Alaska’s biggest environmental science conference kicks off Monday with panel discussions about climate warming, contaminants in wild foods, polar bears, the threat of coastal erosion and the plight of beluga whales in Cook Inlet.

More than 160 scientists, activists, tribal officials and managers will present information during 80 sessions at the Egan Convention Center between Feb. 12 and Feb. 16 at the Alaska Forum for the Environment.

polarbear.jpg
Capt. Budd Christman, NOAA’s Ark Collection.
Biologist Steve Amstrup with sedated polar bear
on the Beaufort Sea in spring 1982.

Scientist Robert Corell — the chair of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment — will join Alaska Native elder Elaine Abraham,
Joel Scheraga of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a religious leader to discuss climate change at 10:30 a.m. session.

It’s an overview aimed at regular people, said Jackie Poston, the moderator and one of the forum’s organizers.


“It should appeal to everyone and resonate with some piece of everyone’s sout and, hopefully, speak to their connection to the planet,” Poston said.

Other highlights from the opening day include a noon keynote talk by N. Scott Momaday, the Native American scholar and poet who wrote the classic Pultizer Prize winning novel House Made of Dawn. The U.S. Air Force Band and Medicine Sky will open the forum with a concert.

belugamom2.jpg
A beluga mother whale and her gray calf in Cook Inlet.
Janice Waite, NOAA’s Ark Collection.

Other sessions will give the latest developments on the process to list polar bears as threatened due to climate change, the effort to save coastal villages from erosion, the status of beluga whales in Cook Inlet, the safety of Native subsistence food, environmental contaminants and what businesses can do to reduce production of greenhouse gases.