Alaska Native Government and Policy

The Alaska Federation of Natives has passed a resolution that advocates for broad changes in state and federal subsistence policies.

The three-day event had been scheduled for Oct. 21-23 in Anchorage. However, AFN President Julie Kitka said in a statement Tuesday, “the high-risk factors of holding a 5,000-person indoor meeting, with delegates coming in from across Alaska, make an in-person October gathering out of the question.”

In a statement, Alaska Federation of Natives president Julie Kitka called for “accountability for the actions of the perpetrators as well as those who appear to have planned this attack.”

With the coronavirus making an in-person convention unsafe, the state’s largest annual gathering of Indigenous people came together virtually.

The annual meeting seeks to strengthen bonds between the oldest and youngest generations of Indigenous people.

A new program from the FCC is giving tribes across the country the opportunity to claim licenses within the 2.5 GHz spectrum that would allow them to provide broadband to their communities.

The theme highlights “the challenges and opportunities the Native community and all Alaskans face, including responding to and recovering from the pandemic and resulting economic downturn.”

The for-profit corporations are eligible for a share of the $8 billion in funding set aside for Native American tribes. That’s led to some heated rhetoric in the Lower 48 and on Capitol Hill.

Residents of the Northwest Arctic village of Noorvik, where there is no village public safety officer, say their town is feeling increasingly unsafe.