Harvesting wild berries, firewood, and other non-timber forest products (NTFPs) from the boreal forest in Interior Alaska is a common activity amongst local residents. NTFPs are harvested for personal use, subsistence, and commercial purposes. While these activities contribute to informal household economies and livelihoods, harvest of NTFPs are not well documented in Alaska. Availability of these ecosystem services may be altered under changing management and climate regimes. This interdisciplinary dissertation takes a look at the activities and impacts of current NTFP harvesting practices. Survey results from a forest use survey provide insight into harvest activity in the Tanana Valley. Wild blueberries (38.5% of households with mean harvested amount of 7.7 quarts) and firewood (25.0% of households with a mean harvest amount of 4.7 cords) were reported harvested with greatest frequency, and harvesting activities were mostly concentrated around larger population centers. Interviews were conducted with personal use and subsistence NTFP harvesters from Interior Alaska. Participants enjoy harvesting from the forest, and that the importance of harvesting is a combination of both the intangible benefits from the activity and the tangible harvested items. Harvested NTFPs were seen as high-quality products that were otherwise unavailable or inaccessible. Birch syrup is a commercially available NTFP produced in Alaska by a small number of companies. Similar to maple syrup, producing birch syrup is a labor intensive process with marginal profits. Interviews were conducted with workers in the Alaskan birch syrup industry, who reported that they were seeking an alternative to the traditional employment. The effects from mechanical damage from tapping for spring sap on birch's vigor are of concern to birch syrup producers and natural resource managers. This study compared the annual increment growth of Alaskan birch trees, Betula neoalaskana, between tapped and untapped trees. No significant difference was detected from tapping, but annual variability in growth was strongly significant. A temperature index accounted for nearly two-thirds of the annual variability. Pairing this index with two climate scenarios, birch growth was extended out through the 21st century. As temperatures rise, birch in Interior Alaska are projected to face a critical threshold, which may limit or extinguish their ability to sustain growth and yield a sustainable sap resource. Integrating the survey, interview, and dendroclimatological data provides a richer picture of how NTFP harvesters actively use the forest and about the benefits derived. These findings can assist resource managers in balancing these needs with those of other forest uses on public land.

Wilderness preservation has been an important focus of resource conservation since the dwindling number of wild places was perceived by some as losing a valued part of our collective natural and cultural heritage. While wilderness preservation efforts have been almost entirely focused on the land, recently there has been growing interest in "ocean wilderness." However, implementation has been constrained by the lack of a common vision of how "wilderness" is applied to the ocean, and how such areas should be managed and preserved. The purpose of this work was to identify and evaluate potential definitions of ocean wilderness and the values and qualities such areas possess, and to determine how they might be effectively identified and managed to preserve their wilderness character. This research focused on articulating a robust definition for "wilderness waters," within the context of how wilderness is currently conceived and articulated in law and policy, as well as evaluating how such areas might be most appropriately identified and managed. Extensive inventories were conducted of existing ocean wilderness areas, focused on North America, to determine what currently exists, how these areas are managed, and how future ocean wilderness designations should be prioritized. A survey was conducted, targeting resource managers and scientists, to identify preferences and perceptions of ocean wilderness and its potential stewardship. The survey results suggested that coastal waters possessed considerable values and qualities of wilderness, particularly areas adjacent to existing designated wilderness, that certain human uses might be appropriately permitted, and that there was much support for expanding the area of coastal waters designated as wilderness. The research also suggested that the North American Arctic might offer many opportunities for preserving ocean wilderness, in close collaboration with the Indigenous communities in this region. A number of recommendations were offered including that priority should be given to evaluating and designating areas adjacent to designated coastal wilderness areas, that the existing legal and policy framework in North America can be effectively used to expand the "wilderness waters" system, and that more work needs to be done to build the constituencies of support essential to accomplish this task.

This paper explores the expansion of the state into formerly ungoverned aspects of life through an examination of one particular episode of intervention, that of moose hunting regulation in the Central Kuskokwim region of Alaska. As in most struggles over wild resources in the state, subsistence is a central organizing template. Local hunters residing in the villages of Aniak and Crooked Creek, interviewed for this work, identify themselves under the label of subsistence in opposition to others, often called "sport hunters". The felt presence of the state in this and other rural areas of Alaska has increased throughout the 20th century and the prevalence of the word subsistence in these disputes is tied to its status as a legal term, dictating how individuals must identify their practices and thus themselves, at the expense of other identifications. The persistence of subsistence indicates governmentality in discourse but not in meaning.

Expression of traits that lead to life history diversity in salmonids may provide population-level resilience and stability in dynamic environments. I examined habitat use and variability in life history trait expression in juvenile coho salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch occupying two contrasting estuary environments in south-central Alaska. My goal was two-fold: first, to determine if salmon were using estuaries as rearing environments and were therefore potentially vulnerable to selection pressures within; and second, to compare traits of salmon that reared in contrasting estuary environments to explore the potential for differential trait expression related to estuary size and habitat complexity differences. Juvenile coho salmon reared in estuaries for extended periods of time and patterns of use corresponded to environmental conditions within the estuaries. Populations using adjacent but contrasting estuary environments exhibited differential trait expression and were genetically distinct. My work highlights how pristine, functioning estuary habitats contribute to resilience of salmon populations to environmental changes in two ways: first, by providing habitats for individuals to increase in size and condition prior to ocean entry; and second, by providing for alternative life history tactics (providing quality habitat to delay marine entry times and increase body size). Management approaches for resilient salmon runs must therefore maintain both watershed and estuary function.