ABSTRACT
The remote communities of the circumpolar north face challenges in finding forms of sustainability that are possible within local and regional diversified economies. By emphasising the importance of indigenous knowledge attempts are made to establish small-scale locally-based economies as a way of escaping cycles of boom and bust, to overcome constraints to self-determination and seize opportunities for local empowerment. Both this and the following chapter provide examples from Greenland and Alaska that contribute to discussion about the enhancement of political, economic and cultural sustainability in the circumpolar north through expansion of informal economic activities. This chapter examines aspects of the aboriginal subsistence whaling issue as an example of co-management and how the development of renewable resources is seen as a way of constituting a sustainable economic base, while Chapter 6 focuses on the involvement of indigenous peoples in tourism.
