AFN calls for Native and rural subsistence priority on all Alaska landsPublished on January 12th, 2010 By ALEX DEMARBAN
The Alaska Federation of Natives lays out an ambitious agenda that seeks to expand hunting and fishing rights for Alaska Natives as part of the first-ever review of the federal subsistence program in Alaska. In a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar offering ways to improve the program, the statewide Native organization draws on historical arguments and legal precedent to make the case that all Natives, as well as rural residents, deserve priority over other hunters and fishermen. Salazar announced the review in October. The Jan. 7 letter, signed by AFN President Julie Kitka, also asks that the rural subsistence priority be applied to all land and waters in Alaska as Congress originally intended. The program only applies on federal land and waters because of a 1989 state Supreme Court decision that the rural priority violates the equal access clause of the state Constitution. Kitka also asks Salazar to create an Alaska Native Fund to pay back the millions Natives have spent defending the priority from legal attacks by the state and other organizations hoping to diminish the program's reach. "The issue is whether our country can learn from its own past - and whether it will finally deal honorably with Alaska's indigenous peoples by giving them meaningful protections for their way of life. "What we now call subsistence is not a relic from the past - a holdover from previous times that will inevitably disappear as market conditions take over - it continues to be the foundation of Alaska Native society and culture," she writes. Congress created the subsistence priority in 1980. The state initially managed it on all Alaska lands until the 1989 court decision, when the federal government took control on federal lands and waters. Click here to read the entire document. [http://nativefederation.org/documents/AFN_Subsistence_Recommendations_Jan7_2010.pdf] Contact us about this article at editor@thetundradrums.com |
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