by Seth Zuckerman As the deck of his small boat pitches in the
choppy waters off Alaska's Copper River delta, fisherman R.J.
Kopchak paws through his net to untangle a lively 40-pound king
salmon. He severs one of its gills to deliver the coup de grace,
then reels the rest of the net on board to receive the gift of
another dozen salmon ensnared in the light-green nylon mesh.
Kopchak's work places him in the sweet spot, where commercial
success meets ecological integrity. Thanks to the cachet of the
Copper River brand, this fishery brings relatively high returns
to the several hundred men and women who each season ply the
waters off Alaska's south-central coast in pursuit of king and
sockeye salmon. Their marketing success rests on a foundation of
biological health: Copper River salmon thrive because of the
sheer abundance of wild nature, from headwaters to continental
shelf. And for now, local inhabitants have figured out how to
dance in step with the forces that yield this abundance. It
wasn't always so. Unt