Joaqlin Estus
ICT
ANCHORAGE —On Oct. 16, 2024, the day before the recent Alaska Federation of Natives convention, several dozen people attended a public workshop on Alaska Native subsistence, or traditional hunting, fishing and gathering, rights and uses, before a discussion the following day. At the convention, hundreds of delegates of tribes, regional and village for-profit corporations, and regional nonprofit organizations, voted to adopt two resolutions on the issue calling for change.
Resolution (24-02) relating to greater transparency and tribal participation in agreements related to salmon reads, “Our hunting, fishing, and gathering practices―including the harvesting and sharing of fish, game, and other resources and the ceremonies that accompany these practices―are essential to the social, cultural, spiritual, and economic well-being and survival of Alaska Native people.”
The state of Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game estimates rural subsistence users harvest about 375 pounds of food per person per year.
The resolution expressed strong disapproval of an April 2024 agreement the state negotiated with Canada that suspended all Chinook salmon fisheries on the Yukon River and Canadian tributaries for seven years. The resolution states the agreement took place behind closed doors and without any meaningful consultation with or notice to Alaska Natives. The resolution calls for greater transparency and tribal participation in international agreements related to salmon.
The other resolution’s (24-01) goal is to “reform existing laws and establish a Native-led framework for fish and wildlife management to protect and advance Alaska Native subsistence rights.”
Changing the legal framework is a tall order. The statutory and regulatory infrastructure surrounding subsistence was built over the past 50-plus years, starting with the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA). ANCSA extinguished Alaska Native aboriginal hunting and fishing rights.
Years later the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 legislated the management of marine fisheries in U.S. waters and set up the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, which manages U.S. fisheries. Subsistence is not part of its mandate but the council’s management of fisheries impacts the number of salmon that survive in the ocean to migrate up rivers and spawn.
The council has come under increasing criticism for the limits it sets for the North Pacific ocean pollock fisheries. Trawlers target pollock and other fish but scoop up, and entangle in fishing gear, some 60,000 Chinook salmon. This is called bycatch. While the bycatch is a fraction of the high seas fishery harvest, some of the salmon were bound for the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, where salmon fisheries have been closed or severely restricted in recent years due to shortages.
Beverly Hoffman, Yup’ik, said at the workshop on Oct. 16 that the 900 miles of the Kuskokwim River once were highly productive. She reminisced about the days when the river had a sustainable yield of a hundred thousand Chinook (or King) salmon, and agencies counted more than a million chum and silver salmon returning to spawn.
Hoffman said. “And to see it diminish, to see that we had to stop commercial fishing on our river because we couldn’t sustain both…And then to see what was happening on the high seas while this summer we were restricted to three [drift nets] for kings [salmon],” is frustrating.
Subsistence is a way of life
The state of Alaska adopted its first subsistence law in 1978. It made subsistence the priority use of fish and wildlife, and defined subsistence as “customary and traditional uses” of fish and wildlife, without a rural or Native preference.
The next major legislation to address subsistence, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) of 1980, gives rural residents, not Alaska Natives, priority for subsistence use.
State agencies managed subsistence on federal lands until a court ruling, McDowell v. state of Alaska, in 1989 said the ANILCA provision for rural residents is unconstitutional because its rural preference provision illegally discriminates against residents who lived in non-rural areas. The Alaska Supreme Court ruled that part of ANILCA contradicts the equal rights, due process, and no exclusive right of fishery clauses.
The state could have continued to manage subsistence uses on federal lands, said Jayleen Kookesh, Tlingit, at the Oct. 16 workshop, if it had amended its constitution to adopt a rural preference on non-federal lands to comply with ANILCA. But numerous attempts to make that happen failed in the state legislature. Sports hunters and fishermen and others instead said ANILCA should be revised to remove the rural preference. Kookesh is an attorney with Van Ness Feldman who presented at the workshop.
Alaska now has a dual management system. The state manages hunting and fishing seasons and sets limits on hunting and fishing on private and state lands, and federal agencies manage them on federal lands. The system is confusing for users.
Gayla Hoseth, Yup’ik, is director of natural resources for the Bristol Bay Native Association and the first Chief of the Curyung Tribe from Dillingham. At the workshop, she said too often decisions about those seasons and limits are made without the benefit of traditional knowledge of Alaska Natives. Hoseth also said the framework for co-management of resources by Alaska Natives is inconsistent across agencies.
Paulette Moreno, Tlingit, said at the workshop that without difficult conversations and some compromise, “we will definitely walk out with less than we’ve ever had before. And that is not okay. Our people are hungry. We have the right to dignity. We are the first people of this land.”
At the AFN convention, delegates adopted both resolutions, vowing to “protect, defend, and enhance Alaska Native subsistence rights and practices for the benefit of future generations.”
The resolution on amending the legal framework for subsistence called on Alaska’s Congressional delegation, the governor and the legislature to pursue the following goals:
- Amend ANCSA to authorize Alaska Native management of fish and wildlife on all Native corporation-owned lands in Alaska
- Repeal the extinguishment of Alaska Native aboriginal hunting and fishing rights in Section 4(b) of ANCSA
- Advocate for recognition of an Alaska Native right to co-management of subsistence resources on public lands in partnership with state and federal agencies through amendments to relevant laws
- Require consultation with Alaska Native tribes and organizations and establish standards for implementation and funding of co-management
- Take all actions to allow for Alaska Native year-round hunting of migratory birds and to allow for the use of non-edible migratory bird parts in the creation of Alaska Native handicrafts
- Amend the subsistence priority in ANILCA to provide for a subsistence priority for all Alaska Natives and rural residents
- Amend the different definitions of “Alaska Native” in ANCSA, ANILCA and the Marine Mammal Protection Act to create one unified definition which removes the federally defined one-fourth Native blood quantum eligibility and instead allows for self-determination by including citizens of federally recognized tribes and voting shareholders of Alaska Native corporations
- Require the federal and state fish and wildlife management agencies to collaborate with the federal and state regional advisory councils and resource advisory committees and to adopt sound and responsible policies that will provide a greater abundance of fish and game
- Require the state of Alaska to make meaningful efforts to fully understand and address Alaska Native subsistence needs and ensure that any future Alaska constitutional amendments for subsistence fully incorporate and prioritize Alaska Native subsistence rights and uses, ensuring protections extend to all Alaska Natives, not just rural residents
- Enact legislation and provide necessary funding to ensure that agencies seek long-term restoration of depleted natural resource stocks.
The resolutions direct AFN leadership to work closely with the Native community as they pursues the resolutions’ goals by advocating with state and federal executive and legislative branches. Staff are to give a progress report back to the convention in 2025.
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