Bering Sea

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Marine Cultural Heritage Zones

Marine Cultural Heritage Zones are areas in our oceans where communities

harvest their foods, including seals, sea lions, fish, and birds. These zones are

often in the waters surrounding native villages, but can also include foraging

areas, nurseries, and spawning grounds farther off shore that are important to

the species upon which natives depend.

The ocean has been the primary source of foods for coastal native communities

for thousands of years. Yet today, many Alaska natives must travel more than

100 miles in search of food that was once plentiful right off the beach.

Ensuring that native communities maintain access to traditional foods

requires protection of food webs and habitats. For many of Alaska’s native

communities, protecting the marine ecosystem is a matter of cultural survival.

The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act enabled villages to select lands that

provided for subsistence needs. Marine Cultural Heritage Zones can similarly

preserve access to native foods for communities dependent on the ocean.

The resources of the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska have been given out to

multinational fishing companies with little concern for the needs of native

people. Intense industrial fishing has destroyed much of the habitat that

native foods depend upon for survival. So much fish has been trawled away

that sea lions and fur seals are going hungry, and their numbers are shrinking.

Together with local communities, Greenpeace will map and identify Marine

Cultural Heritage Zones and work with State and Federal Agencies until they

are recognized and protected.

Contact

Fact Sheet

George Pletnikoff

Phone907) 277–8234 Cell907) 306-4155

george.pletnikoff@wdc.greenpeace.org

125 Christensen Drive, Suite 200

Anchorage, AK 99503

—September 26, 2008

© Greenpeace—Robert Visser