Dip Nets, Fish Wheels, and Motor Homes: The Atna', Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and the Political Ecology of the Copper River Fishery, Alaska

Political ecology is a holistic mode of inquiry that applies political analysis to issues of resource use, specifically by actors and organizations interacting in defined social and cultural contexts. This book uses a political ecology perspective to reveal how the Atna', an Athabaskan people of south-central Alaska who have no treaty rights to resources, use their knowledge of the environment to articulate a specific claim to Copper River salmon. Included here is a discussion of political ecology as it is used in three case studies of Atna' public activism, as well as in three other case studies from fisheries in North America. The outcome of the book investigates whether there is room for a co-management regime to give the Atna', as well as other user groups, an equal voice in decisions regarding resource management of the Copper River fishery.