Alaska's economy in transition.

• Author: Portman, Carl

In less than 10 years, North Slope oil production will be half what it is today. Timber harvesting in the Tongass National Forest will see further reductions, and additional land throughout the state will be withdrawn into designated wilderness areas and other classifications that prohibit development of natural resources.

Meanwhile, emerging federal policy will make it all the more difficult to develop resources on public lands, a block which comprises 60 percent of Alaska's land mass. Emerging wetland regulations, if unchanged, could make it next to impossible to develop resources and expand communities on the remaining lands -- state, Native and private.

The tides of change are sweeping America, and Alaska is no exception. Alaska's economy and its resource industries are in transition. Although resource development has been the basis for Alaska's growth, prosperity and social order throughout the 20th century, the changing tide threatens to sweep over the state with a profound effect.

If not resource development, what mix will realistically sustain Alaska's economy, its communities and its citizens? What lies beyond resource development? How will the transitions in Alaska's resource industries and its communities impact those who live and work here?

In a world of resource conflicts, the Resource Development Council (RDC) will highlight these and other issues when its 14th annual conference, "Alaska's Economy in Transition: Exploring Common Ground," opens Thursday, Nov. 18, at the Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage. From the regulated to the regulator, the resource producer to the preservationist, and the consumer to the retailer, the two-day program will embrace different perspectives in a spirit of positive, forward thinking to find common ground to the challenges ahead.

Featuring nearly 40 speakers from across Alaska and the Lower 48, the conference is RDC's largest. The program includes a number of workshops and balanced panel presentations covering various perspectives on a wide range of subjects, including the retail boom in urban Alaska, the Mental Health Lands Trust dilemma, and environmental imperatives in relation to ANCSA lands. Access to federal lands, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Tongass reform, federal wilderness areas and tourism issues will be addressed in the context of Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act by a panel of state, federal and industry officials.

In addition, a special panel of national and...