Danielle S. Pensely has posted her paper, Existence, Persistence, Resistance: Preserving Subsistence in the Copper River Delta of Southcentral Alaska, forthcoming from the Environmental Law Reporter, on SSRN.

Here is the abstract:

Ordinary existence in Cordova, Alaska illustrates an extraordinary range of subsistence practice, that is, the persistent wresting of food calories and spiritual orientation from the immediate natural environment through the harvest of renewable resources. Despite cataclysmic disruptions to include the arrival of whites, the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, and anthropogenic climate change, the practice continues to animate a self-reliant and pluralistic society with a distinct local identity. The range of threats to the long-term health of the Copper River Basin is, however, intensifying – from the augmentation of wild Pacific salmon runs with hatchery fish to leaks and spills from the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and from residential development to the construction of access to rich coal and oil fields for exploration and development.

This article intertwines twenty-seven narrative interviews with landscape theory to argue that the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (“NHPA”), as amended, 16 U.S.C. §§ 470-470×6, is up to the crucial task of protecting subsistence in Cordova. Indeed, NHPA directs the federal government “to foster conditions under which our modern society and our prehistoric and historic resources can exist in productive harmony and fulfill the social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations.” Thus compelled, this article argues that living things are eligible for listing on the National Register: adverse effects to the wild salmon should trigger the consultative reconsideration of NHPA Section 106, as would be the case under the implementing regulations with any other object of functional, aesthetic, cultural, or scientific value. Alternatively a landscape, even a very large landscape like the Copper River Basin, is analogous to an urban or rural architectural district and on that basis should be listing eligible.

When historic preservation practice ostensibly prevents the development of a place to fullest potential, it is in fact insulating a place within which is freedom from official interference or infrastructure. The subsistence practitioners of Cordova consequently have the choice (now and in the future) to pursue and transmit – or to forget and abandon – their cultural values, in other words, their civic virtue. This concept of food sovereignty parallels accepted republican principles, thereby illuminating the relevance of subsistence and the Section 106 process as a counterweight to the compulsory consumption that typifies current political discourse.