Alaska Native leaders are calling for major reforms, including a fundamental change to the landmark Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
On the final day of the Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Anchorage last week, large screens projected the text of a resolution on subsistence that took months to finalize. The broad resolution calls for Alaska’s congressional delegation, governor and legislators to advocate for an Alaska Native approach toward subsistence.
“We're talking about our hunting and fishing rights. We don't have any. True statement,” said Harold Napoleon. Napoleon is from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta community of Paimiut. He's in 70s and says he’s going blind, which is why he sat close to the stage.
“ANCSA is a termination act. It terminated some important things about Native people,” Napoleon said.
The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, known informally as ANCSA, was signed into law in the early 1970s by Richard Nixon. It’s the largest land claim in United States history. At the time, ANCSA transferred nearly $1 billion dollars and 45 million acres of land to Alaska's Indigenous peoples and led to the establishment of village and regional Alaska Native Corporations.
But Alaska Federation of Natives members said there's a fundamental flaw with the document: Section 4-b, a provision that extinguished aboriginal hunting and fishing rights.
“[The resolution] is going to make a difference for Alaska Natives. And we're going to get our aboriginal hunting and fishing rights back,” AFN committee chair Gayla Hoseth said.
AFN members approved the resolution after a 40 minute discussion, with back-and-forth amendments from delegates.
In addition to demanding reestablishment of the aboriginal hunting and fishing rights extinguished by ANCSA, the resolution also called for numerous changes to subsistence policy.
It includes a push for tribal management or co-management of Alaska Native corporation lands, and it calls for modifying the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The resolution also calls for a unified definition of “Alaska Native,” removing the federally -defined one-quarter Native blood, or blood quantum, determination.
Ben Mallott is the newly appointed president of the AFN. During an educational forum before AFN began, he spoke on the history and legal framework of subsistence management.
“This is a super, super complex system,” he said. “The smallest change, [can] make the biggest impact for our communities.”
Mallott emphasized a “proactive rather than reactive” response, urging Alaska Native groups to come together as one to protect and advance subsistence rights.
In Alaska, hunting and fishing are managed by both the state and federal government. And there are a few major differences between the two systems. On federal lands and waters, because of a provision in the Alaska National Interests Lands Conservation Act, rural residents regardless of race have a subsistence priority. The AFN resolution calls to extend that priority to Alaska Native people who live on the road system.
The federal government has a special trust relationship with Alaska Native tribes, to uphold treaty rights, lands and resources, legally ensuring that tribes have more input in subsistence management.
But the state of Alaska has no such relationship. Because of a clause in the state constitution, Article 8 Section 15, 18, and numerous court cases, every Alaska resident has equal access to resources on state land and navigable waters regardless of where they live. And that can cause conflict as rural residents compete for their traditional and customary foods.
Hoseth said the resolution specifically calls on the state to fully incorporate and prioritize Alaska Native subsistence rights and uses.
“Our subsistence rights are not being a priority in the state of Alaska,” said Hoseth “We're going to hold the state accountable to our subsistence priority.”
Karen Linnell is the executive director for the Ahtna Intertribal Resource Commission.
“The state talks about federal overreach, but there’s state overreach,” she said. “They are managing 20 million acres that they do not own. They talk about that a lot, and it's like, you don't own it.”
AFN members also approved a subsistence resolution calling for greater transparency and tribal input in international agreements involving Canada regarding management of salmon on the Yukon River.
