Project recognized for researcher-community partnerships

September 21, 2011

Marmian Grimes

A cooperative study led by researchers at the School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences will be among 17 honored by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

The Subsistence Sharing Network Project will receive the Secretary’s Partners in Conservation Award, which is granted to organizations that demonstrate exemplary collaboration and unique investigations.

Begun on the North Slope in 2008, the project was headed by UAF associate professor Gary Kofinas and postdoctoral researcher Shauna BurnSilver. Dee Williams of the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement built the project on work initiated by Jim Magadanz of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

“The project sought to realize a good approach for working with communities and in that effort, shift the paradigm of how researchers and communities work together in arctic social science,” Kofinas said. “The success of the project is explained, in part, by the extra effort made cooperating and building relationships with local residents, who helped design and shape the project.”

Go to the UAF Newsroom website for the full story.