The Bering Sea Sub-Network is a regional initiative of community-based organizations in Western Alaska and Northeast Russia for the collection and local management of a part of regional research and monitoring data required for a pan-arctic perspective on environmental and biological changes.The overall goal of BSSN is to improve the scientific knowledge of the environmental changes in the BSSN region that have significance for understanding of pan-arctic processes, enabling scientists, arctic communities and governments to predict, plan and respond to these changes.

BSSN will address the questions of: 1) historical and present distribution and properties of economic and subsistence important species as derived from collective indigenous and traditional knowledge; 2) types of major variables and indicators that could be correlated with western science to develop predictable models based on indigenous and traditional knowledge; and 3) spatial and temporal convergence and divergence of community-derived and western science data.