Alaska Village Initiatives 2003: providing a fire protection system and safeguarding and restoring Alaska's wildlife resources are the goals of this nonprofit organization.

• Author: Harris, Tom
• Position: Alaska Native Business News

What's more challenging? Creating an effective low-cost fire protection system for remote Alaska communities that leads the nation in fire loss and deaths; or creating a statewide cooperative of guides, recreational hunters, environmentalists and Alaska Natives tasked to restore Alaska's wildlife resource for the subsistence community, the recreational hunters and environmental community. Why not do both?

Thanks to the leadership of Sen. Ted Stevens in Washington, D.C., and the resolute support of state leaders such as Sen. Scott Ogan, Reps. Bill Williams and Beverly Masek, an effective low-cost fire protection system now exists. Thanks to the leadership and philosophically aligned goals of extremely diverse interests such as the Safari Club International, the Alaska Native community, The Nature Conservancy, Alaska Wildlife Recreation and Tourism Association, and the Alaska Professional Hunters Association, a statewide cooperative now exists with the goal of restoring Alaska's wildlife resources. Alaska Village Initiatives finds itself in a central role in both of these two important efforts.

AVI is one of Alaska's unique nonprofits and the state's oldest community development corporation. Created in 1968 by President Johnson's "War on Poverty," AVI's mission is to promote the economic well being of rural Alaska. Until 1992, the company was best known as the second owner of Alaska Commercial Company, rural Alaska's largest employer. As part of the 1992 sale of Alaska Commercial Company, AVI faced enormous environmental cleanup costs associated with the oldest statewide network of stores. By 1998, with only a portion of the task completed at a cost of nearly $4 million, AVI's survival was in question.

By 2001, AVI dramatically reduced operational costs to fund the cleanup and focused on the two critical rural needs: fire protection and restoration of wildlife resources. By 2002, with more than 90 percent of the cleanup task completed, AVI's board of directors and associates produced the first positive operational cash flow in 10 years. In addition, AVI created and implemented two important endeavors: Project Code Red and Village Wildlife Conservation Cooperative.

Project Code Red produced Alaska's first comprehensive statewide solution to cost-effective and efficient fire protection to remote communities. This micro-fire department (a.k.a. Fire Department in a Box) provides participating communities a complete insulated, functioning...