The value of a polar bear: evaluating the role of a multiple-use resource in the Nunavut mixed economy.
The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a common pool resource that contributes to both the subsistence and monetary aspects of the Nunavut mixed economy through its use as food, the sale of hides in the fur trade, and sport hunt outfitting. Sport hunting is more financially profitable than subsistence hunting; however, the proportion of the polar bear quota devoted to the sport hunt has become relatively stable at approximately 20% across Nunavut. This ratio suggests local Inuit organizations are not using a neoclassical economic model based on profit maximization. This paper examines local-level hunting organizations and their institutions (as sets of rules) governing the sport and Inuit subsistence hunts from both formalist and substantivist economic perspectives. It concludes that profit maximization is used within the sport hunting sphere, which fits a neoclassical model of economic rationality. A second and parallel system, better viewed through the substantivist perspective, demonstrates that the communities focus on longer-term goals to maintain and reproduce the socio-economic system of the subsistence economy, which is predicated on maintaining social, human-environment, and human-polar bear relations.
Dowsley
Martha
M
D000818:Animals; D001110:Arctic Regions / Q000208:ethnology; D003132:Commerce / Q000191:economics / Q000193:education / Q000266:history / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D005523:Food Supply / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D004930:Inuit / Q000193:education / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology; D009111:Local Government / Q000266:history; D020957:Nunavut / Q000208:ethnology; D011639:Public Opinion / Q000266:history; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D001503:Ursidae