How to Sustain the Environment While Eating Well

So much of America's wildest, most delicious seafood comes from Alaska, the great state of the north. This is because the Alaskan seaboard is absolutely jam-packed with rich fish and crustacean life - everything from wild Alaska salmon to King Crab to lobsters. America feasts on this stuff.

But the fact that the Alaskan seaboard remains such a vital living organism, such a lively ecosystem that is dynamic and constantly changing, has largely to do with Alaska's successful management practices, which have helped the area retain itself. This is because Alaskan fishers and politicians realized of what crucial importance the fishing industry is to the state. It would be nice to say that Alaska's successful management practices were born only out of environmental ideals, but in this monetized economy, clearly other forces had to be at work. And they were. It was an economic decision, plain and simple. If the areas surrounding the coast of Alaska were destroyed and overfished, an entire industry and an entire way of life would have been destroyed. This, in turn, would affect tourism - the other of Alaska's major industries - and the state would be in total ruin. So Alaska's successful management practices were implemented largely to maintain an important industry in the state's economy.

But the economic impetus of Alaska's successful management practices is no reason to scoff at what they have done for the state and the oceans in general. Instead of allowing Alaska to wither away due to exploitation, the state's coastal waters have one of the most bountiful ecosystems on the planet. Every time you are eating a tin of delicious canned salmon, or enjoying some crab legs dipped in butter at a fine restaurant in Seattle, remember that you are able to enjoy this delicious seafood because an area of the environment was protected. And also remember that these foods would never taste as delicious if they were created in the artificial environment of a fish farm, which is where Americans would get most of their seafood from if it were not for the brilliance of Alaska's successful management practices. So be grateful!