Little fish in big ponds: fisheries and community development in Alaska and Greenland
Development of remote regions in the circumpolar north has been the subject of much academic, political, and community discourse. This thesis examines the effects that two different fisheries management regimes, the Western Alaska CDQ program and Greenland's Inshore Shrimp Fishery, have on community development. It briefly describes the natural environments, the resident peoples and their histories, and present socio-economic conditions of the regions that participate in the two programs. It then reviews relevant development literature, and, based on that review, selects criteria for evaluation and comparison. This thesis analyzes the two regimes, and supporting programs, on issues of control, adequacy of resource base, amount and availability of capital, employment created, social organization of work production, reliance on existing skills and fostering of new ones, and long-term political viability. It concludes that market-based resource regimes hold dangers for indigenous residents of remote regions. However, establishing community rights to resources, rather than individual ownership, appears to mitigate some of the dangers. Moreover, as seen in the CDQ program, community-rights frameworks can exist within larger individualoriented, market-based regimes.
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