ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the major renewable resources of Alaska, summarizing the pattern of exploitation and manufacture of each resource. It deals with a discussion of renewable resource management, describing how development problems of Alaska's renewable resources are inextricably bound up with the more general problem of the commons. The chapter analyses management of the state's forests and fisheries because of their role in providing an economic base for the state. It discusses the outlook for development of Alaska's renewable resources and identifies a set of policy issues that outline the future role of renewable resources in Alaska's economy. The civilizations of the aboriginal Eskimo, Aleut, and Indian peoples of Alaska revolved around seasonal events associated with harvest of the region's renewable resources. Alaska's subsistence economies are largely noncommercial systems of local production and exchange based on exploitation of renewable natural resources. The chapter shows that renewable resources have been and will continue to be an important part of Alaska's economy.
