Alaska is unique compared to the continental United States in many ways. Its unique and slightly remote location means that, while receiving federal funds for some projects, it must be self-sufficient in many ways. While the industrial revolution might have brought urbanization and factories to many towns and cities all over America, Alaska's backyard has always been unspoiled nature, and its major industries have a lot more to do with the wild and free salmon making their yearly rounds and the untamable snows than with crowded cities and desk jobs.

Indeed, Alaska's fishing industry was a huge source of income for locals even before statehood, and Alaska is the only state in the country that mentions its main industry by name in the state constitution, even going as far as to say that it is crucial to stick to what is known as the sustained yield principle. One could actually say that Alaska's successful management practices of fish stocks isn't just an unwritten law of the fishermen, but rather, an actual law developed by the state.

While for many other people, the concept of sustainability is relatively new and related to current events, those Alaska fishermen who provided boatloads and boatloads of fish each season realized how important it was to not over-fish, so that there would still be fish around for the next season. So while every single other country in the world reports record lows in fish, especially in cod and salmon populations, Alaska continues to flourish thanks to the foresight of a few and their management methods.

Alaska's successful management practices are more complicated than simply trying to leave enough fish to repopulate during the off-season. Rather, the fisheries of Alaska also focus on allowing the salmon to return home during breeding season instead of opting to over-fish. Considering that in the 1960s, Alaska was in the middle of a miniature salmon crisis, with a record low number of fish due to environmental reasons, this is even more important that the population is today, so healthy. Alaska truly nurtured its fish population back to health through its sustainability practices, and is reaping the rewards today.

The rest of the fishing world can look towards Alaska's successful management practices of both the fisheries and the fishing season laws, and figure out how to apply similar rules and regulations to their own fishing. This rich tradition of conservation, after all, may be the key for the contemporary world to avoid catastrophic depletion of fish schools around the world.