Thursday, December 16, 2021 6:26pm - Juneau Empire
By Sam Skaggs
Much like a bank, Southeast Alaska’s natural capital provides “dividends” year after year. Our region’s network of coastal-temperate rainforests, rich estuaries, freshwater aquatic ecosystems, and the near-shore and off-shore marine waters each provide critical ecosystem services that benefit our local communities, national economy, and even global trade. Several years ago, a few of us started to refer to Southeast Alaska as a “SeaBank” in acknowledgement that the region’s forests, marine environment and freshwater aquatic ecosystems produce tremendous economic output that benefits a wide range of shareholders, including those of us who live here. In 2017, the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust created the SeaBank Program to help quantify the total value of SeaBank’s ecosystem services, especially the services that are less visible but are essential to the economic stability and resiliency of our region.
• Sam Skaggs, recently retired, was a registered investment adviser with over 30 years’ experience managing portfolios and giving financial advice to individuals and organizations in Alaska. Now living in Sitka, Skaggs was also President of the Skaggs Foundation, a family foundation that funded conservation projects and helped build community in Alaska beginning in 1988.Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire.