Laying Claims to Native Lands

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - It took Alaskan Natives nearly one hundred years to get the U.S. government to recognize their claims to their ancestral lands. Now, Alaska's Native Eskimo, Aleut, and Indian people are fighting again, this time to stop their land and heritage from becoming an object of speculation on Wall Street.

At stake is some 44 million acres of territory, granted by Congress to the native population in December, 1971 after years of debate, hearings, and studies. Instead of establishing reservations as they had done elsewhere for American Indians, U.S. lawmakers created 12 regional and over 200 village corporations, and divided the land up between them. Alaskan Natives were designated exclusive shareholders in the new companies-until 1991.

For an additional 340 million acres to which the natives had laid claini, Congress ordered the U.S. and Alaska State governments to capitalize the new corporations with $962.5 million, or less than $3.00 an acre.

At the end of 1991, unless Congress acts to amend the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), the natives' corporate stock will be re-issued on the public market, legally no different from that issued by IBM or SOHIO.

Alaska's indigenous people oppose the imminent changes that could end up costing them their land, but they don't all agree on the best way to amend ANCSA. Against the best efforts of Alaskan lawmakers in Washington, discussion about what should happen after 1991 has gone beyond the immediate issue of shareholder rights and broadened into debate over fundamental principles of tribal sovereignty in the modern world.

At the time ANCSA was written, the corporations it created were billed as an enlightened alternative to the dependent status of American Indians on reservations in the lower 48 states.

"It was thought that in 20 years the corporations would be on their feet and would provide a viable economic system to the natives," said Rick Agnew, an aide to Rep. Don Young, an Alaskan Democrat.

Fifteen years after ANCSA's passage, that plan has produced mixed results. While some of the regional corporations are returning healthy profits to their native shareholders, many other native companies, particularly at the village level, have foundered. Two have filed for bankruptcy protection.

In some of Alaska's remote, small villages, where concepts like annual board meetings and company reports made no sense to residents still steeped in traditional lifestyles, "the imposed corporate status didn't work too well," said Agnew.

"These villages do not want a corporation to hold their lands and a city to govern their communities." agreed David Case, an Alaskan attorney who has worked and written extensivel~- in the field of native affairs. "To them such institutions are absolutely bizarre."

In addition, the process of placing territory under corporate control has proved far more time-consuming than originally anticipated. Agnew estimated that as much as 40% of ANCSA land has yet to be surveyed and handed over to the corporations.

Equal in area to one-fifth of the lower 48 states put together, Alaska is diverse in resources, climate, and cultures. The native corporations reflect this.

Tiny Kavilco, a village corporation with some 150 shareholders, located in the rainforests of Southeast Alaska, made shrewd investments on its timber holdings and has been paying its shareholders $10,000 annually in dividends. Its neighbor, the Haida Village Corporation, declared bankruptcy in mid-1985 and has been struggling to save its most valuable asset-land-from falling into the hands of creditors, primarily Alaskan lending institutions.

Sealaska Regional Corporation, which covers the southeastern panhandle of the state, made the Fortune 500 before declining timber prices and a nationwide botulism scare reduced profits from its lumber operations and tinned salmon production.

Strapped with $16 million in debts, the Bering Straits Regional corporation this spring became the first of the regionals to file for bankruptcy to prevent its assets from being attached. The corporation had invested millions in enterprises as diverse as a Fairbanks hotel, a concrete block company and a construction company, all of which failed.

Some native corporations, particularly at the village level, possess land with minimal economic potential. Their greatest value lies in their continued use as subsistence harvest areas for fish and game, and in the wild plants and berries so treasured in rural Alaska. Yet, as the law now stands, these lands will soon be subject to property taxes.

Under ANCSA, any lands developed by native corporations are subject to state and local taxation. Undeveloped lands are taxable 20 years after conveyance to corporations, even if they produce no revenue.

"There's a lot of corporations out there just hanging by a thread," said Glenn Fredericks, president of Kuskokwim Corporation, a successful merger of eleven village corporations. "They don't even have the money for an audit. What's going to happen? The creditors are going to come after their land."

Kuskokwim is something of a success story among village corporations. When Fredericks first became enrolled in his village corporation, he was one of 28 shareholders. The corporation received $34,000 to launch itself into mainstream America. Its shareholders were also hit with a barrage of paperwork from the federal government, including demands for an audit which would have cost $50,000.

"I could see we were going to have problems," Fredericks says. He convinced the shareholders of 10 other villages along the Kuskokwim River that the}, would be better off merging together. By sticking to safe, blue-chip investments, the corporation manages to return annual dividends of a few hundred dollars to its shareholders.

Yet, says Fredericks, this monev makes little difference to daily survival. Few jobs can be created for shareholders in the remote Calista region, and most people continue subsistence lifestyles.

"It's not the corporations that are important to village people," Fredericks said. "It's the land. We must hold onto the land."

Ironically, the more successful native corporations are also the most tempting prospects for takeover by outside interests when stock goes public in 1991. While many corporations hold timber and mineral assets for which development costs are now prohibitively expensive, this may not discourage larger, multinational corporations with the dollars and patience to wait until the market is right to go in and develop whatever is there, be it oil, coal, sand and gravel, or gold.

Public stock sales aren't the only part of ANCSA that Alaskan Natives oppose. Congress decided in 1974 to give every Alaskan born by the date of ANCSA's passage 100 shares of stock in one of the 12 regional corporations, and, if eligible, another 100 in one of the village corporations. Natives born after December 18, 1971, sometimes cryptically referred to as the "after-borns," were out of luck.

The Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN), an advocacy group for the regional corporations, has been lobbying Congress to give native shareholders the right to decide whether they want their stock to go public, or remain restricted to natives, after 1991. AFN also wants to include all natives as shareholders, regardless of their date of birth, and to protect undeveloped lands from taxation after 1991.

"Approximately 40,000 new natives will have been born by 1991," said Nelson Angapak, chairman of Calista Corporation and an AFN leader, explaining why shareholders in his region are willing to dilute their stock among future generations. "We feel strongly that they are no less native than those that were born before."

"I have three children, only one of whom is a shareholder," adds Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC) shareholder June Childress. "They are native and they will never have the birthright to be part of our shareholders unless there are changes to ANCSA law. I've heard parents say their children will inherit their shares. But that's going to take so long because we happen to live so long. I have a nine year old son. He just found out that his 17 year old brother got a dividend check from ASRC, and he wanted to know why he didn't get one. It's very hard to explain to him that he was born too late."

Yet, mindful that the corporate structure hasn't proved appropriate or effective among all native groups, AFN has also proposed permitting transfer of corporate lands to "other entities," including tribal government, should a majority of shareholders vote to make the switch.

Congress will probably not act on ANCSA until late this year or early 1987. Aides to Alaskan policy-makers in Washington predict that most of AFN's recommendations will be approved, although they anticipate resistance to attempts by some indigenous groups to increase the stature of tribal government at the expense of the corporations.

Some Alaskan Natives, however, feel AFNs recommendations do not go far enough. The Alaska Coalition of Natives (ANC), formed by groups from across the state to promote native self-government, has voiced support for some of AFN's amendments but says it will not endorse the full package unless wording is changed to strengthen the position of the tribes.

The ANC believes that, as sovereign entities with a special relationship to the federal government, Native governments would be able to prevent loss of land to non-natives, and protect it from taxation by other governments.

ANC representatives point out that prior to ANCSA, virtually all the villages had traditional Native councils or tribal governments, some of which required tribal consent on any decisions affecting the land.

Willie Kasayulie, a Yup'ik Eskimo from the Southwest Alaska village of Akiachak, argues that ANCSA was passed solely to settle aboriginal land claims, and did not deal in any way with issues of tribal self-government.

"The Settlement Act neither terminates the tribes nor the status of natives as tribal members," he says. "The [proposed amendments] must make clear that the relationship between the Alaska Native villages and the federal government is a tribally-based relationship, not a federal relationship with some sort of second class social clubs, as the [amendments] could be read to suggest."

Kasayulie and other leaders of the native tribal government in Akiachak caused a stir when, at the urging of community elders, they obtained a community mandate to disband the state-chartered municipal government of the village, leaving only the tribal government in place.

Akiachak joined with other villages in the area in forming the "Yupiit Nation." The Nation advocates tribal sovereignty, not only over ANCSA land, but over all lands traditionally used for subsistence hunting, trapping, and fishing.

The coalition has been using a report prepared by Thomas Berger to support their position.

Berger, a former British Columbia Supreme Court justice, was hired by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC) to conduct a two year study into the effects of ANCSA upon grass-root, Alaska Natives. ICC represents the Eskimo peoples of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. After conducting hearings in 60 Alaska Native communities, Berger recommended that Congress consider turning ANCSA lands, particularly those held by village corporations, over to native governments. These governments, Berger said, should have authority and protection equal to their counterparts in the Lower 48.

Berger further recommended that Alaska Natives assume fish and game management on all ANCSA lands, and that they share management with state and federal governments where traditional subsistence uses are high.

Debate over the future of native land is sure to continue, even after Congress decides how to amend ANCSA. But while there is considerable disagreement among Alaskan natives about what should be the role of corporations-or if indeed the corporations should continue to exist-virtually all parties agree that the land should be protected.

"The 1991 issue is. ... complicatedbut the answers are real simple," Delbert Rexford, Inupiat Eskimo, told a senate hearing on ANCSA earlier this year in Barrow, Alaska. "Our people want to keep the land."

Bill Hess is editor of the Open Lead, a bi-monthly magazine covering Alaska's Arctic Slope. He is also a freelance writer and photographer whose work has appeared in National Geographic and other publications.

Preservation Or Profits by Susan Alexander ANCHORAGE, Alaska-The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) has long been renowned for its unsurpassed wilderness and wildlife values. Indigenous peoples, both Canadian and Alaskan, have depended on the area in Alaska's northeast corner for centuries to support their subsistence way of life. But underneath its coastal plain, there may be oil and gas, and a fight is looming over its potential development. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 (ANILCA) more than doubled the size of the former Arctic Wildlife Range, established in 1960, and added most of the existing area to the National Wilderness Preservation System. A majority of the critical coastal plain, however, was denied wilderness designation because of the oil and gas it contained. The Alaska Lands Act requires the Fish and Wildlife Service to send a detailed study of the refuge to Congress by September 1986, before the fate of the coastal plain is determined. The report, which probably won't be completed until the spring of 1987, is to include a description of the area's fish and wildlife resources and their habitats, an assessment of the area's suitability for wilderness designation, an evaluation of its oil and gas production potential, and an estimate of the impact development would have on the refuge. When the report is finally submitted to Congress, it is likely to trigger a major legislative battle. The 19-million-acre Arctic Refuge is about the size of South Carolina. Along with the adjacent Northern Yukon National Park in Canada, it is one of the most extensive and diverse undeveloped landscapes in the North American arctic and encompasses much of the range of a major caribou herd. More than 160,000 strong, the Porcupine Caribou Herd is one of the last two major migratory herds remaining in the nation. The Porcupine Herd migrates annually to the coastal plain to calve. Environmentalists fear that disruption of the already limited calving grounds could mean the end of the Porcupine Caribou Herd. The consequences for the local Inupiat Eskimos, Canadian Inuit, and U.S. and Canadian Athabascan Indians who depend on these caribou, could be profound. Thousands of villagers whose homes border the refuge use the caribou, as well as other wildlife which migrate to the area, for the bulk of their food supply. But the oil industry and the Reagan administration are eager to see the Arctic Coastal Plain opened to oil development, despite the threat this poses to wildlife, the ecosystem, and the local people. Although the report on the impact of development is not due for another several months, the administration is already publicly discussing options for development of the area. The administration is considering a trade of the subsurface oil and gas rights of the coastal plain for lands owned by native corporations within other Alaskan wildlife refuges, usurping Congress' right to determine the status of the coastal plain. The administration is backed by some powerful allies. A consortium of approximately 20 oil companies, including Exxon, British Petroleum and Arco, have done seismic testing in the area and are anxiously waiting for the administration to open the land up for development. And if the proposed land trade fails, the American Petroleum Institute is gearing up for the battle to convince Congress that the land should remain outside the confines of the National Wilderness Preservation System. Susan Alexander is the Alaska Regional Director for the Wilderness Society.