawerak researchers will be working with local community members to implement ethnographic and GIS spatial mapping methods in order to increase our understanding of Bering Strait region Iñupiat, Central Yup'ik, and St. Lawrence Island Yupik relationships with two important subsistence resources, ice seals and walrus whose habitat is being affected by environmental change. Through mapping spatial and temporal knowledge of ice seal and walrus habitat and ecology and subsistence use area, documenting the cultural importance of hunting ice seals and walrus, as well as the challenges to subsistence ice seal and walrus hunting (as seen by hunters), the project will contribute to an increased understanding of the complexity of social-environmental dynamics in the Arctic. The project will give a voice to local analyses and solutions of these problems which will in turn inform wildlife managers and policy makers. In addition, the project will contribute to an Arctic Atlas of Important Ecological Areas (IEAs) being developed by the international conservation group Oceana, which will in turn be a tool for the region's communities.