Education and Advocacy

Over the past decade, the Bering Sea began to show alarming signs of stress. Local people reported some of the following observations:
· thinner pelts on marine mammals
· die-offs of seabirds, waterfowl, sea otters
· less fish
· aberrations in berry growth
· changes in weather, ice and currents
· changing frequency and intensity of storms and other weather patterns
· migration of radionuclides from Soviet and American military test sites
· long-term effects of an industrialized fishery

Susanne and Helen worked with Larry Merculieff in the 1980s, urging scientists to take an interconnected, ecosystem approach to Bering Sea research. Fifteen years later, governments and NGOs are pouring millions of dollars into efforts to understand and stem the declines of fish, birds and marine mammals in the Bering Sea.

Helen and Susanne travel internationally to conduct workshops and lectures on their work in the Bering Sea, drawing on their extensive visual materials in their presentations. In 2001, Helen was a Ford Fellow in the University of California at Berkeley Workshop on Environmental Politics [http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/EnvirPol/] where she worked on an environmental history of the Bering Sea.

For more information about Amiq Institute workshops, check our contact page.