Proposed Rule here.
SUMMARY: This proposed rule would delete a provision in the Department of the Interior’s land-into-trust regulations that excludes from the scope of the regulations, with one exception, land acquisitions in trust in the State of Alaska.
Related case here.
Press release requesting comments here.
While politicians, lobbyists, activists, and business leaders regularly comment on whether or not the Arctic should be developed, how it should or should not be developed, and the implications of development, the voices of the indigenous people in the area are rarely given much press time. Edward Itta, Inupiat elder, member of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, former mayor of North Slope Borough, and Senior Advisor, Pt Capital recently wrote an article expressing this concern. As he says in the article,
Like any other community, we Iñupiat don’t speak with one voice. What matters in this debate is that our views and concerns are taken into account. We need to be heard, because our perspective is fundamentally different from that of the warring parties. We aren’t just staking a claim to the Arctic. We’re part of it, and we always will be.
Full article here.
Excerpt from article:
Ours is a communal culture. Sharing has always been a key to our survival. It’s a good thing, because now there’s a whole lot of sharing going on. Lands that once belonged to us are under siege by two warring tribes — the environmentalists and the oil companies. Neither group owns any land outright. The federal government controls the 19-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to the east of Prudhoe Bay and the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA) in the west. Native corporations own smaller areas, primarily around the eight villages that are home to our Iñupiat people. . . .
We are a practical people. That’s how we survived for thousands of years in the Arctic. We have supported oil development in some cases and fought against it in others. We don’t have a default position, because the well being of our people depends on both oil and protected land. Our traditional hunting culture is linked to the health of wildlife habitat, while access to decent housing, food and transportation requires us to earn a living. We don’t choose between the two — we try to balance them.
Here.
Native Alaskan Tom Andersen, once a commercial fisherman, no longer makes his living from the sea, either. “You can’t fix it. Once you break that egg, sometimes that’s it,” he says.
Andersen, 71, says the waters here have sustained his people, the Chugach, for generations. He now picks up odd construction jobs hanging drywall. A whole way of living has changed, he says, making a wiping motion with his arm.
“You pretty much lived there — you got your clams and crabs and fish,” he says. “And then somebody come and dumped oil all over it, you know? That’s really hitting home.”
The Alaska Native Subsistence Co-Management Demonstration Act of 2014 proposes a new co-management structure in the Ahtna region. The new structure would include tribal officials in the management of the land and resources, replacing the current dual federal and state management structure.
The House Subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs will hold a hearing on the Act March 14, 2014, 11:00 am (EST). The hearing will be available online here.
AFN has released an overview video to explain some of the complexities of protecting subsistence rights and the strength of co-management here.
Ahtna, Inc. has also released a video here.
Article here.
Here.
The first part of the article from SitNews:
The Superior Court for the State of Alaska, First Judicial District at Juneau, issued a decision with significant implications for tribal courts throughout Alaska in Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska v. State of Alaska Child Support Services Division. The Court’s order on October 25, 2011, reaffirms the Tribe’s inherent jurisdiction to handle the full range of family law issues affecting its citizens, including the particular issue of child support for the benefit of tribal children.
The Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska’s Press Release can be found here.
The order can be found here.
From the NYTs:
TOKSOOK BAY, Alaska — Beyond the fishing boats, the snug homes and the tanks of diesel fuel marking this Eskimo village on the Bering Sea, three huge wind turbines tower over the tundra. Their blades spin slowly in a breeze cold enough to freeze skin.
One of the nation’s harshest landscapes, it turns out, is becoming fertile ground for green power.
As interest in cleaning up power generation grows around the country, Alaska is fast becoming a testing ground for new technologies and an unlikely experiment in oil-state support for renewable energy. Alaskans once cast a wary eye on anything smacking of environmentalism, but today they are investing heavily in green power, not so much to reduce emissions as to save cash.
From the NYTs:
WASHINGTON(Reuters) – Sen. Ted Stevens from Alaska, the longest serving U.S. Republican senator ever, was indicted Tuesday on seven counts of making false statements, according to a federal grand jury indictment.
The U.S. Justice Department has scheduled a news conference for 1:20 p.m. to make an announcement “regarding a significant criminal matter.”
A federal law enforcement official said the news conference would discuss the criminal charges against Stevens. The 28-page indictment outlining the charges against Stevens was released by the Justice Department right before the news conference.
Here is the indictment itself — stevens-indictment
From the NYTs:
Damon Winter/The New York Times
A bone from a Bowhead whale skull rests on the arctic shore outside of Barrow as monument to the defining role that whaling plays for this coastal community.
From the Battle Creek Enquirer:
WMU helps museum identify human remnants as Native American
Professors from Western Michigan University identified human remains in the Kingman Museum collection to be those of Native Americans on Tuesday.
Anthropologist professors and several students inspected 11 boxes of remains, scalps and cultural artifacts at the museum’s request.
The museum was complying with the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which federally regulates that institutions identify and return certain Native American cultural items to lineal descendants or culturally affiliated Indian tribes.
The Michigan Anishnaabek Cultural Preservation and Repatriation Alliance (MACPRA), which represents the state’s federally recognized and historic Indian tribes, asked that Kingman identify the unknown remains.
The bones came from as nearby as Coldwater Avenue in Battle Creek and as far as the Grand Canyon and Peru. Remains found in Alaska and near Muskegon were deemed to be those of several Native Americans and the others were either unidentifiable or purchased through medical companies.
Here’s the National NAGPRA site.
Here’s the full text of the statute.
Turtle Talk 
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