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About the Book

Few books published to date comprehensively analyzes how at statehood Alaska served as a leader in creating and enforcing environmental policy and how these early policies, together with the emerging activism of Alaska Native communities, played a part in the birth of the nationwide environmental movement. The book also addresses how the powerful extraction industry subsequently shaped the management of water and subsistence resources (as championed in particular by the Trump administration conservative and state politicians). After a campaign led by industrial interests and the republican party to discredit the environmental movement, today Democratic and tribal leaders and everyday citizen are working to limit the impacts of extraction interests. At the same time Alaska Tribes are boosting the role of traditional knowledge, rights of the river, and tribal self-determination movements in protecting water and subsistence resources.

About the Author

Shepherd has 30 years of experience as an attorney and policy analyst working with tribal and conservation entities on water, subsistence and natural resource issues. As the Principal for Water Policy Consulting, LLC located in Homer, Alaska, he currently provides policy consultation services to conservation organizations and Alaska Native Villages related to water, human rights, sovereignty, climate change and environmental justice issues. Shepherd is also a writer focusing on natural resources and environmental policy. Author of Compromising Democracy, The Rise and Fall of the Second Conquest of Western Rangelands, (iUniverse, 2007).