    [Senate Hearing 107-456]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 107-456

                  ALASKA NATIVE SUBSISTENCE AND FISHING RIGHTS
    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                          COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                          ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

     TO RECEIVE TESTIMONY ON SUBSISTENCE HUNTING AND FISHING BY THE NATIVE
                                    ALASKANS

                                   __________

                                 APRIL 17, 2002
                                 WASHINGTON, DC

                            U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
    79-754                          WASHINGTON : 2002
    _____________________________________________________________________________
    For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
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                          COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS

                       DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii, Chairman

                BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado, Vice Chairman

    FRANK MURKOWSKI, Alaska              KENT CONRAD, North Dakota
    JOHN McCAIN, Arizona,                HARRY REID, Nevada
    PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico         DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
    CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming                PAUL WELLSTONE, Minnesota
    ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah                 BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota
    JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma            TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota
                                         MARIA CANTWELL, Washington

            Patricia M. Zell, Majority Staff Director/Chief Counsel

             Paul Moorehead, Minority Staff Director/Chief Counsel

                                      (ii)

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page
    Statements:
        Anderson, Robert, assistant professor of law, director,
          Native American Law Center, University of Washington School
          of Law.....................................................  3, 7
        Akootchook, Isaac, elder, North Slope Region, Alaska.........     6
        Campbell, Hon. Ben Nighthorse, U.S. Senator from Colorado,
          vice chairman, Committee on Indian Affairs.................    38
        Demientieff, Mitch, chairman, Federal Subsistence Board......    32
        Golia, Andy, vice president, Bristol Bay Native Association..    12
        Inouye, Hon. Daniel K., U.S. Senator from Hawaii, chairman,
          Committee on Indian Affairs................................     1
        Jackson, Gordon, executive director, Southeast Alaska
          Intertribal Fish and Wildlife Commission...................    19
        Johnson, Charles, executive director, Alaska Nanuuq
          Commission.................................................    17
        Kennedy, Jeanine, executive director, Rural Alaska Community
          Action Program, Inc........................................    23
        Kitka, Julie, president, Alaska Federation of Natives........    27
        Lake, Arthur, president, Association of Village Council
          Presidents.................................................    14
        Murkowski, Hon. Frank H., U.S. Senator from Alaska...........     1
        Norbert, Eileen, executive vice president, Kawerak, Inc......23, 25
        Pete, Mary, director, Division of Subsistence, Alaska
          Department of Fish and Game................................    28
        Williams, Mike, chairman, Alaska Inter-Tribal Council........    20
        Worl, Rosita, chair, Subsistence Committee, Alaska Federation
          of Natives, president, Sealaska Heritage Foundation........     3
        Yaska, George, fisheries specialist, Tanana Chief Conference.    16

                                    Appendix

    Prepared statements:
        Anderson, Robert.............................................    45
        Bullard, Loretta, president, Kawerak Inc. (with attachments).   149
        Demientieff, Mitch...........................................   142
        Fleagle, Hon. Donne, president, Board of Directors, Rural
          Alaska Community Action Program, Inc.......................   106
        Golia, Andy..................................................    74
        Huhndorf, Roy, cochairman, Alaska Federation of Natives (with
          attachments)...............................................   170
        Iyatunguk, Robert, chairman, Karwerka Elders Advisory
          Committee..................................................   178
        Johnson, Charles.............................................   102
        Kookesh, Albert, cochairman, Alaska Federation of Natives....   181
        Lake, Arthur (with attachments)..............................    83
        Miller, William, Dot Lake Village Council (with attachments).   156
        Minard, Kris.................................................   187
        Norbert, Eileen..............................................   189
        Pete, Mary (with attachments)................................   112
        Schwalenberg, Dewey, director, Stevens Village Tribal Natural
          Resource/Environmental Program.............................   192
        Williams, Mike...............................................   104
        Worl, Rosita.................................................    41
        Yaska, George................................................    97
    Additional material submitted for the record:
    Letters from:
        Hahn, Richard................................................   197
        Metz, Michele................................................   199
        Mills, Mary Ann..............................................   200
        Temple, Lillian White, member, Elderly Organization, Rock
          Creek......................................................   201
        Tiepelman, Dennis J., president, Maniilaq Association........   202
    Articles:
        Congress to Hear Subsistence Issue, Tom Kizzia, Anchorage
          Daily News.................................................   213
        Urban Alaskans Get Shot at Subsistence, Tom Kizzia, Anchorage
          Daily News.................................................   215

                  ALASKA NATIVE SUBSISTENCE AND FISHING RIGHTS

                                  ----------

                           WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2002

                                           U.S. SENATE,
                                   Committee on Indian Affairs,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The committee met pursuant to notice at 2:02 p.m. in room
    485, Senate Russell Building, Hon. Daniel K. Inouye (chairman
    of the committee) presiding.
        Present: Senators Inouye, Campbell, and Murkowski.

     STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL K. INOUYE, U.S. SENATOR FROM HAWAII,
                 CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS

        The Chairman. Before proceeding, I would like to advise one
    and all that there will be a roundtable discussion on
    subsistence hunting and fishing issues in Alaska immediately
    following this oversight hearing in this room.
        The committee meets this afternoon to receive testimony on
    subsistence hunting and fishing by the native people of Alaska.
    Long before the United States was formed, the native people of
    Alaska were providing for sustenance of their children and
    families. But basic sustenance was not the only objective of
    subsistence hunting and fishing by the native people. It also
    served as a fundamental aspect of native culture, native
    traditions, religious and spiritual beliefs, as well as a way
    of life that had been practiced for centuries.
        Today, we will learn how the subsistence hunting and
    fishing by Alaska Natives is faring in contemporary times as
    the United States and the State of Alaska seek to address the
    provisions of Federal law, the Alaska National Interest Lands
    Conservation Act, and title VIII of that act which addresses
    subsistence uses.
        So with that, I would like to recognize Senator Murkowski
    of Alaska.

     STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK H. MURKOWSKI, U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA

        Senator Murkowski. Thank you very much, Senator Inouye. I
    want to welcome the Alaskans that are here. You have come at a
    very auspicious time. As you probably know, we are debating the
    ANWR issue on the floor of the U.S. Senate right now. I just
    relieved Senator Stevens, so I am going to have to welcome you
    with a short message and then get back. For those of you who
    would like to observe the process, it is going to be extremely
    lengthy. We anticipate that it will be going well into the
    evening. If you would like to come into the family gallery,
    why, we would be happy to invite you to participate in the
    process.
        Some have said that legislation is like making sausage--it
    is not a pretty sight. I suppose that is appropriate. On the
    other hand, for those of you who have traveled so far, we can
    greet you with probably the warmest day of the year. So I would
    suggest, Mr. Chairman, that Alaska is in the frying pan in one
    way or another here, not only on this subsistence issue which
    has been around a long time, and which we hope we will be able
    to resolve through unity in Alaska, as well as the reality that
    ANWR has been around here for a long time.
        First, in welcoming my fellow Alaskans, I want to
    compliment the chairman, my good friend, who has been with us
    on Alaska issues historically, and made I thought an
    extraordinary speech about 3 days ago supporting Alaska's
    effort to open up its land area for the benefit of the people
    of Alaska and the United States as a whole. So I want to
    comment you, Senator Inouye, for your support.
        I look forward to the testimony that each of you is
    prepared to address, and hope this forum can move us forward
    toward a solution on the subsistence dilemma that we have been
    facing for a long time. I think we all share a common interest
    in bringing resolution of this problem. Decisions on how we
    manage subsistence in Alaska affect not only subsistence users,
    but commercial, sport, recreation, fishermen as well, and those
    who gather and other subsistence users. The only way we are
    going to find a solution is by working together. We need all
    the stakeholders together to find that lasting solution, and
    this committee I think will go a long way in assisting in the
    careful consideration of the views of each group that will
    potentially be affected by any subsistence policy.
        For this reason, I would ask that the record remain open
    until those organizations who have had a chance to submit their
    written testimony for the record have that opportunity.
        The Chairman. Thank you very much. I am pleased to advise
    my colleague from Alaska that the record will remain open for
    at least 2 weeks.
        Senator Murkowski. That is fine. I certainly appreciate
    that. We have had an indication of several groups that would
    like to have testimony submitted for the record.
        Finally, clearly we need a subsistence solution that does
    not discriminate or divide the people of Alaska on the basis of
    race or culture. We need a solution that is inclusive of all
    people and cultures in Alaska. I believe the intent of our
    Alaska State Constitution was basically to accomplish this
    inclusiveness. I believe the intent of ANILCA was to accomplish
    this as well. Unfortunately, the problem we often have is in
    the details. It has been said the devil or someone else lies in
    there, but there are discrepancies between the two and we need
    to identify those as much as possible today.
        I think our mission is to both amend the State
    Constitution, which I strongly support, and come up with some
    clear and specific definitions to the vague language in ANILCA,
    the source of many of the problems that are being addressed
    here today, and clearly the court has not helped us in those
    determinations because it is still very unclear. Amending title
    VIII of ANILCA is crucial if we are to reconcile Federal
    statute with existing State law.
        In any case, I want management of all Alaska's fish and
    wildlife resources put back in the hands of Alaska. I grew up
    in Alaska and remember the management regime of the Department
    of the Interior, where the management scheme was one size fits
    all. It did not work. We had our fishermen on self-imposed
    limits in Southeastern Alaska. I think it is mandatory that all
    Alaskans work together to get back the management of these
    renewable resources.
        Most importantly, I want to see clearly defined and
    enforceable rural preference for subsistence hunting and
    fishing, one that is legally sound and one that is fair to all
    Alaskans. As I mentioned earlier, I want to look forward to
    hearing the testimony you will receive today. I remain
    committed to finding a solution to the subsistence questions in
    Alaska, and I certainly thank the Chairman for the opportunity
    to welcome our Alaskans here this afternoon.
        I shall be looking forward to reviewing your testimony as
    soon as I am able, and I trust that you will excuse me, Mr.
    Chairman, as I return with Senator Stevens to the floor as we
    continue the process of trying to resolve one of Alaska's
    longstanding issues.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        The Chairman. May I call upon the first panel, consisting
    of Dr. Rosita Worl, chair of the Subsistence Committee of the
    Alaska Federation of Natives and president of the Sealaska
    Heritage Foundation of Juneau, AK, who will be accompanied by
    Professor Robert Anderson, director, Native American Law Center
    of the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle; and
    an elder from the North Slope region of Alaska, Isaac
    Akootchook.
        Dr. Worl, you are always welcome here.

    STATEMENT OF ROSITA WORL, CHAIR, SUBSISTENCE COMMITTEE, ALASKA
    FEDERATION OF NATIVES; PRESIDENT, SEALASKA HERITAGE FOUNDATION,
     ACCOMPANIED BY ROBERT ANDERSON, DIRECTOR, NATIVE AMERICAN LAW
             CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON SCHOOL OF LAW

        Ms. Worl. Thank you, Honorable Senator Inouye.
        Thank you very much for agreeing to hold this hearing on
    subsistence in Alaska. What I would like to do today is to talk
    about the significance of subsistence in the contemporary
    period. But first of all before I begin that, Senator, what I
    would like to do is to present you with this photo right here
    in front of the table. The photo is Pauline and Joe Agothlik of
    Imanuk. What I would like to do is to really bring the people
    of Alaska here and the essence of Alaska. Here, they are
    sharing in a fish that was received from the State. We really
    want to talk about the kinds of things that we are facing today
    in Alaska, the kinds of shortages and the difficulties some of
    our people are experiencing.
        For the record, I am Rosita Worl and I am the chair of the
    AFN Subsistence Committee. My testimony today will be drawing
    from my professional background and also my personal experience
    as a Tlingit Indian.
        It has often been said that subsistence cannot be defined,
    but Alaska Native people will define it as a way of life. What
    I would like to do today is to look at the components of
    subsistence--what really makes up subsistence. It may begin to
    sound like a lecture, and for that I apologize. But also in the
    need for brevity, it may seem as if I am oversimplifying this
    very complex system. However, it is my sense, as you have
    stated, that we must have a basic understanding of the dynamic
    socioeconomic subsistence system in order to analyze how
    legislation has the capacity to undermine or to protect
    subsistence.
        First of all, I want to assure you, as you have already
    stated, Alaska Native cultures are vibrant. They remain vibrant
    in this contemporary period. They also remain very dependent
    and culturally attached to the hunting and fishing way of life.
    Subsistence as it is practiced by Alaska Native people is
    comprised of three major interrelated components: economic,
    social and cultural. It operates as a cohesive, adaptive and
    functioning system. The cultural component includes the values
    and ideologies that govern and direct subsistence behavior and
    activities.
        For example, and this is the one I want to stress, it is
    the value of sharing. Sharing is key to subsistence and is key
    to the survival of native societies. Young hunters are taught
    to share from a very early age. Also, significant amounts of
    sharing takes place in our ceremonies. The elders also play a
    very important role in our subsistence economy, not only in
    terms of teaching the young, but also they receive a special
    share and portion of the subsistence take. In this way, it
    functions very much like our Social Security system.
        The cultural component also is comprised of our beliefs and
    ideologies. Here is where we differ from the larger society and
    the rest of Alaskan society in that Alaska Native people
    believe that they have a spiritual relationship to the animals
    and to the wildlife. This relationship requires native people
    to adhere to certain codes of conduct and to treat animals in
    prescriptive ways to ensure success in future hunts.
        The social aspect refers to the way in which native people
    organize themselves to participate in subsistence activities.
    The socioeconomic organization is based on some form of
    kinship. More often you will hear our people referring to it as
    the extended family as the hunting unit. The important
    dimension here is that subsistence operates as a group
    activity, rather than that of a sole hunter pursuing game.
        The third element includes the economic aspect, which
    consists of production, distribution and exchange, and
    utilization of natural resources. Production includes the
    procurement and preservation of subsistence food, while
    distribution and exchange refers to the movement of subsistence
    goods or the sharing of subsistence food through the social
    network.
        Subsistence economies also include the exchange of surplus
    resources for resources that may not be readily or locally
    available. Utilization includes the food consumption as well as
    the utilization of the by-parts for arts and crafts or for
    other sorts of equipment that the hunters and gathers may need,
    such as skins for the skin boats.
        Alaska rural communities are also characterized by a mixed
    or dual economy. What do we mean by that? In today's
    subsistence economy, cash is an absolute requirement. It is
    necessary to purchase rifles, ammo and other tools, supplies
    and equipment. Cash is acquired in multiple ways in this
    socioeconomic unit. The hunter or spouse may be a full-or part-
    time wage earner or a family member may earn income through the
    sale of arts and craft or a subsistence service. An elderly
    member of the unit may also receive a transfer payment and they
    may then contribute portions of this cash to the subsistence
    enterprise.
        The importance of the subsistence economy in Alaska today
    cannot be overstated. It provides a major portion of the diet
    in rural Alaska and in native households. Subsistence can be
    seen as even more important with the absence or the limited
    wage income opportunities in rural Alaska and also its seasonal
    nature. The limitations on wage income opportunities are
    further exacerbated by the highest cost of living within the
    United States. Without a subsistence economy, hunger would be
    the norm in Alaska Native and rural communities. These
    assertions are all verifiable by hard statistical data.
        The persistence of the subsistence lifestyle, however,
    cannot be attributed solely to the absence or the constraints
    on the wage opportunities. The social, cultural and ideological
    aspects remain important to native people and they choose to
    adhere to their traditional way of being of their lifestyle. So
    these are also aspects that continue to make subsistence very
    important to native people today.
        I wanted to stress two basic differences between Alaska
    Natives and the other Alaskans or other people who use
    resources in Alaska. One I have already talked about--the
    special spiritual relationship that native people have to the
    wildlife. The second, and this is really very important in
    terms of understanding subsistence and understanding why ANILCA
    is so important to Alaska Native people. And that is the group
    orientation that native people have, as opposed to the
    individualistic values of the larger societies.
        Native cultural and religious values can sometimes be
    protected under the freedom of religion policies and laws. We
    saw that in Alaska in the Carlos Frank case, where a hunter,
    where the Athabascans needed a moose for a funerary ceremony,
    and they took a moose out of season. There was a case brought,
    but because of the freedom of religion they were not charged or
    were not found guilty in this case.
        Laws embody the values of their societies and American law
    generally reflects the individualistic nature of this society,
    rather than the group orientation of Native societies. American
    values, however, recognize the importance of cultural
    diversities, and theoretically our laws and policies embrace
    this ideology of cultural diversity. But this does not mean
    that the laws themselves will reflect the group orientation
    values held by Alaska Natives and American Indians.
        However, the Federal Government does accord Alaska Natives
    and American Indians a special political status which offers
    the opportunity to acknowledge and protect the different
    cultural values and Alaska Native societies. Alaska Natives and
    their cultural values and subsistence were made possible in
    part through the Alaskan National Interest Land Conversation
    Act of 1980. ANILCA has offered the only measure of protection
    for subsistence against the State of Alaska, which has refused
    to recognize a rural subsistence hunting and fishing priority.
    Title VIII of ANILCA requires that subsistence uses be given
    priority over the taking of fish and wildlife for other
    purposes. It defines subsistence uses as the customary and
    traditional uses by rural Alaska residents.
        ANILCA provides a priority for rural residents of
    communities that have customary and traditional uses of a
    particular resource. As an anthropologist, I know the
    significance of ANILCA is that it provides protections for
    communities or for groups, rather than the individually based
    uses and protections based on customary and traditional uses.
        The prevalent argument advanced by a small, but vocal and
    successful minority of Alaskans, is to oppose a constitutional
    amendment because it violates the equal access to fish and
    wildlife. However, in my testimony I have tried to stress the
    importance of understanding not only the subsistence lifestyle
    and culture, but also it is important to assess the underlying
    meaning of the equal access argument as it is advanced by the
    subsistence opponents, and to understand the potential
    ramifications should they be successful in amending ANILCA to
    embrace this ideology and to extinguish the group orientation
    and the group protections as offered under ANILCA.
        ANILCA as it is written protects the group realities--the
    nature of Alaska Native subsistence activities. I will pray
    that Congress will not condone the further erosion of
    subsistence and cultural protections for its indigenous people.
    I would hope that Congress will see that ANILCA is a means to
    ensure the cultural survival of Alaska Natives and to maintain
    the rich cultural diversity of this country.
        I would hope that Congress will continue to support and
    urge the State of Alaska to advance a constitutional amendment
    that brings it into compliance with ANILCA. It would be my
    hope, Senator, that Congress will continue to support ANILCA as
    it is written unless in its wisdom it should choose to adopt a
    Native subsistence priority.
        Thank you, Senator.
        [Prepared statement of Ms. Worl appears in appendix.]
        The Chairman. I thank you, Dr. Worl.
        May I now recognize Mr. Akootchook.

      STATEMENT OF ISAAC AKOOTCHOOK, ELDER, NORTH SLOPE REGION OF
                                 ALASKA

        Mr. Akootchook. My name is Isaac Akootchook. I was born in
    Takdorik and I have been there 80 years. So I have a birthday
    on March 31, just only 17 days ago.
        I am surprised to be here to sit over here in front of you,
    Senator, the first time I have a trip to Washington, DC.
        Thank you very much for letting me through the Osloburro
    hunting. We have a whaling inberro starting in this month, and
    Tannooslo, my representative from all the way from St. Lawrence
    Island, Tivalina, Quint Hope, Enright, and Barrow. In that way,
    he sent me down here to speak in front of you people.
        Our life is since I have a recollection since we have born,
    to take other animals, how we are used for living. We are
    learning, and again is to go with these people, have a law,
    recollections in our life. And I am not really a good speaker
    in English because I am Inuit and never went to school either.
    But I have just this morning to try to help my North Slope
    people. Native people all over have used this land all its
    life. That is what I speak about. And again, many times we see
    the law recollection to make it to the animal. I always say
    about those collars that they put animals--too many, too many
    collars. And they say, I try to study animal; how far from the
    direction to all the way to somewhere to study. This is really
    kind of animal suffering, because polar bears, caribou, and all
    that things. That is what we use for food for our native
    people, and nobody much say about it, but we have seen it quite
    a few times. And those animals, sometimes they have suffering.
        We have many things, and he goes through that. I heard
    sisters speaking here, and I really agree with your speaking
    because this is a native culture and all that thinking.
        Thank you very much. I am end speaking.
        The Chairman. I thank you very much.
        Mr. Anderson, would you care to add something?

       STATEMENT OF ROBERT ANDERSON, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF LAW,
    DIRECTOR, NATIVE AMERICAN LAW CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
                             SCHOOL OF LAW

        Mr. Anderson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I was asked to address two areas: First, the background
    material leading to the subsistence law as we see it today
    reflected in title VIII; and second, the authority of Congress
    as a matter of constitutional law to provide for a native
    priority or a rural priority in combination with the native
    priority on all lands in Alaska, the thinking being that given
    the State legislature in particular's failure to get back in
    compliance with ANILCA over the last 12 years, that this is an
    option that should be considered. I have been asked to write a
    paper on this, which I have done and it is submitted as part of
    the record, and also to make myself available to your staff and
    anyone else who would like to discuss these issues further.
        Just a thumbnail sketch of the Federal Government's
    treatment of hunting and fishing rights in Alaska can begin
    with the Treaty of Cession which essentially left the law in
    place with respect to aboriginal or native hunting and fishing
    rights as they were exercised in Alaska by native people since
    before the Russian arrival and long before the Treaty of
    Cession.
        A series of statutes passed by Congress beginning in 1870
    and through the early 1930's provided native exemptions from
    regulations governing the taking of fish and game. Those
    exemptions were uniform and were included in every statute and
    treaty dealing with native hunting and fishing rights. In 1942,
    the Solicitor at the Interior Department had occasion to
    discuss the hunting and fishing rights of Alaska Natives, and
    in a lengthy opinion that I wholeheartedly agree with,
    concluded that natives had unextinguished aboriginal rights
    that continued to be available for their use and protection and
    that the Federal Government had an obligation to protect.
        There was a short period when a smattering of reservations
    were created in Alaska pursuant to the Indian Reorganization
    Act and under the President's executive order authority. Those
    reservations typically were set aside for the protection of
    native hunting and fishing rights, as well as for a land base.
    As you know, all those reservations except one were
    extinguished when ANCSA was passed.
        The Statehood Act in 1959 provided that the State of Alaska
    should disclaim all right and title to native lands and to
    fishing rights. Fishing rights were mentioned in particular
    because of their extreme importance to Alaska Native people. It
    is commonly stated that Alaska achieved management of fish and
    game at the moment of statehood. That is not correct. The
    Statehood Act withheld State jurisdiction over fish and game
    pending a certification by the Secretary of the Interior that
    the State had an adequate regulatory regime in place. That
    certification came out of the Secretary of the Interior in
    1960.
        As the State of Alaska exercised its authority under the
    Statehood Act to select up to 100 million acres, and as the
    route for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline was put into existence and
    selections were made, native protests that were made to the
    Secretary of the Interior caused Secretary Stuart Udall to
    impose a land freeze on all conveyances of land out of the
    Federal public domain in recognition of native aboriginal
    hunting and fishing rights and aboriginal title.
        That land freeze and resulting political pressures brought
    about the adoption of the Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971.
    That Settlement Act did not provide for any protection for
    native hunting and fishing rights. It extinguished their
    existence and noted in the Conference Committee report that the
    conferees, the Senate and the House, expected the State of
    Alaska and the Secretary of the Interior to use their existing
    authority to protect and provide for native hunting and fishing
    rights in Alaska.
        One year after ANCSA was adopted, Congress preempted all
    State law in the Marine Mammal Protection Act and imposed a
    moratorium on the harvest of marine mammals. That statute,
    however, contained an exemption for Alaska Natives who dwell on
    the coast. The next year after that, 1973, the Endangered
    Species Act placed limits on the harvest of endangered species.
    Once again, a native exemption was included in the statute.
        By the late 1970's, it was quite clear that the Secretary
    of the Interior and the State of Alaska had failed to
    adequately provide for subsistence uses of fish and game by
    Alaska Natives as Congress had expected in 1971. In
    anticipation of the passage of title VIII of ANILCA, a State
    subsistence law was passed in 1978 providing for a preference
    for subsistence uses. At that same time, a bill was working its
    way through Congress to provide for a native subsistence
    priority. The State of Alaska objected to a native preference
    on the ground that it would be unable to administer a native
    priority under State law, and requested that it be changed to
    rural. Congress acquiesced in the State's request, and in 1980
    title VIII of ANILCA was passed, which provided for the rural
    preference for subsistence uses on public lands. The State
    would be entitled to manage resources on Federal public lands
    if it adopted a statewide law that mirrored ANILCA's protection
    for a rural preference.
        Now, State law provided a subsistence preference, but it
    did not have a limitation to rural areas. The State immediately
    ran into trouble with its own Supreme Court in 1985 when the
    Madison decision came down striking down State regulations that
    limited the subsistence preference to rural residents. The
    State legislature responded in 1986 with an amendment that put
    a rural preference into State law. That statute was in turn
    challenged in the McDowell case in which the Alaska Supreme
    Court ruled that the equal access provisions of the State
    Constitution precluded the State from providing a rural
    preference.
        The State made immediate efforts to amend the Constitution.
    Those failed and the Federal Government took over management of
    subsistence uses on Federal public lands in 1990. The
    Administration that took over subsistence management on the
    Federal level failed to assert any jurisdiction over navigable
    waterways in Alaska. As a result of that, the Katie John case
    was the gun. Katie John endorsed Charles of Dot Lake who
    brought litigation to force the Federal Government to apply the
    priority not only to Federal uplands, but also to Federal
    waters. They were successful in the Ninth Circuit Court of
    Appeals in 1995. There were a series of appropriations riders
    that precluded the Federal Government from implementing the
    takeover of these fisheries until 2000. In 2001, the Ninth
    Circuit revisited the Katie John case, and an 11-judge panel
    agreed that the 1995 decision was correct.
        So there you have it. As of today, the Federal Government
    administers the priority for subsistence uses by rural
    residents on all Federal uplands in Alaska and on approximately
    50 or 60 percent of the waters in the State. Very importantly,
    the fisheries protection does not extend to marine waters for
    the most part, although there is some litigation in Southeast
    Alaska about the legality of that. It seems likely that marine
    waters will not be included, and of course those are very
    important for subsistence uses.
        So given this litigation-driven and relatively
    unsatisfactory state of affairs, one might ask what could
    Congress do to provide for a uniform subsistence priority in
    Alaska. There is no doubt as a matter of Federal law that under
    the Indian commerce clause and the general commerce clause that
    Congress has the power to provide a native priority for
    subsistence uses on all land and water in Alaska, including
    State lands in Alaska, and certainly native corporation lands
    which are ironically not protected by the Federal priority
    right now. The Marine Mammal Protection Act that I mentioned
    earlier was passed in 1973. It provides a native exemption, and
    that exemption of course is chiefly utilized and important in
    State waters--those waters out from the mean high water mark to
    3 miles seaward. So Congress has the authority to provide a
    native preference if it chooses to do so.
        Similarly, if Congress chose to provide for a rural plus
    native priority, I believe that that would likewise pass
    constitutional muster. There are dozens of statutes that
    provide benefits for residents of rural areas throughout the
    United States. A challenge was brought by the same plaintiffs
    in the McDowell case to the Federal rural preference,
    attempting to mirror their success in the State court
    litigation. Federal District Judge Holland in 1994 in a lengthy
    opinion rejected the attack on the Federal rural preference. He
    found that it passed muster under the equal protection clause,
    that Congress clearly had the authority to adopt the rural
    preference. The Ninth Circuit ended up vacating that decision
    on technical grounds because the plaintiffs in the case had not
    shown standing, and the case is working its way through the
    Federal Court system again right now. But Judge Holland is
    already on record that the rural preference is permissible, and
    that seems clear as a matter of Federal constitutional law.
        One other issue that has been discussed is whether or not
    such a preemptive Federal statutory scheme could be made
    effective only on the vote of Alaskans. I have searched the
    U.S. Code and found a couple of obscure provisions in the
    banking law area where Congress has in fact preempted State law
    with respect to interest rate regulation and given States the
    authority to have a general election to decide whether or not
    they want to be preempted. So if that course were to be
    followed here, Congress could certainly authorize an election
    to determine whether a preemptive statute ought to be effective
    or not.
        That wraps up my testimony. I would be pleased to answer
    any questions or submit additional matters for the record, Mr.
    Chairman. Thank you very much for the opportunity to make a
    presentation.
        [Prepared statement of Mr. Anderson appears in appendix.]
        The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Anderson.
        Because the matter before us is a complex one that involves
    much law and litigation, would you say that since 1867 when
    every branch of the Government recognized the special rights
    and privileges of natives and protected such rights, that the
    present law, the ANILCA, has stood muster and is still
    constitutional?
        Mr. Anderson. Yes; I would say that ANILCA is
    constitutional in the sense that it provides a rural
    preference. The fact of the matter is that it was an
    experimental model for State/Federal cooperation, and the State
    government first was unable because of its Constitution to
    maintain its end of the bargain, and now appears to be
    unwilling to maintain its end of the bargain because the
    legislature will not let the people vote on a constitutional
    amendment.
        The Chairman. What percentage of fish and game harvested in
    Alaska are taken by commercial or sports users?
        Mr. Anderson. I am going to turn that around and say that
    less than 2 percent of fish and game taken for any purpose in
    Alaska are taken for subsistence uses. As to the division
    between sport and commercial, that is the other 98 percent. I
    do not know how they are divided up.
        The Chairman. So what is involved is just a small almost
    unidentifiable amount of fish and wildlife?
        Mr. Anderson. That is correct.
        The Chairman. Where does the majority of this subsistence
    activity take place--on Federal or State lands?
        Mr. Anderson. Well, I think it is split between the two.
    There is a lot of Federal land in Alaska so the Federal lands
    are very important. The Federal Government does not have
    interests in all the waters in Alaska, so I think that many of
    the subsistence activities that take place in marine waters are
    extremely important, especially in Southeast Alaska, and those
    are not covered. There are lengthy stretches of the major
    rivers like the Yukon-Kuskokwim and Copper River that are not--
    not the Copper River--but other rivers in Northwest Alaska that
    are not covered by the Federal priority. So I would say there
    are very substantial areas that are not protected by the
    Federal priority.
        The Chairman. Dr. Worl, on April 6, your governor announced
    that he will convene a special session of the legislature on
    May 15. Do you have any hope in the outcome?
        Ms. Worl. Senator, the Alaska Federation of Natives has--we
    have gone to the State legislature. We have supported a
    constitutional amendment I think about fives times now in five
    different special sessions. We are hopeful that this
    legislature might pass a constitutional amendment. We had a
    vote in Anchorage where 70 percent of the Anchorage voters said
    that they wanted the State of Alaska to resolve this issue
    through a constitutional amendment. However, unless that vote
    in Anchorage persuades some of the urban legislators to change
    their mind, I do not know. I am just--I have to say that I am
    not really optimistic about it.
        The Chairman. I have a few other questions, Dr. Worl. In
    your testimony, you have stated that for Alaska Natives,
    subsistence means a way of life. Does this hunting, fishing and
    gathering way of life still provide a food base for Alaska
    Native families?
        Ms. Worl. Absolutely. We have very good data provided by
    the State Department of Fish and Game that really shows the
    significance of the food consumption. I think Mary Pete from
    the Subsistence Division may be speaking to quantifying how
    much that is. But if we did not have it in rural Alaska today,
    and you will hear some testimony about the shortages that we
    have had on the Yukon with the fisheries there and the impacts
    that it has had on those communities, if we did not have
    subsistence protections, if we were not able to do that, I
    would say as I have said, we would have hungry people in
    Alaska.
        The Chairman. So it is a matter of life and death in some
    cases.
        Ms. Worl. It is absolutely critical. There are some studies
    that will say that subsistence supplants 20 percent of your
    diet. If you take 20 percent of that diet away, you are still
    hungry. So it is critical and it varies from community to
    community.
        The Chairman. Mr. Akootchook, from your experience, if
    subsistence priorities were not granted you, would you have
    been able to carry on your family?
        Mr. Akootchook. Yes; it is really important to our family--
    the fishing and hunting is terrible and all those things for
    us.
        The Chairman. You did not do the hunting just for sport,
    did you?
        Mr. Akootchook. No.
        The Chairman. It is for your livelihood.
        Mr. Akootchook. Livelihood, yes.
        The Chairman. And it provided food for your children and
    your family?
        Mr. Akootchook. Exactly. It was another way for our family
    to go whaling and we would always share always on the North
    Slope and people living in Fairbanks, and we always share with
    this with the whale.
        The Chairman. If this was taken away from you, would your
    family starve?
        Mr. Akootchook. Pardon me?
        The Chairman. If the right to fish and hunt was taken away
    from you, would your family starve?
        Mr. Akootchook. No; I will let my daughter answer that
    because I really have not English very well.
        Ms. Angasan. Hi. My name is Ida Angasan. I am the daughter
    of Isaac Akootchook. The answer to your question is, well, all
    I can say is long ago when my grandfather and his family went
    from one place to another, they were starving. I remember my
    dad telling us that sometimes they would have fish. Other times
    there was no meat. So they went from one place to another
    throughout the border of Alaska to Kaftovik, to Flatman Island,
    Brownley Point, to the mountains, and then toward Barrow for
    our subsistence way of life. So we need our subsistence way of
    life. Thank you.
        The Chairman. I thank you very much.
        And I would like to thank the first panel. I have many more
    questions, but since we have a whole list of witnesses, I will
    be submitting, Dr. Worl if I may, a few written questions to
    you.
        Ms. Worl. Thank you very much, Senator. We will leave you
    the photo and also this news article about them.
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        Our second panel consists of the vice president of Bristol
    Bay Native Association of Dillingham, Andy Golia; the president
    of the Association of Village Council Presidents of Bethel, AK,
    Arthur Lake; fisheries specialist, Tanana Chiefs Conference of
    Fairbanks, George Yaska; the executive director of the Alaska
    Nanuuq Commission of Nome, AK, Charles Johnson; and the
    executive director of Southeast Alaska Intertribal Fish and
    Wildlife Commission of Juneau, Gordon Jackson.
        Mr. Golia.

      STATEMENT OF ANDY GOLIA, VICE PRESIDENT, BRISTOL BAY NATIVE
                              ASSOCIATION

        Mr. Golia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members.
        My name is Andy Golia and I am a resident of Dillingham,
    AK. It is a community located on the Bering Sea coast about 300
    miles southwest of Anchorage. During the winter months, I work
    as the program manager for economic development for the Bristol
    Bay Native Association. In the summer, I am a drift gillnet
    salmon fisherman in Bristol Bay's commercial salmon fishery.
        I am honored here to testify on behalf of Harvey Samuelsen
    whom you invited to testify. I would like to apologize to the
    chairman. Harvey asked that I present the chairman with an
    American veteran's cap and I told him I would. I failed to pick
    up that cap from Harvey to get to you.
        With that, our region known as the Bristol Bay region
    covers about 40,000 square miles and includes 30 villages and 9
    major river systems. It also includes the richest and most
    productive salmon habitat in the world. Our relationship to
    that fishery and the land and water that sustain us are defined
    by our subsistence customs and practices that are essential to
    our way of life.
        Approximately 90 percent of the village residents in our
    region are Alaska Natives. Like other natives across Alaska, we
    have practiced a subsistence lifestyle for many generations to
    feed our families and to supplement our cash incomes.
    Subsistence traditions govern our family, community, and
    economic systems and define who we are as a people. We do not
    consider subsistence a recreational activity. It is a way of
    life.
        The Bristol Bay commercial salmon fishery is the economic
    base of our region. It has provided us with the cash we need to
    build and heat our homes, maintain our school system and feed
    our families. Nearly two-thirds of our households derive more
    than 80 percent of their income directly from the fishery. Our
    sons and daughters grew up in this tradition and expect to
    commercially fish.
        However, in recent years, our fishery has collapsed. The
    main reason why our commercial salmon fishery has fallen apart
    is because of the farmed salmon industry. The farmed salmon
    industry has glutted world salmon markets and driven salmon
    prices down. We have seen our salmon prices drop from a high of
    $2.25 a pound back in 1988 to just 40 cents a pound last
    summer. In 1997 and in 1998, our fishery was declared an
    economic disaster by both the State and Federal Governments
    because of failed salmon runs, and again by the State in 2001
    because of weak salmon prices. We have been declared an
    economic disaster 3 out of the last 5 years and it does not
    look good for this upcoming fishing season; 10 years ago,
    Bristol Bay's salmon fishery had as many as 2 dozen salmon
    buyers. We are just down to eight today.
        Over the last 2 years, we have seen a significant number of
    villagers leaving their communities. Back in 1990, Chignik Bay
    had a population of 190. Today, its population is down to 48.
    Folks are looking for jobs elsewhere because very few jobs are
    available in the villages.
        We have villagers moving out of Naknek, South Naknek, Pilot
    Point, and Port Heiden. Schools in these particular communities
    are on the verge of being shut down because they do not have
    enough students to operate the school.
        I guess my point here is our region is going through a very
    difficult time. Usually when we have a bad fishing season, we
    rely more heavily on subsistence hunting and fishing to
    survive. But this is just not a bad business season for Bristol
    Bay. The long-term outlook for salmon prices in our region
    looks grim.
        I just want to say that I guess the other reason why we
    need to hunt and fish out in Bristol Bay, Dr. Worl indicated
    that the cost of living is extremely high. The University of
    Alaska Cooperative Extension Service completed a cost of food
    study on 20 communities in Alaska, and Dillingham residents pay
    among the highest in the State for food. It costs an average of
    about $190 per week to feed a family of four. This amounts to
    about $760 a month. In comparison, Anchorage residents pay $101
    per week and Portland, OR residents pay $87 per week--or less
    than one-half of what we pay in Dillingham. One gallon of milk
    in Dillingham costs $6.48. We pay $2.59 for a gallon of
    gasoline. We also pay about 23 cents per kilowatt hour for
    electricity, or twice as much as what Anchorage residents pay.
    In some of our villages, they have to pay $4 a gallon for 1
    gallon of gasoline, $3 a gallon for home heating fuel, and 45
    cents per kilowatt hour for electricity.
        Essentially what I am saying is that because of the high
    cost of living, we save through subsistence harvest to help
    heat and light our homes.
        I would like to close by making just a couple of other
    points here. On the Alaska Peninsula, there has been a decline
    of the Northern Alaska caribou herd. In 1975, this herd
    numbered 25,000. Today, the herd is down to 6,000. In spite of
    this decline and the dependence of subsistence hunters on this
    food source, this year the State awarded 400 statewide permits
    to hunt this herd, while Federal subsistence management awarded
    only 40 permits for 11 villages.
        We are also seeing a growing number of native allotment
    donors selling their native allotments so they could pay their
    bills. These allotments are being sold in many cases to outside
    interests who do not always share our subsistence traditions.
    They seek economic gain by building sports hunting and fishing
    lodges that compete against us for fish and game resources. We
    have approximately 104 parcels of native allotments in Bristol
    Bay for sale right now.
        That concludes my testimony. Thank you.
        [Prepared statement of Mr. Golia appears in appendix.]
        The Chairman. Thank you very much. I note that most of the
    witnesses are summarizing their statements and I thank you for
    that. I can assure you that your full statement will be made
    part of the record.
        Our next witness is President Lake.

      STATEMENT OF ARTHUR LAKE, PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION OF VILLAGE
                           COUNCIL PRESIDENTS

        Mr. Lake. Mr. Chairman, the Honorable Senator Inouye,
    [statement in native language.]
        Senator Inouye, my name is Arthur J. Lake. I am here to
    speak concerning subsistence, and that introduction, sir, is
    one of the basic reasons why there are so many problems with
    subsistence in Alaska.
        I am the president of the Association of Village Council
    Presidents for the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Yup'ik Eskimo. Our
    offices are located in Bethel, AK in Southwest Alaska. We have
    submitted written testimony for the record. What I am going to
    say here is more personal because subsistence is such a
    personal issue to all the people of my region.
        To the Government, the issue of managing hunting, fishing
    and gathering comes down to a question of control. But to the
    Yup'ik, it is our very survival. There is not enough vocabulary
    in the English language to give our term ``Nerangnaq Saraq'' an
    adequate definition, but what it comes down to in its awesome
    simplicity is this, ``Nerangnaq Saraq'' defines us--the Yup'ik/
    Cup'ik and other Alaska Natives. The non-native term is
    ``Subsistence.''
        Ellam-yua, the Great Spirit or God, put the Yup'ik on this
    earth to play a pivotal role in our environment. We are part of
    the giving land and living resources of the Delta. We play a
    role of the natural cycles of life. We take, but we give. It is
    our responsibility to act as keepers and protectors of the
    land. Our practices of ``Subsistence'' is equivalent to the
    taking of a sacrament. In the taking of a wild fish or animal,
    we honor its spirit for being put on this earth to provide for
    us, feed and clothe us, for sustaining us in such an
    environment we find ourselves in. Despite a demonstrated
    history of sustainable customary and traditional use of the
    world around us, our hunter and gatherer society has been held
    in limbo over who gets to control our harvest rights.
        We are the last of the great hunters and gatherers of North
    America. We practice our birthright and legacy every day. We
    also happen to reside in a national wildlife refuge, a public
    land the size of the State of Washington. We also have State
    public lands located within our region. We are constantly at
    the mercy and whim of environmental trends that are meant to
    form blanket restrictions on all public lands, thereby
    unwittingly restricting and denying our modest access, use and
    activities required for ``Subsistence.''
        Our practices reflect migratory patterns. We had been a
    nomadic people up until about 50 years ago, and still are in
    spirit and emotion. We still maintain seasonal campsites
    because as seasons change, so does our quest for fresh food--
    cyclical natures that can both gratify and humble us, reward us
    or punish us. There were times of starvation where elders and
    young, sometimes whole families in villages perished. In our
    past, there was nothing more humbling than dying hungry, to
    remind in us the inherent value in protecting the resources to
    satisfy our subsistence needs today.
        We may not have had Western science, but our traditional
    knowledge and techniques still manage to achieve sustainable
    conservation and a natural balance. We knew when to restrict
    ourselves when a species was in trouble. We knew how to
    practice predator control and enhance habitats. Our region is
    so vast and yielding and has different characteristics from one
    village area to the next. What is as easy for a sufficiently
    infrastructured community resident to do in a few minutes in
    the supermarket would take 1 day or up to 1 week for a native
    hunter or gatherer to harvest in the Y-K Delta. Our
    ``Subsistence'' diet affects our daily lives, yet we work very
    hard for it because we eat what we have known for a millennia.
    Alaska and Federal regulations require permits and licenses.
    How can we have a piece of paper to allow us to practice our
    customary and traditional ``Subsistence'' activities? It is
    like asking one of your constituent shoppers to get a permit to
    go into a Safeway or a Giant supermarket. Some regulatory
    attempts have even asked us to prove ourselves indigent in
    order to qualify for our ``Subsistence'' rights. Such attempts
    demean the nobility of our practices of providing for our
    families. We should not have to choose to be poor in order to
    practice our heritage and feed our families. It is a part of
    our culture.
        Our ancestors, our parents, and our children eat our native
    foods because it is our food. I promise you, even if I won the
    lottery, which I did not yesterday, and became a millionaire, I
    would still eat, I would still crave uqsuq or tepa, that is
    fermented fish heads, a traditional food that would be to you a
    repugnant smell. To me, it is a delicacy and our people will
    continue to eat that kind of food despite the availability of
    other kinds of foods.
        Our hunting and gathering practices are not easy. We battle
    the Arctic elements and sometimes risk our lives to feed our
    families to find the wild foods we crave. Our surviving
    ``Subsistence'' way of life is one of the last great vestiges
    in our self-preservation and sustaining society.
        My verbal testimony is required to be short, and while it
    is impossible to tell you how important ``Subsistence'' is, my
    written testimony is more detailed in an effort to attribute
    some credit to this way of life. The only way to know
    ``Subsistence'' is to live it and experience it. It is a wonder
    to behold, and we are honored to continue its practice as a
    tribute to our ancestors and their legacy.
        It is not an easy life, but it is ours. It is our duty and
    our obligation to save it and preserve our culture, our way of
    life. Our forefathers, the ones before us, and Ellam-yua gave
    us the gift of ``Subsistence,'' the gift of life, and we will
    never give that up.
        In reference to Mr. Golia's statements 1 minute ago, we
    have the highest cost of living in the poorest area of the
    Nation.
        Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing, for
    giving us a chance to put a voice to something so very
    important to such a small population. I will be happy to answer
    any questions that you may have.
        Quyana. Thank you.
        [Prepared statement of Mr. Lake appears in appendix.]
        The Chairman. Well, Mr. Lake, Mr. President, I thank you
    very much for your very moving statement.
        May I now call on Mr. Yaska.

     STATEMENT OF GEORGE YASKA, FISHERIES SPECIALIST, TANANA CHIEF
                               CONFERENCE

        Mr. Yaska. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        My name is George Yaska. My comments today reflect the
    testimony, the position of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, a
    consortium of 42 tribes in the interior of Alaska. I have been
    wanting to talk for many years about a truer subsistence
    priority, and that is a priority that is difficult to reflect
    in law, and definitely in practice. We have been thinking about
    a true subsistence priority for many years. I first raised this
    issue after, oh, roughly a decade of seeing ANILCA on the
    ground, managed both public lands and on State lands and on
    native lands.
        A true subsistence priority is difficult to come by,
    especially when we do not have a full-time priority. I think
    that is the case in Alaska now, but for the folks who are not
    here today, I have to speak for them and their thoughts. They
    are the real experts. I was called, I suppose, because at my
    company in the Doyon region, I am regarded as a natural
    resource expert. The real experts, though, are back there in
    40-plus villages within the Yukon and Kuskokwim drainages in
    the interior of Alaska.
        They are the folks who have to live there everyday, who
    have to compete with guided moose hunters and hundreds,
    thousands of trophy moose hunters, and commercial fishermen
    throughout the Nation. Oftentimes, our true subsistence
    priority is not apparent. Although we may at times have a
    bountiful resource, we practice strong management. We advocate
    for the best management possible. We work with all the managing
    agencies--the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Fish
    and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service,
    all of the convening commissions and boards. We rarely ever get
    to reap those benefits, when at times we do expect and produce,
    rather the earth produces a bountiful resource, commercial and
    sports users are always first in line and actually highly
    competitive in the arena of harvest, and often gain the
    greatest benefit.
        So those folks back there have asked me to say that the
    subsistence priority is not always in effect. Although we may
    have a bountiful resource, there may not be a need for
    subsistence priorities seemingly. There is just a limited
    amount of land and a limited amount of resource, and they want
    me to say that they need a true subsistence priority.
        I also work, Mr. Chairman, on a number of comanagement
    agreements, and I wanted to speak briefly about those today and
    express the Tanana Chiefs Conference true appreciation for your
    work in gaining funds for research on the cause of the decline
    of salmon in Alaska. The Arctic Yukon Kuskokwim Coalition has
    begun that research with the National Marine Fisheries Service,
    the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and the U.S. Fish and
    Wildlife Service. Some $5 million--we may be pairing that with
    other resources here real soon. I think there are some real
    clues about where we might be going with that. So again, thank
    you for that, Mr. Chairman.
        I did want to say and speak about the K River team,
    probably one of our better accomplishments--a longstanding
    arrangement with a moose management working group back along
    the Koyokuk River who has worked with the Alaska Department of
    Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for about
    8 years, 9 years. They are finally beginning to come close to a
    negotiated agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
    Federal agencies, non-BIA-DOI agencies, to assist in the
    management of the Koyokuk and Kanuti National Wildlife Refuges.
        It has been, though, a long struggle, as many things are
    different in Alaska relative to the rest of the Nation. It has
    been a long struggle. If we had a mandate that would allow us
    to work on this in an easier fashion with the Federal agencies,
    but now the Federal agencies can walk away from the table and
    that is perfectly fine. They do not have to stay at the table.
    So it has been a struggle to keep them at the table. But I just
    wanted to say that we are finally getting there, Mr. Chairman,
    and with a bit more help, with your help, I think we can
    weather these difficulties.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        [Prepared statement of Mr. Yaska appears in appendix.]
        The Chairman. I thank you very much, Mr. Yaska.
        May I now call upon Mr. Johnson.

    STATEMENT OF CHARLES JOHNSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ALASKA NANUUQ
                               COMMISSION

        Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I would like to thank Art and George Yaska for making
    introductory remarks for my statement, which is on
    comanagement. Mr. Lake introduced the topic of how do we deal
    with management issues, how do we manage our subsistence. And
    George raised the issue of comanagement. That is what my
    statement is about.
        This is the heart and soul of Alaska Native people--
    subsistence. Through the generations, subsistence has taught us
    to be the stewards of the land and waters that support us; to
    take what we need and to return to the land what we do not
    need. We are taught not to waste and to share. With a respect
    for and a thorough knowledge of the environment, our ancestors
    were able to survive and even thrive in the harshest conditions
    because we managed our harvest. The principle of not wasting
    meant that we understood the principle of a sustainable
    harvest.
        The 1994 reauthorization of the Marine Mammal Protection
    Act allowed the Secretaries of the Interior and Commerce to
    enter into, quote, ``cooperative agreements'' with Alaska
    Native organizations for the management of the subsistence
    harvest of marine mammals. Comanagement began in Alaska in 1977
    when the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission signed an agreement
    with NOAA to manage the harvest of bowhead whales. This
    comanagement agreement was successful because of the vast
    knowledge of the whaling captains that they had on the behavior
    and the numbers of the bowhead whales, and their willingness to
    share this information with the management agencies, and the
    Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission development of self-regulation
    and the resolve to abide by these regulations, and the
    willingness of NOAA to consider the traditional knowledge held
    by the whaling captains and augment that knowledge with new
    scientific techniques and equipment, and the willingness of
    NOAA to share management responsibility with the Alaska Eskimo
    Whaling Commission, and to support shared management.
        The Alaska Nanuuq Commission, which I represent, was
    organized in 1994 to represent the hunters and villages in
    North and Northwest Alaska in the negotiation of the United
    States-Russia Polar Bear Treaty. Thanks to the Native American
    policy developed by the late director of the U.S. Fish and
    Wildlife Service, Mollie Beattie, the Alaska Nanuuq Commission
    became a full partner with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife in the
    negotiation of the treaty. This treaty was signed on October 16
    here in Washington, DC in the year 2000. The treaty is unique
    in that it recognizes the traditional knowledge of the native
    peoples of both Alaska and Russia, and provides for their full
    and equal participation in setting harvest limits and the
    management of the subsistence harvest of the polar bear.
        When the Russian Ambassador to the United States, Yurie
    Ushakov, signed the treaty, he declared that it was the most
    democratic treaty that Russia had ever signed. Once the treaty
    is ratified, the Alaska Nanuuq Commission will have achieved a
    level of comanagement that only the Alaska Eskimo Whaling
    Commission has reached. The Alaska Nanuuq Commission is now
    developing a native-to-native agreement to implement the treaty
    with the Association of Traditional Marine Mammal Hunters of
    Chukotka, which represents the native people of Chukotka in
    Russia.
        Other successful comanagement agreements beside the Alaska
    Eskimo Whaling Commission and the Alaska Nanuuq Commission
    include, but this is not a complete list, this is just a
    sample, the Alaska Native Harbor Seal Commission with National
    Marine Fisheries on harbor seals; the Alaska Sea Otter and
    Stellar Sea Lion Commission with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and
    the National Marine Fisheries on sea otters and sea lions; the
    Alaska Beluga Committee with NOAA on beluga; the Eskimo Walrus
    Commission with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife on walrus; and the
    Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta Goose Management Plan between the
    Association of Village Council Presidents and the U.S. Fish and
    Wildlife.
        You will note, Mr. Chairman, that all of these agreements
    are between Alaska Native groups and Federal agencies. We just
    heard of one with the State, and those are very rare. With the
    exception of the Goose Management Plan, the agreements cover
    marine mammals, which have specific legislation--the
    aforementioned Marine Mammal Protection Act. But the same
    principles can be applied to terrestrial species and to fish.
    We have a history of successfully working with the agencies
    that go back for more than 25 years. With the Federal
    Government now in control of subsistence in much of Alaska,
    this is a great opportunity that these comanagement agreements
    be extended to the regional nonprofit, as George mentioned
    about the Tanana Chiefs, and to other Alaska Native tribes.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        [Prepared statement of Mr. Johnson appears in appendix.]
        The Chairman. I thank you, Mr. Johnson.
        May I now recognize Mr. Jackson.

      STATEMENT OF GORDON JACKSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SOUTHEAST
            ALASKA INTERTRIBAL FISH AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION

        Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        My name is Gordon Jackson. I represent the Central Council
    Tlingit-Haida Indians of Alaska. We are a member of the
    Southeast Alaska Intertribal Fish and Wildlife Commission. On
    behalf of Chairman Matthew Kookesh, I would like to thank you
    for hosting this hearing this afternoon.
        Over the last year, we have organized many of the tribes by
    resolution to address many of the subsistence and commercial
    fishing problems in Southeast Alaska. There are many. Like I
    said, the Commission is composed of a member from each of the
    tribes in Southeast Alaska. One of the areas that we started
    looking at immediately was the comanagement of fish and game in
    Southeast Alaska. We feel that it is a great solution to many
    of the problems relating to subsistence and commercial fishing.
        As a member of the Central Council, I am also a member of
    the Migratory Bird Commission. As a commission which is
    composed of members of the State and Federal agencies and the
    12 regions throughout the whole State, we meet quarterly and
    review the statistics, promulgate rules and regulations for the
    taking of migratory birds and eggs for subsistence users. The
    relationship is very professional and everyone takes their
    responsibilities very seriously. The relationship between the
    tribes, State, and Federal agencies is very good, and we have
    learned to trust one another and to secure the best possible
    policies to protect the subsistence user and the resources.
        We do not take too many birds in Southeast Alaska, and we
    have proposed the promulgation of taking of sea gull eggs
    outside of Glacier Bay. But just getting together with the
    folks from the Yukon-Kuskokwim area and talking about such
    things as the goose management plan gave us a great
    understanding of the Southeast people as to the value of
    migratory birds within their region, and have given them our
    support and helped to develop and promulgate rules and
    regulations with them so that that resource continues into the
    future.
        Another member of the Central Council also is a member of
    the Marine Mammal Commission, and also the Harbor Seal
    Commission. His name is Harold Martin. Those Commissions are
    comanagement organizations, and Harold Martin has explained to
    me that that comanagement plan works really well, very similar
    to the Migratory Bird Treaty. Over the last few days, the North
    Pacific Fisheries Management Council authorized subsistence
    fishery for rural residents and tribes throughout the whole
    State. In those provisions, they allow for some agreements with
    tribes and governments for harvesting and monitoring and
    planning and other issues relating to subsistence use of
    halibut.
        On the Commission, we have started to look at the effects
    of the Pacific Salmon Treaty as it relates to subsistence and
    commercial fishing. We have met with the Columbia River
    Intertribal Fish Commission and really feel very strongly that
    we need to address that so that we are responsive.
        One of the things that--one of the studies that we just
    finished as a Commission was a regulation and review of all the
    rules and regulations relating to subsistence in Southeast
    Alaska as it relates to Southeast Alaska Natives, and also all
    the court cases. We find that a lot of them are real different
    from one end of Southeast Alaska to another--in fact, village
    to village. The State and Federal agencies address it
    completely different, and we feel real strongly that some kind
    of comanagement system in which communication between all the
    entities would give better understanding of the way people live
    and the policies that affect them would provide for a better
    system of management throughout the region.
        Southeast Alaska tribes are surrounded by Federal land,
    with some State, Federal, and native corporation lands
    sprinkled throughout the region. It is one of the goals of the
    Southeast Intertribal Fish and Wildlife Commission to initiate
    management plans throughout the region. Indeed, we have already
    had some success with comanagement plans for sockeye streams
    that have been identified by local communities for taking of
    sockeye for subsistence. We really believe in a comanagement
    system that goes to the lowest common denominator to be a good
    system.
        Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Jackson.
        May I ask the panel members to just stand by because we
    will be asking questions when the last remaining four witnesses
    have concluded.
        May I now call upon the chairman of the Alaska Inter-Tribal
    Council of Anchorage, Mike Williams; and the executive director
    of the Rural Alaska Community Action Program of Anchorage,
    Jeanine Kennedy.
        Chairman Williams.

       STATEMENT OF MIKE WILLIAMS, CHAIRMAN, ALASKA INTER-TRIBAL
                                COUNCIL

        Mr. Williams. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the
    committee.
        My name is Mike Williams. I am currently the chairman of
    the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, and also Juneau-area vice
    president for the National Congress of American Indians, and
    also on the board of the Native American Rights Fund.
        On behalf of the 188 tribal governments who are members of
    the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, I want to express thanks to
    this committee for taking time to hear our concerns about
    subsistence. More than that, Senator Inouye, I wish to add
    thanks to individual tribal members, many, many of whom in this
    year of 2002 hunt, fish, and gather not only for themselves and
    their families, but to share the bounty of the land and waters
    with others in their communities as has been our tradition for
    hundreds and thousands of years. Thank you for listening to us.
        The great majority of our people have never left Alaska.
    Some rarely ever leave immediate vicinity of their villages. I
    think it is true to say that many do not read newspapers, and
    for them a legal brief is an alien document. Policies and
    written laws and regulations are likewise foreign concepts.
    Their idea of a law is what they were taught by parents or
    elders as they set out to learn how to support themselves from
    the land.
        Increasingly, Mr. Chairman, they are feeling the stress of
    ever more restrictive regulation, ever narrowing seasons,
    decreasing fish stocks and game populations. Some of our people
    do deal on daily basis with the task of maintaining legal
    protections for our way of life. What they have fought over the
    past 20 or 30 years are more or less public relations and
    policy battles, for historic accuracy, for regulatory fairness,
    for semantic truth.
        When we speak of historic accuracy, what we want people to
    remember is the reason why title VIII of the Alaska National
    Interest Lands Conservation Act exists. Let me read into the
    record today that reason, as set forth by the late Congressman
    Morris Udall on November 12, 1980. ANILCA fully reflects the
    commitment that was made to the Alaska Native people when their
    land claims were passed by Congress. Although there are many
    non-natives living a subsistence way of life in rural Alaska,
    the subsistence title would not be included in the bill if non-
    native subsistence activities were the primary focus of
    concern. Rather, the subsistence title and other subsistence
    provisions are included in recognition of the ongoing
    responsibility of Congress to protect the opportunity for
    continued subsistence uses in Alaska by Alaska Native people--a
    responsibility which is consistent with our well-recognized
    constitutional authority to manage Indian affairs.
        Today, there are people who would like Congress to think
    that ANILCA was promulgated in a kind of policy vacuum without
    consideration for the aboriginal rights of our people who
    earned those rights by using and occupying vast amounts of
    Alaska for subsistence. Without that history of aboriginal use
    and occupancy, there would have been no basis for our land
    claims.
        When we speak of regulatory fairness, we speak of a
    situation where our people's subsistence needs and concerns
    have been pushed to the bottom of the agendas for the Alaska
    State Board of Fish and Game. Time after time, we have seen our
    proposals voted down because the State system requires
    management by agencies who are staffed by political appointees.
    And politics, being what it is, those appointees represent
    well-funded, well-organized commercial fishers and sport
    hunters and fishers.
        Mr. Chairman, our tribes would have liked to support State
    management of subsistence because we are not only tribal
    citizens, we are also Alaskan citizens. But it is difficult, if
    not impossible, to support a system that routinely neglects the
    needs of tribal hunters, fishers and gatherers.
        Finally, Mr. Chairman, I speak of semantic truth. That word
    ``semantic'' comes from the French word ``semantique,'' which
    in turn derived from the old Greek work ``semantikos.'' Their
    meaning stems from the verb ``to signify,'' which comes from
    yet an older word meaning ``to mark.'' We in Alaska have
    watched a small, but politically powerful group of people
    attempt to mark out the boundaries of the subsistence issue.
        They have almost succeeded in convincing the general public
    that the subsistence issue is one centered around geography and
    discrimination. The two arguments are condensed into their
    strident statement that legal protection of subsistence in the
    Federal law in ANILCA amounts to discrimination by zip code,
    which brings us back to accuracy in reporting history. Title
    VIII of ANILCA says that Federal law shall protect not Alaska
    Natives or tribes, but rural Alaska residents. That language
    stems from the compromise that our leaders reluctantly accepted
    at the time ANILCA was passed by Congress. We accepted it
    because our villages were, and many still are, located in
    remote and rural areas of Alaska. But we have never forgotten
    Morris Udall's assurances that the original intent of title
    VIII was to protect the ability of our villages to support
    themselves from the land and waters of Alaska.
        Since the enactment of our land claims, the Alaska Native
    people have expended untold cost in dollars, human resources
    and the attendant social stresses on our people, on the
    subsistence issue that is before you today. It is the position
    of the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council that we would have been
    better able to direct our precious resources towards improving
    the quality of life for our tribal members if our aboriginal
    hunting and fishing rights had not been extinguished at the
    time our land claims were settled in 1971.
        On April 2, the city of Anchorage included on its municipal
    elections ballot a question: Should Alaska's voters be allowed
    to vote on the subsistence issue? The result was an
    uncompromising yes. In spite of that outcome, the leaders of
    the legislative majority were quoted in the Anchorage Daily
    News as saying they would still oppose a State law to protect
    subsistence. Instead, they said they will continue to push for
    changes to title VIII of ANILCA.
        I call on this committee to lead an effort to place this
    issue back where it belongs, in the hands of Congress. Felix
    Cohen said this Nation's founding fathers acted in wisdom to
    place the affairs of tribes in your hands. After all, the
    States of this Union are committed by law and by politics to
    consider the desires and needs of every one of their citizens
    regardless of race. Tribes, as few in number as we are, are
    vulnerable to the nearsighted policies necessitated by that
    fact. Only Congress possesses the political objectivity that
    can see beyond the parochial fights to the best interest of
    tribes, their governments and their members.
        We would like this committee to consider carefully a
    proposal to repeal the section of the Alaska Native Claims
    Settlement Act which extinguished our aboriginal hunting and
    fishing rights. You have that power.
        Quyana Chuknook.
        [Prepared statement of Mr. Williams appears in appendix.]
        The Chairman. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        And now may I call upon Ms. Kennedy.

    STATEMENT OF JEANINE KENNEDY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, RURAL ALASKA
      COMMUNITY ACTION PROGRAM, INC., ON BEHALF OF DONNE FLEAGLE,
     PRESIDENT, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, ACCOMPANIED BY EILEEN NORBERT,
                EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, KAWERAK, INC.

        Ms. Kennedy. Thank you.
        My name is Jeanine Kennedy and I have a voice impediment.
    And once my voice starts working, I am okay, so I just want to
    put you at ease.
        I am here, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, to
    testify for my board president, Donne Fleagle, who intended to
    be here, but at the last minute could not. The Rural Alaska
    Community Action Program, also known as RurAL CAP, is a
    statewide organization that was founded in 1965. I am very
    proud to say, as I sat here and listened to some of the
    testimony, the role that RurAL CAP has played in giving
    grassroots people a voice at the local level.
        RurAL CAP provides education, information, training, and
    advocacy in approximately 70 villages at the current time. And
    in that process, we bring people together to learn what their
    ideas are and to help them to be able to come together and
    meet. Many of the comanagement groups that came into being
    started with the Rural Alaska Resources Association, which
    brought people together to talk about how we could get
    legislation to give comanagement abilities to the people. We
    followed the model that started in Kwefla, when the tribes out
    there had a management agreement with the Feds for the caribou.
    And then, of course, that was followed by the Goose Management
    Plan.
        Just recently, we have been working with a group called the
    working group on getting halibut as a subsistence food. We had
    a major success. The chairman of that group, Matt Kookesh had
    been working since 1981 to come up with agreements wherein
    people could manage at their local level with the Federal
    Government, and now that has come into being.
        RurAL CAP is governed by a 24-member board of directors
    that represents virtually every sector of Alaska, public and
    private, rural and urban, native and non-native. While we have
    programs whose focus includes urban residents, our closest
    partners, as I have said, are the people of village Alaska. In
    1999, our board met in Fairbanks, and as we do periodically, we
    took a survey and made a plan among the board members about
    what their main priorities were. Of course, subsistence was
    number one.
        I was born and raised in Alaska. My mother, who was
    Athabascan; my father was non-native. I can remember very early
    on before I was 1-year-old swishing through the forest in a dog
    sled as my mother checked her traps, and in the spring being in
    the back of her parka when she checked her muskrats.
        So subsistence is important to me, as it is for the people
    that I work for.
        Increasingly, the activities of subsistence are coming
    under more and more attack--first, from non-native Alaskans,
    many of whom came to our State because they place a value on
    the land and the wild resources; from the State of Alaska which
    opposed the inclusion of language specifically protecting
    Alaska Native subsistence in ANILCA title VIII; from an
    increasing majority of Alaska residents who are not well-versed
    on Alaska Native history, including knowledge of how our land
    claims were settled and why there is a title VIII of ANILCA--
    there would not have been a title VIII in ANILCA if there had
    not been indigenous peoples, that is why that title VIII is
    there; finally, from a majority of the Alaska State legislature
    who would like to amend away the subsistence protection in
    title VIII.
        As you know very well, the State of Alaska would like to
    regain management over subsistence on all of Alaska's public
    lands, including the 60 percent that is in Federal lands. Title
    VIII of ANILCA requires that an essential component of State
    subsistence management is a State law that mirrors the Federal
    subsistence protection contained in title VIII. That
    requirement is at the center of the so-called subsistence
    impasse, which your committee addresses today.
        The Alaska Constitution was approved by Congress in 1958.
    It includes a section which says that all of Alaska's natural
    resources are to be reserved for the common use of all Alaskan
    citizens. Those who oppose the Federal subsistence protections
    in title VIII of ANILCA have used the Alaska Constitution as a
    weapon against the Alaska Native way of life. The legislative
    majority, and their mostly non-native constituents, are a lobby
    in Congress to change ANILCA, instead of changing the State
    Constitution to allow a State subsistence protection law.
        Over the last several years, Alaska Governor Tony Knowles
    has mounted a campaign which he says will make things better.
    During his 8 years as Governor, he has called no less than four
    special sessions to address subsistence. In fact, last month he
    called yet for another special session which will begin May 15.
    In 1996, the Governor appointed a task force to hold hearings.
    That task force issued a report in 1997 which recommended the
    issue be presented to voters to ask whether they support an
    amendment to the State Constitution.
        The Governor's task force also recommended changes which
    they termed technical to title VIII of ANILCA. It must be noted
    here that the Alaska Native community, including the Alaska
    Inter-Tribal Council, RurAL CAP, and the Alaska Federation of
    Natives voiced opposition to a majority of the 1997 task force
    recommendations.
        In 2001, Governor Knowles appointed some 40 Alaskans to
    participate in what was called a Leadership Summit on
    Subsistence. Of those 40 Alaskans, the majority represented
    Alaskan business and commerce, including several Alaska Native
    corporations and only two could be deemed to be represent
    tribal interests. The Summit participants recommended that the
    question of amending the State Constitution go to the Alaskan
    voters, and included a value statement on the importance of
    subsistence to Alaskan tribal cultures.
        Last fall, Governor Knowles appointed 1 dozen or so Summit
    participants to what was called the Subsistence Drafting
    Committee. The committee's purpose was to develop language for
    a legislative resolution which if passed by the State
    legislature would result in a proposition to be placed on the
    general election ballot. None of Governor Knowles' initiatives
    to address subsistence included what could be termed an open
    public process. The Task Force took public testimony on an
    invitation-only basis for one-half day. The Summit was held in
    a public setting, but did not include taking testimony. The
    Drafting Committee meetings were open to the public, but no
    testimony was taken either. It is therefore predictable that
    the Alaska Native and tribal community have voiced serious
    issues regarding the Drafting Committee's product.
        In the short time I have to testify, I present the
    following five concerns. First, no one on the committee
    represented tribes or their governments. Second, the
    legislative resolution attempts to appease sport, commercial
    fishing, and hunting interests by changing whats in ANILCA
    title VIII is a priority of use for rural subsistence users, to
    a priority for local users. Third, the legislative resolution
    calls for the establishment of a second-tier priority for
    individuals and communities who are able to demonstrate their
    reliance on fish, game, and other renewable resources. Fourth,
    the proposal would put question such as allocation and
    geographic boundaries for use areas into the hands of the
    legislature and/or the Boards of Fish and Game. Fifth, no
    measure is included that would advance tribal comanagement of
    subsistence resources despite, as you heard, the great amount
    of progress that has been made in regard to comanagement.
        I am not a subsistence, but I am an advocate, and Mr.
    Chairman I believe the time has come for Congress to make
    remedial action on the issue of subsistence in Alaska. The
    State of Alaska has had well over 20 years to live up to its
    side of the agreement that was made when our aboriginal hunting
    and fishing rights were extinguished. And in 1971, with the
    passage of ANCSA, our people were assured that our right to the
    nutritional, economic, cultural and spiritual benefits of
    subsistence would be protected under Federal and State law.
        Our subsistence rights are not based on geography. Our
    subsistence rights are based firmly in the obligation of the
    Federal Government to manage native and tribal affairs with the
    best interests and survival of our people well in mind.
        Thank you very much.
        [Prepared statement of Ms. Kennedy, delivered on behalf of
    Donne Fleagle, appears in appendix.]
        Ms. Kennedy. Also, I would like to introduce Eileen
    Norbert, who is the executive vice president of Kawerak, Inc.

    STATEMENT OF EILEEN NORBERT, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, KAWERAK,
                                  INC.

        Ms. Norbert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Loretta Bullard, our president, did send in testimony, as
    well as a resolution from our board of directors, with our
    stand on subsistence. I did also submit written testimony. I am
    not going to go over all of it. However, I felt it was very
    important that this committee take a look at our situation in
    Norton Sound. We are the only one where subsistence fishing was
    totally closed and we went into what is called a tier-two
    situation, which I would like to share with you, and the human
    impacts it had on our people.
        In 1991, the Department of Fish and Game closed our
    subsistence fishing. Everybody was in total shock. We had one
    elder who walked along the beach. He looked for dead fish. She
    was so hungry for fish. Since then, we have gone to the Board
    of Fisheries, which is very political, politically appointed,
    tried to work with the Governor through the legislature, and
    you have already heard we have a legislature in Alaska who is
    hostile toward subsistence. That is the way we feel, for all
    the actions and non-actions they have taken.
        Two years ago, the situation with our fishing was so bad
    that the State opted to put us into a tier-two fishery, which
    means that each individual who wants to go subsistence fishing
    has to fill out several pages of application. Out of 500 or 600
    families in Nome, only 10 people got permits. They could get
    100 fish. Even though we had recommended to the Board of
    Fishery, and especially at the urging of our elders, rather
    than just letting 10 people fish, you know, let 20 or 25 people
    fish, we will get less. But that is the type of atmosphere that
    we have to deal with. We can recommend, but we cannot make
    decisions.
        Last year, it improved a little bit. The board did, say,
    expanded the number of people who could fish to 20, but reduced
    the number of fish that we could take to 50. Right now, ANILCA
    is the only law protecting our subsistence. We feel like we are
    at the mercy, like I said before, of a hostile situation in the
    State of Alaska. Kawerak opposes any amendment to ANILCA that
    would weaken subsistence protections for rural Alaskans. If
    this State legislature fails to address this issue, Kawerak
    strongly supports a restoration of Alaska Naive aboriginal
    hunting and fishing rights through an act of Congress. As Mike
    and several other people had mentioned before, we supposedly
    extinguished--actually Congress extinguished our aboriginal
    hunting and fishing rights, but Congress has the power to
    reinstate those, and that is what we urge you to do.
        Thank you very much for this opportunity. I would like to
    just close by sharing with you what one of our elders said. I
    had asked her when all this trouble started, is there one word
    in Inupiaq that means ``subsistence.'' And she said she cannot
    describe subsistence without describing our spiritual and
    cultural beliefs. And then after all that, she finally gave me
    one word, ``nufla,'' which basically means our way of life. But
    the way we are feeling right now is that this is a slow
    cultural genocide, and we ask for your help that it will stop,
    and we ask for your protection.
        Thank you.
        The Chairman. I thank you very much.
        Before we proceed, I would like those assembled here to
    note that at this moment there is a very intense debate
    proceeding on the Senate floor on the matter of the Artic
    National Wildlife Refuge [ANWR], which is very close to Alaska,
    so therefore your Alaskan Senators had asked to be excused, and
    that is why they are not here.
        Second, I think it would be appropriate to note that this
    hearing was held at the request of Julie Kitka, the president
    of the Alaska Federation of Natives. She is the one who
    recommended that a record be made of the concerns and values of
    Alaska Native people as they relate to subsistence hunting and
    fishing. But there is also another meeting at this moment, a
    very important one, a meeting convened by the Secretary of
    Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld, who is now briefing members of the
    Senate on the current situation in Afghanistan. As chairman of
    the Defense Appropriations Committee, I should be there, but I
    decided this hearing is just as important, if not more
    important. That is why I am here.
        Julie, do you have anything you want to say?

       STATEMENT OF JULIE KITKA, PRESIDENT, ALASKA FEDERATION OF
                                NATIVES

        Ms. Kitka. Just on behalf of our cochairs Albert Kookesh,
    Roy Huhndorf and our board of directors and our people, I want
    to thank you very much for holding this oversight hearing and
    listening to our people and the concerns.
        Our number one objective for the hearing was really for the
    committee to hear how people are doing on the ground, and be
    aware of the fact that our Federal protections in the law
    affect real people and we have many people that are hurting
    right now. This photographic illustration of an elderly
    couple--again, a graphic picture, if you will, that there are
    real people behind this law and we very much are grateful for
    the committee's interest and attention. We will report how
    things go in the special session coming up next month. We are
    working very hard. In the past, we have had our congressional
    delegation assisting every step of the way--in fact, trying to
    convince our State legislators, and we hope that we have their
    support this time again, too.
        The Chairman. Thank you very much, Madam President.
        I can assure you that the full testimony and the transcript
    will be shared with the members of the committee and I will
    personally urge them to read and study the transcript, and
    thereby learn of your concerns on this matter.
        Thank you very much.
        Ms. Kitka. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to ask if Isaac from
    Kaktovik might be able to explain one thing to you. We were
    talking earlier today about your name, and he was explaining to
    us on how in the Inupiaq language that they pronounce your name
    and what that means in Inupiaq.
        The Chairman. I hope it is good. [Laughter.]
        Mr. Akootchook. That means ``iamulautuk''--that means a
    good person to help everyone of us since whatever we are.
    Julie, this is important to, and down in Alaska it is really to
    help us with the work. That means in the Alaun language,
    ``iamulautuk''--that is a good person. You work for the whole
    people in the world.
        The Chairman. I thank you very much. I hope my staff heard
    that. [Laughter.]
        In fact, I commented to my staff that I could very well be
    sitting there because I look like most of you. [Laughter.]
        The final panel, Director of the Division of Subsistence,
    Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Washington, Mary Pete;
    and the chairman of the Federal Subsistence Board of Nenanna,
    Alaska, Mitch Demientieff. You will have to pronounce that name
    for me.
        Mr. Demientieff. I have been called worse than that,
    Senator. it is Demientieff.
        The Chairman. Ms. Pete.

          STATEMENT OF MARY PETE, DIRECTOR OF THE DIVISION OF
            SUBSISTENCE, ALASKA DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND GAME

        Ms. Pete. Thank you.
        Chairman Inouye, thank you for this opportunity to address
    you on this topic that has consumed almost all of my
    professional work. My name is Mary Pete. I am the director of
    the Division of Subsistence for the State of Alaska, Department
    of Fish and Game. I started out as a subsistence researcher in
    Western Alaska in 1984. I am honored to be here to represent
    the State of Alaska.
        For many Alaskans, subsistence is a core value. It is a
    lifeblood of our cultural, spiritual, economic and physical
    well-being. It puts food on the table and builds strong
    families. State and Federal laws provide a priority for
    subsistence uses in Alaska. The crux of the dilemma is the
    difference in who qualifies for the preference in State and
    Federal law, as identified in an Alaska Supreme Court decision
    in 1989.
        All Alaskans potentially qualify for the preference under
    State law, and only rural residents qualify under Federal law.
    Federal public lands encompass approximately 60 percent of
    Alaska, so the rural priority applies in most of the State. The
    State priority applies in the remaining 40 percent of Alaska.
    As you can imagine, this dichotomy and dual management
    objectives creates management complexity and confusion for the
    public. The majority of Alaskans understand the concept of
    subsistence, recognize its importance, and clearly support it.
    Just 2 weeks ago, Alaska Governor Tony Knowles announced
    another special session of the Alaska legislature to address
    subsistence. This session will begin following completion of
    the current regular legislative session in mid-May.
        The sixth such session in 13 years, the Governor is
    building in more momentum than you have seen on this issue in
    recent years. Earlier this month, Anchorage voters in a
    landslide, more than 72 percent, said they wanted the
    opportunity to vote on subsistence. Just last week, the
    Catholic Church of Alaska issued a rare pastoral letter
    supporting a subsistence resolution. Last summer, the Governor
    convened a Subsistence Summit of business, civic, religious,
    native, fishing and hunting leaders which then produced an
    innovative draft constitutional amendment. That amendment is
    currently pending in the Alaska legislature. Every poll
    indicates that if allowed to vote on the issue, Alaskans will
    overwhelmingly choose to protect subsistence. For more than a
    decade, Alaskans have paid a high price for not allowing
    Alaskans to be heard. We are not protecting subsistence as we
    should, and management of much our fish and game has been
    surrendered to the Federal Government.
        The urban-rural divide continues to grow. There are other
    issues that make the urban-rural split even wider, but nothing
    approaches the frustration over the inability to permanently
    protect subsistence. The State has had a subsistence priority
    law that gives preference to rural residents for wild fish and
    game since 1978. Since then, the State has employed a division
    of researchers to document and understand the role of
    subsistence hunting, fishing and gathering in the lives and
    communities of Alaskans, and to assist the State's management
    boards in implementing the subsistence priority law.
        One of the attachments to this presentation summarizes what
    we have learned after over 20 years of research on subsistence
    harvests and uses in Alaska. As expected, we have learned that
    subsistence is vital to the cultures and economies of rural
    Alaskans. Subsistence use areas in the State, as defined by the
    Joint Boards of Fisheries and Game, include 20 percent of the
    State's population. Although economies in small rural
    communities are mixed, in that both need production of local
    wild resources and cash to exist, subsistence is the foundation
    of their sustainability. Jobs are few and often seasonal, with
    costs of living being the highest in the Nation. Access to key
    wild resources such as salmon, caribou, herring and marine
    mammals is the reason Alaska Native communities are located
    where they are.
        Family-based subsistence production and consumption groups
    help to maintain the community cohesion and the sense of
    identity in these primarily Alaska Native communities.
    Subsistence harvest averages 375 pounds of wild fish and game
    per capita in rural communities, and provide nearly 44 million
    pounds of food per year at an estimated strict weight
    replacement value of nearly $220 million.
        This dollar estimate does not include the immeasurable
    value of the sense of well-being and accomplishment of
    providing for one's family.
        Subsistence happens in the context of families without
    public funds--families who educate their youth in the
    intricacies of the harvest and processing of wild foods and
    clothing and other crafts made from its proceeds. The
    composition of subsistence harvests attests to the importance
    of fish in Alaska. Fish make up 60 percent of the wild food
    harvested statewide and regional averages of up to 82 percent
    in some coastal areas. Among the Yupiit of Western Alaska, the
    word for food as a general category is also the word for fish.
    So if you ask someone in Yup'ik if they have eaten, you will be
    asking them if they have eaten fish.
        I would like to return to the challenges I mentioned
    earlier associated with dual State-Federal management of
    subsistence uses. We have had experience with dual management
    of game since 1990. Federal management of fisheries did not
    actively commence until October 1999, but we expect that some
    of the same problems that we witnessed with game management
    will occur with fisheries management.
        Dual State-Federal management of fish stocks compounds an
    already challenging endeavor, especially with declining returns
    of important species such as salmon. Economic disasters for
    salmon have been declared for four out of five recent years in
    Western Alaska. The State has implemented the subsistence
    priority by restricting or closing non-subsistence uses and
    scheduling fishing times to allow subsistence users scattered
    throughout affected drainages an opportunity to get what they
    can.
        The narrow scope of Federal authority has disrupted
    relationships among different uses. The Alaska Board of
    Fisheries and Game provide for subsistence uses first, then
    provide for other uses--namely sport, commercial and personal
    use--based on the availability of the resource.
        In some cases, subsistence uses are inextricably linked
    with commercial uses such as the small-scale commercial
    fisheries along the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers, and the boards
    know that change in subsistence regulations can have effects on
    the commercial fisheries and vice versa. Cash generated from
    commercial uses is used to support subsistence activities,
    especially when the people and equipment are the same, as in
    the case of these small-scale commercial salmon and herring
    fisheries. The Federal Subsistence Board, in its deliberation,
    does not consider uses other than subsistence. This approach
    creates a problem inasmuch as actions of the Federal Board may
    unintentionally disrupt the relationship between subsistence
    and other uses. This can detrimentally affect subsistence, as
    well as other uses.
        State and Federal allocation procedures are not compatible.
    State law requires that its management boards identify those
    fish stocks and game populations subject to customary and
    traditional uses, and to identify a specific allocation needed
    for subsistence use and to provide an opportunity for that use.
    These procedural steps enable the boards to provide a priority
    for subsistence uses, and if the harvestable surplus allows, to
    provide for other uses.
        The Federal Board is under no obligation to explicitly
    identify the stocks or populations of concern and the
    subsistence need, or other uses prior to making a subsistence
    allocation. To provide a subsistence priority and also
    accommodate as many other uses as possible requires knowledge
    of the available resource and the full range of competing uses.
    These differences and procedures and mandates have resulted in
    lost hunting and fishing opportunity, and under certain
    conditions can lead to over-harvest of the resource.
        Other more specific problems or differences between State
    and Federal management include in-season or real-time
    management and the Federal approach to customary trade.
    Alaska's fishery management programs have been successful in
    part because of the ability of on-site managers to effect in-
    season closures or openings as required to assure conservation
    and allocation objectives are met. These decisions must be made
    decisively on available information and are necessarily made on
    short notice.
        Imposing the Federal Board has been problematic. In the
    summer of 2001, there were unnecessary closures for subsistence
    salmon fishing to State-qualified subsistence users in the
    Yukon and Kuskokwim river drainages. Both the State and Federal
    subsistence laws recognize customary trade as a legitimate
    subsistence use. The State boards receive proposals for
    regulations that define and allow for particular customary
    trade practices. In effect, trade is closed until opened by the
    board.
        In contrast, the Federal Board takes the approach that
    trade is allowed, yet unregulated unless the Federal Board acts
    to restrict the activity. The Federal approach is a problem,
    given the controversial nature of this activity, the potential
    for this practice to affect other uses including other
    subsistence uses, and the risk of abuse with subsistence-caught
    fish being introduced into commercial markets.
        The Federal program has filed proposed regulations on
    customary trade of salmon, and unless it follows overwhelming
    public recommendation to defer action until thorough review and
    evaluation of its potential impacts is understood, stands to
    act on these proposals this summer.
        I do not want to leave the committee with the impression
    that the State has been a whiny passive party to dual
    management. We have initialed a Memorandum of Agreement with
    the Federal Office of Subsistence Management that outlines an
    effective, coordinated dual management approach. The State's
    goals are to protect the resource, provide for the subsistence
    priority, and for opportunities for other uses. We have been
    working on specific protocols under the MOA to implement
    specific objectives, such as each government's roles in sharing
    of information, in-season management, and determinations on
    amounts necessary for subsistence uses, to name a few
    protocols.
        In these efforts, we have involved users, particular Alaska
    Native tribes and organizations. Another attachment to this
    testimony is a paper on collaborative management by the Alaska
    Department of Fish and Game. It includes projects and
    initiatives we have been or continue to be engaged in with
    various public groups. Effective management of public resources
    is a partnership of man parties,, not the least being those
    most dependent on the resource.
        I would like to dispel the sense that the State has been
    wholly recalcitrant on the subsistence impasse. As you have
    heard, there have been five special legislative sessions called
    since 1990 to address this issue. As I noted earlier, Governor
    Knowles has called three sessions himself and has just issued
    another call to begin May 15. Resolutions for constitutional
    amendments and legislation to change subsistence management
    have also been introduced. The block in efforts to address the
    impasse have been a small minority of State Senators in the
    Alaska legislature.
        Mr. Chairman, we welcome participation of any member of
    this committee in urging an Alaskan resolution of the
    subsistence dilemma. Comprehension of a subsistence way of
    life, lifestyle or livelihood requires recognition of its
    cultural, economic and nutritional significance to Alaskans,
    particularly Alaska's Native people. The State will continue in
    its efforts to resolve the subsistence dilemma because we
    believe unitary State management is best for the resource and
    its users.
        This concludes my formal testimony. Thank you for your
    time.
        [Prepared statement of Ms. Pete appears in appendix.]
        The Chairman. Thank you very much, Ms. Pete.
        And may I now recognize Chairman Demientieff.

     STATEMENT OF MITCH DEMIENTIEFF, CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL SUBSISTENCE
                                 BOARD

        Mr. Demientieff. Thank you, Chairman Inouye.
        My name is Mitch Demientieff and I have been the Board
    Chairman for the Federal Assistance Board for the past seven
    years. We, of course, as has been well-documented, been
    operating since 1990, and more recently since 1999 doing
    fisheries. So I will not dwell on that too much, as has been
    well-documented by previous testimony as well as our written
    testimony that we have submitted.
        We are of course very concerned about the importance of
    subsistence and we congratulate you and the committee for
    having this hearing because it does recognize the importance of
    that and it gives the people of Alaska the opportunity to
    express to you what those concerns are.
        The strengths of our program in the wake of Alaska's not
    being able to recapture subsistence management on Federal lands
    are the very strength of our programs. The foundation of the
    program is within our Regional Advisory Councils. We have 98
    members on 10 regional councils who give willingly of their
    time. It has been--we demand very much from them. They do that
    on a volunteer basis, and we are very proud, and it is the work
    that they do in their villages, in their areas that they serve,
    that brings the advice to the Federal Board that allows us, or
    that make recommendations to us that allow us to make decisions
    on their behalf for the way that they wish to have their
    resources managed and their Federal subsistence uses per ANILCA
    implemented in their land.
        So we really congratulate that. It has been a strength ever
    since I have been on the Board and it continues to be,
    especially now with the expanded role of the fisheries. So we
    really congratulate those people and we continue to rely upon
    them. It gives us on-the-ground solid advice.
        In addition, we have as Mary pointed out earlier, that we
    are signing next week, on the 23rd, the MOA with the State and
    the Federal. We had been operating under an interim MOA for
    some time now, and we finally got it down to where we have got
    the principal signatories together next week.
        In addition, the Federal program has funded both a State
    liaison and a Federal liaison, which we provided with our
    Federal funding so that can continue to have somebody whose
    sole purpose is to continue to provide a close working
    relationship with the State and the Federal managers.
        In addition, we have funded the State for several, or many
    different programs with regard to research activities for a
    specific species, that we share with the State, so that the
    Boards of Game and the Board of Fish and our Board can utilize
    the same material. The State has reciprocated. We use very much
    of the State's own produced material to make our decisions as
    well.
        So we feel that that is an important part of the efforts
    that we have been trying to make.
        We also have our partners in fisheries monitoring, where we
    are contracting with tribes and other organizations in the
    State to do research projects. Again, we share those with the
    regulatory makers, whether they be State or Federal, and we are
    letting the local people--in many of those cases are doing
    those actual projects.
        I point these things out because in the absence of the
    State of Alaska not being able to manage, we do our best to
    have Alaskans managing Alaska's resources. And so we are really
    reaching out with that regard.
        And the final piece to that puzzle is the recently added
    tribal liaison. There have been some time now there has been a
    call for us to do tribal consultations with the tribes in
    Alaska. We added that position, and that position is actively
    consulting on every major decision that we make with the tribes
    in Alaska. We do that on request, whether it be a regional
    meeting, whether the person be requested to go actually to the
    village, and it has been a very valuable addition to our
    program.
        In closing, Mr. Chairman, the Federal program since the
    inception continues to support the State recapturing management
    of Alaska's resources. So nothing has changed as far as that is
    concerned. We look forward to that date where that very thing
    happens. So we continue to be solid in that corner, and that
    has not changed.
        As we approach the questions, Mr. Chairman, I point out to
    you if there are questions for me that I am not an
    administrator for the Federal program. I am a part-time
    employee as the Chairman of the Board. I get paid when we meet,
    basically, to shape policy and to make regulations. So if I run
    into any questions that I cannot answer, I will take
    responsibility to get the answer to you promptly. So I just
    point that out, because I can talk about policy and
    regulations--those kinds of things that I am actively involved
    in. But being just a part-time employee, I will get you the
    answers. Besides that, they will pay me to get you the answers.
        So with that, I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for the
    opportunity.
        [Prepared statement of Mr. Demientieff appears in
    appendix.]
        The Chairman. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
    appreciate it.
        Before I call upon the other panelists, may I ask the both
    of you a few questions? Ms. Pete, in listening to your
    testimony, am I correct to reach this interpretation that under
    Alaska State law the word ``rural'' subsistence preference may
    potentially qualify all Alaskans?
        Ms. Pete. Mr. Chairman, that is correct. The rural
    provision remains in law, but in effect the Supreme Court
    decision has deemed it unconstitutional, so all Alaskans
    qualify.
        The Chairman. The Supreme Court of----
        Ms. Pete. The Alaska Supreme Court.
        The Chairman. So there is no Alaska Native preference?
        Ms. Pete. No; potentially all Alaskans qualify, so there in
    effect is no preference.
        The Chairman. One of the witnesses testified that 2 percent
    of all the fish and wildlife is taken for subsistence by Alaska
    Natives, and the remaining 98 percent for recreational sport
    and commercial purposes--are those statistics correct?
        Ms. Pete. The portion that is the subsistence output ranges
    from 2 to 4 percent, depending on the size of the commercial
    catch. The commercial fishery fluctuates in part by the size
    of--primarily the ground fish fishery, which is millions and
    millions of tons. That is in the ballpark, and that is 2 to 4
    percent of the total wild resource production in the State is
    taken by rural residents for subsistence, not Alaska Natives
    per se, but rural residents.
        The Chairman. And the remaining 96 to 98 percent----
        Ms. Pete. Approximately 94 to 96 percent is by commercial
    fishing, and the remaining is by sport use.
        The Chairman. And do you have Alaska Natives involved in
    commercial fishing and sports fishing?
        Ms. Pete. Yes; we do. And in fact, in parts of Western
    Alaska, many commercial permit holders, commercial salmon and
    herring permit holders are Alaska Native who are also engaged
    in subsistence.
        The Chairman. Is that a large number?
        Ms. Pete. Of the 700 to 800 permit holders on each of the
    two major rivers, the Yukon and Kuskokwim, I would say the
    majority of them are Alaska Native.
        The Chairman. So they are involved in the bulk of
    commercial fishing?
        Ms. Pete. That is for in-State waters. The total of the
    wild resource output includes very large ground fish fisheries
    in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, and those as you may know
    are done by factory trawlers that employ people from many
    different countries, not just Alaskans.
        The Chairman. And your definition of rural applies only to
    Alaska lands, and not Federal lands.
        Ms. Pete. That is correct.
        The Chairman. Mr. Chairman, is it your understanding that 4
    percent is taken by rural Alaskans?
        Mr. Demientieff. Yes, sir.
        The Chairman. And of that 4 percent, how many are Alaska
    Natives?
        Mr. Demientieff. I would--let me see. I am not real sure of
    the census counts with regard to that. I would imagine in the
    more rural areas that definitely a majority of those would be.
    When you get into some of the hub communities, the larger
    communities, you get a little bit more non-native population in
    there. But those still are classified as rural communities for
    our program.
        The Chairman. The witnesses that appeared before your
    presentation all indicated that subsistence was absolutely
    necessary to sustain life. Is that correct?
        Mr. Demientieff. Yes, sir; being a life-long subsistence
    user myself, because I still do--born and raised and still
    reside in Nenanna, I understand that very completely. A large
    part of our family's food comes from the subsistence resource,
    but it is tied with our society and also importantly with our
    cultural activities. We have to have wild resources at our
    ceremonies and potlatches and those types of things. It is an
    integral part of our cultural practices.
        The Chairman. What is the geographic scope of your Board's
    regulatory authority?
        Mr. Demientieff. About----
        The Chairman. Does it just cover Federal lands?
        Mr. Demientieff. Right. About 230 million acres in Alaska,
    and it is checkerboarded in different----
        The Chairman. Does it include all waters within the
    borders?
        Mr. Demientieff. Navigable are still managed by the State.
        The Chairman. But all other waters are within your
    jurisdiction?
        Mr. Demientieff. Right, within Federal jurisdiction. Right.
        The Chairman. Does your Board have problems in dealing with
    conflicting definitions of the term ``rural''?
        Mr. Demientieff. No; conflicting between the State's
    definition--or, I'm not conflicting----
        The Chairman. State and Federal--are they conflicting or
    are they the same?
        Mr. Demientieff. Yes; they are conflicting. Well, no that
    is not right exactly. I am not sure about the State's point of
    view. I am very clear about ours, but I am not sure about the
    State. As it relates to subsistence, of course, as Mary pointed
    out, potentially all Alaska residents wherever they are are
    eligible for subsistence. Whereas rural residents under the
    Federal program are eligible for subsistence.
        The Chairman. Have Federal agencies made any effort to
    establish cooperative management agreements with Alaska Natives
    to implement the subsistence priority?
        Mr. Demientieff. Yes; and in recent years beyond that, we
    have tried to on particularly thorny issues have tried to--we
    have remanded, the Board has remanded some issues back to local
    areas, and actually have gone to include the State managers,
    the Federal managers, our regional council representatives, and
    the State Fish and Game Advisory Committee members to work out
    issues that have been problematic issues. We have had good
    success in the last few years. There have been at least one-
    half of different cases where we have been able to resolve
    thorny issues with conflicting land ownership and conflicting
    regulations.
        So beyond cooperative, we also have that that is very
    important to them.
        The Chairman. What is the funding for protecting fish and
    the wildlife resources essential for subsistence in Alaska?
        Mr. Demientieff. Mr. Chairman, that would be one of the
    things I am going to have to get back with you on, on the
    funding, the full funding breakdown. I have got a partial, but
    then I could get you the full budget.
        The Chairman. Has it increased or has it decrease?
        Mr. Demientieff. Well, yes, with the addition of the
    Fisheries Program, it has increased. But I will get you a full
    breakdown of that. That will be one of the things I will get.
        The Chairman. I have other questions that are a bit
    technical in nature, and might require the study of your
    management group. May I submit them to you?
        Mr. Demientieff. Sure. Okay.
        The Chairman. Will the others join us now?
        Thank you very much, Ms. Pete.
        I am not an Alaskan obviously, and therefore my knowledge
    of Alaska is rather limited, although I believe I know more
    about Alaska than most of the members of the Senate. But when
    we speak of subsistence gathering of fish and wildlife, is it
    for sport and recreation or is it for food and sustenance? I
    would like to have a response from each of you.
        Mr. Golia. Mr. Chairman, I consider myself a subsistence
    user. I go out and generally catch 30 to 40 king salmon every
    year to make king salmon strips it is part of I guess a family
    tradition. I generally go out and get five moose per year--I
    mean caribou per year, five caribou per year, and generally a
    moose every year. Generally, I would go about getting 20
    gallons of salmon berries and 30 gallons of blackberries. If I
    did not, I would not be married with my wife insisting that we
    go out and gather these berries for our freezer. So I look at
    it as a way to feed my family.
        The Chairman. Would your statement represent the activities
    of your members?
        Mr. Golia. Pardon me?
        The Chairman. You serve as vice president of the Bristole
    Bay Native Association, is that right?
        Mr. Golia. I am listed as vice president of the Bristol Bay
    Native Association, Mr. Chairman. That is not the case. I am an
    employee of the Bristol Bay Native Association.
        The Chairman. Do the members of the Bristol Bay Native
    Association engage in subsistence hunting and fishing for food
    or for recreation?
        Mr. Golia. I would say primarily food. I think a lot of the
    villages, many of them do not have employment opportunities. I
    think that the only jobs you could find in some of our 30
    communities is maybe a job as a janitor at the school; maybe a
    job as the postmaster; maybe a job as a VPO, or village police
    officer; and maybe a job teaching in the school. That is it.
        The Chairman. Mr. Johnson.
        Mr. Johnson. Yes, Mr. Chairman; as I mentioned earlier or
    as I noted, I am with the Alaska Nanuuq Commission, and we are
    primarily involved in managing with the Fish and Wildlife the
    subsistence harvest of Nanuuq or of polar bears. I am real
    proud to note that Isaac Akootchook is a member of the Alaska
    Nanuuq Commission, and a very highly respected member at that.
        But generally when we take polar bear, it is not for sport.
    It is not for a trophy. We often usually take it on an
    opportunistic situation when are hunting for seals or walrus.
    But engaging in--I am a marine mammal hunter, and I rely
    heavily on walrus and seals in particular, in particular ugruk
    is my favorite seal. And we do that for our food.
        The fact that we enjoy it as much as I do or as much as we
    do does not mean that we are out there sport hunting. We are
    not out there to get trophies. When we do take a polar bear, we
    want to take a smaller one because the skin is easier to work
    and the meat is better. So we are not out there sport hunting
    for trophies. We are out there for food and because it sustains
    our way of life and our culture.
        The Chairman. Mr. Lake.
        Mr. Lake. Yes, Mr. Chairman; the use of wild fish and game
    is used primarily for food and also for sharing with relatives,
    elders in the village and those that cannot hunt or fish for
    themselves.
        The Chairman. So you are not taking it for trophies?
        Mr. Lake. I have never done one, so I do not know, sir.
        The Chairman. Mr. Williams.
        Mr. Williams. Yes; I am a full-time hunter and fisherman,
    and we depend on fish and game for food and for sustenance of
    our health, and we depend on that food to survive. We have no
    regard for biggest antlers or going for the trophy. I, for one,
    do not take home the antlers of what I caught because we cannot
    eat it. But for carving of those things, maybe we will take
    them home. But for all the fish we catch, that I catch, and all
    the moose and the caribou, the bear, we take home and we use it
    for survival and we also share with our elders in our
    community. So nothing is wasted, everything is used.
        The Chairman. Mr. Yaska.
        Mr. Yaska. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The question was
    whether we take it for sport rather than sustenance or
    subsistence. And the question of course, and within the
    interior of Alaska for moose, king salmon, spruce chicken,
    ptarmigan, beaver, all of those species, and many more. Both
    game and fish are primarily for subsistence, if not exclusively
    for sustenance. And sustenance has been developed and defined
    by the 16,000 people working in the interior over thousands of
    years. It is a highly developed definition and it is a highly
    treasured definition and not to be, of course, spoken about
    lightly. Thought it is a great honor to be representing those
    folks today, and certainly you honor that here by the hearing
    today. Thank you.
        The Chairman. As a matter of congressional courtesy, the
    transcript of this hearing will be shared with the legislature
    of Alaska. If you had the opportunity to address the
    legislature in 2 minutes, what would you tell the legislators?
        Mr. Golia. I would request that they pass a vote on the
    constitutional amendment and actually let the people of Alaska
    vote on this issue. They have I think held up that particular
    issue for years now, and I think that the Alaskan people want
    to see a result to that.
        Mr. Johnson. Yes, Mr. Chairman; unfortunately many of the
    legislators that are in Alaska have come from other places. I
    think my first request to them would be that they try to
    understand what our needs are for the native people of Alaska
    as far as subsistence, the spiritual values that we have in
    relation to that way of life, and then to allow the people of
    Alaska, because there are many people of Alaska who are not
    natives that understand us and support our efforts at a
    subsistence priority, and I would ask the legislature, please
    let the people of Alaska decide that.
        Mr. Lake. I would let them know and hope that they would
    understand that our cultural and traditional values to us are
    sacred and holy, and that without these, there would be no life
    for us. And that we need this life to pass on to our children
    that has been passed on to us by our ancestors. And also that
    they give an opportunity for the people of Alaska to vote on
    the issue, and one point is that my people, the Yup'ik Eskimo,
    in their annual convention have indicated to the State of
    Alaska that they do not want to see a constitutional amendment
    on subsistence unless there is a change in the conscience of
    the State of Alaska concerning subsistence--a change of
    consciousness about that. And it would be so right for them to
    do that.
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        Mr. Williams. I would tell the legislature that Alaska has
    greatly benefited from rural areas--oil, gas, timber, minerals,
    gold. You know, we have expended our resources to the benefit
    of all of Alaskans, and many have benefited from Alaska. Yet we
    continue to live in third world conditions in Akiak. You know,
    I come from a small village of 350, and from the area that is
    poorest of the poor. And when I look at that, and with all the
    billions that have come out of Alaska, we still are striving in
    having equal treatment by State of Alaska. And as we have $30
    billion, we still live and are receiving those services that
    are not coming to us. But as for the subsistence issue, I think
    that is the only thing that I am asking for, is to protect my
    subsistence way of life that has been practiced or has been
    handed down from generation to generation, and they need to
    respect that. As we have heard here today, we really need that
    for our survival, and it is not just sport or game. I think it
    is for survival. So that is what I would tell them to do is to
    do the right thing for our survival in Alaska as Alaska Native
    people.
        The Chairman. Mr. Yaska.
        Mr. Yaska. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is almost a trick
    question. What do we want to tell them or what would we tell
    them? We have heard hundreds of testifiers, perhaps thousands
    in the last 12 years and many more years, actually, about the
    importance of subsistence from rural folks and people far more
    eloquent than I, elderly folks, and learned leaders from our
    region and throughout Alaska. I am not sure how else you could
    explain the importance of subsistence, the importance of
    getting along as people in this great Nation. But there is not
    anything to fear among subsistence managers, among folks from
    rural Alaska. Do not think we want all of the resources to
    ourselves. These are all of our resources in this Nation, and
    we can certainly come to agreement on managing and sharing
    these resources. There is not anything to fear. Thank you.
        The Chairman. Thank you very much. I am pleased to call
    upon the vice chairman of the committee, Senator Ben Nighthorse
    Campbell.

     STATEMENT OF HON. BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, U.S. SENATOR FROM
          COLORADO, VICE CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS

        Senator Campbell. Mr. Chairman, I apologize for not being
    here throughout the whole hearing. I had an early conflict, and
    then as you probably know, Secretary Rumsfeld was doing a
    classified briefing on the problem in Afghanistan. One thing
    led to another, and I just very frankly apologize to this
    committee that I could not be here. But I have always been
    extremely interested in the plight that traditional people have
    found themselves in when we deal with subsistence. And when I
    think, of course I was not around then, but as I hear from
    elders who in turn heard from their elders, and then you
    compare it with what we go through now in which you have to
    have a license or permit to be able to hunt in most States, a
    license or permit to be able to fish in most states, a license
    or a permit to be able to use the things that were provided by
    the Creator of all things for this earth.
        It is really kind of amazing to me because it was not
    native peoples, whether they were Alaskan or here in the Lower
    48, that depleted the whales. It was profiteering adventurers
    that killed them off and boiled them down. It was not the
    native peoples. It was not the native peoples that clubbed tens
    of thousands of harp seals just for that beautiful white fur.
    The same thing--it was profiteering, non-native peoples that
    did that. It was not the native peoples that started killing
    walrus just to saw off the tusks. It was the ivory traders. And
    it was not the native peoples that ever benefited from all
    those things that were depleted.
        I know people in the northwest part of our Nation now,
    native peoples are fighting an endless battle just to try to
    preserve some of the fishing rights they had for salmon when it
    was not them that ever depleted the salmon. It was the
    commercial canners, as everybody knows, or anybody with a lick
    of sense ought to know. It was never the native peoples.
        And yet the native peoples are always the ones that have to
    suffer. It is the native peoples that always have to try to
    prevent more erosion of the rights that they have historically
    had from the beginning of time, long before there was anybody
    else on the mainland or in Alaska. They can probably track
    their own ancestry back hundreds if not thousands of years to a
    time when they did not have to conform to all the laws we now
    have and they were not on the defensive because somebody else
    killed off the animals.
        I have been to Alaska a number of times, most of the times
    with Senator Stevens for a variety of things, and have many
    friends that live in Alaska, and I just know that in some cases
    Native Alaskans are divided on issues. Some of them are divided
    on the issue we are dealing with on the floor right now,
    whether we should open ANWR and you are probably very aware of
    that debate that some people who follow the caribou were saying
    we should not. Other people believe that there are
    opportunities, and native people believe that there are
    opportunities and we should.
        That is one thing when we have the community divided and we
    are not quite sure what we ought to be doing to help Native
    Alaskans. But on the question of subsistence, I do not know of
    two native sides to that. If you are going to do the right
    thing, there is only one side and that side is that we ought to
    protect the rights of the aboriginal people that have had that
    right, used that right, have every right to continue it,
    whether it is under a court of law in the United States or
    under a legislative body here in Washington, or under just a
    basic right in the realm of humankind and human suffering and
    human subsistence--it seems to me they have that first right.
        I just wanted to tell this committee that Senator Inouye
    has always been on the side of native peoples in the fight for
    fairness here in Washington, and I have always been by his
    side, and want you to know that I know something about it. I
    have probably a lot more to learn, but you have got at least
    two friends on this committee. I want you to know that.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        The Chairman. Thank you very much.
        Are you not glad you waited to hear the words of wisdom?
        Senator Campbell. My problem is I always get mad, as you
    know, Senator Inouye. [Laughter.]
        The Chairman. I would like to announce that the record of
    this hearing will remain open for 2 weeks, during which time if
    you wish to submit additional testimony or if you wish to make
    corrections, please feel free to do so. And we will also be
    submitting questions to Mr. Demientieff for his response.
        So with that, I thank all of you for traveling long
    distances to be with us. We will do our best to convince the
    members in the Alaska legislature to do the right thing. Your
    words will be read by them.
        [Whereupon, at 4:12 p.m., the committee was adjourned, to
    reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
    =======================================================================

                                A P P E N D I X

                                  ----------

                  Additional Material Submitted for the Record

    =======================================================================

     Prepared Statement of Rosita Worl, Ph.D., Sealaska Heritage Institute

        Honorable Senator Inouye and other members of the U.S. Senate
    Committee on Indian Affairs. I would like to express my gratitude to
    the committee for holding this oversight hearing on Subsistence Hunting
    and Fishing in the State of Alaska. I am honored and humbled that you
    have been invited me to testify before this committee. The challenges
    to subsistence protections and the subsistence lifestyles of Alaska
    Natives are critical, and my testimony will address the necessity of
    maintaining the Federal protections as they exist under the Alaska
    National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980.
        I am Rosita Worl. I am a member of the Board of Directors of
    Sealaska Corporation, which was created by Congress in the settlement
    of our aboriginal land claims. I sit on the Board of Directors of the
    Alaska Federation of Natives and serve as the Chairperson of its
    Subsistence Committee. I have a joint appointment as the President of
    the Sealaska Heritage Institute and a professor of anthropology at the
    University of Alaska Southeast. .
        In my testimony, I will be drawing on both my professional training
    and research and my personal knowledge and experience as a participant
    in the subsistence culture of the Tlingit. I will apply these
    perspectives to discuss the significance of subsistence hunting and
    fishing in Alaska. I hold a Ph.D. from Harvard University in
    Anthropology. My subsistence studies began in 1975 when I went to the
    Arctic to study the political development of the North Slope Inupiat.
    Since that time I have conducted research throughout the circumpolar
    Arctic and Alaska. I have served on various scientific committees of
    the National Science Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, the
    Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission and the National Scientific Committee
    for the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Studies. I have written numerous
    scientific articles on subsistence economies and Alaska Native cultures
    and have a general understanding of the significance of subsistence.
        Today my subsistence studies are sometimes referred to as the early
    work of subsistence research in Alaska. I believe I was among the first
    anthropologists to study subsistence as an integrated socioeconomic
    system and to assess its interrelationship with the cash economy. This
    was in part due to the development of economic anthropology as a
    theoretical approach. I have applied both qualitative and quantitative
    methodological approaches to my study of subsistence.
        It has often been said that subsistence cannot be defined, and
    Alaska Natives generally describe it as a ``Way of Life.'' I beg your
    indulgence if my testimony sounds like a lecture, but I hasten to add
    that in the need for brevity, it may seem as if I am oversimplifying
    the complexity of the subsistence systems in Alaska. We must have a
    basic understanding of the dynamic socioeconomic subsistence systems as
    they exist today. This knowledge is necessary if we are to ensure that
    the legal regimes of both the Federal and State government protect the
    subsistence lifestyles of Alaska Natives and rural Alaska, and second
    in order to analyze how legislation has the capacity to protect or
    undermine subsistence activities.
        In spite of the overwhelming problems imperiling Alaska Native
    societies, their cultures remain vibrant. Their languages and cultures
    have persisted, although changed, despite decades of governmental
    pressure to assimilate them into the larger society and the extensive
    forces of sociocultural impacts impinging on their communities. They
    are among the last societies in North America, who remain largely
    dependent and culturally attached to a hunting and gathering way of
    life. The last nomadic hunters in the United States settled in a
    permanent community in some 60 years ago. Today they continue to
    practice their ancient ceremonies and to hold the worldview and values
    of their ancestors. For the United States, they represent a rich
    cultural resource that is worthy of protection.
        Subsistence, as it is practiced by Alaska Natives, contains three
    basic interrelated components: Economic, social, and cultural. It
    operates as a cohesive, adaptive and functioning system.
        The cultural component includes the values and ideologies that
    govern and direct subsistence behavior or activities. For example, the
    value of sharing is key to subsistence and the survival of Native
    societies. The young are socialized into the value of sharing with kin
    and community members. Young hunters are taught to share their first
    take whatever it may be--seal, caribou, or fish and they are rewarded
    for their behavior. Significant amounts of sharing takes place in
    ceremonies such as the whaling or seal feast or memorial rituals.
    Sharing also occurs as part of the value that acknowledges the status
    of elders. They are given special shares and parts of an animal. This
    value of sharing with elders functions in many ways like the social
    security system in which individuals receive retirement benefits.
    Single women, who act as head of households, also receive special
    shares.
        The cultural component also includes ideologies and beliefs such as
    the recognition that wildlife has spirits and that Native people have a
    kinship or special relationship with them. This relationship obligates
    Native people to adhere to certain codes of conduct and to treat
    animals in prescriptive ways to ensure success in future hunts and to
    assure that animals will return to be harvested. You may have heard
    Native Peoples say that animals ``give'' themselves to the hunter. This
    implies, that it is not skill of the hunter that determines success,
    but rather it is the animal who decides, based on the proper behavior
    of the hunter, who will be rewarded in the hunt. These cultural values
    also serve to protect the animal population base and are the basis of
    the conservation ethic that has been attributed to traditional Native
    practices. In some ways these ideologies and the accompanying practices
    can be compared to the effects of the concept of sustained yield
    harvests. For example, some groups have taboos on hunting in certain
    sites which serve to restrict hunting areas and levels.
        The social aspect of subsistence refers to the way in which Native
    people organize themselves to participate in subsistence activities.
    This socioeconomic organization is based on some form of kinship
    whether it is along a bilateral kinship system characteristic of the
    Inupiat and Yup'ik or a clan or some other group membership such as
    that adopted by the Siberian Yup'ik of St. Lawrence Island or the
    Athabascans of Interior Alaska. More often today you will hear
    references made to the extended family as the hunting unit. It may,
    however, also include formal partnerships with non-kin. The important
    dimension here is that the subsistence system operates as a group
    activity rather than that of a sole hunter pursing game.
        These social relationships and participation in subsistence
    endeavors also function as an educational system or facilitates the
    training of the young. Not only are the young socialized into the
    cultural ideologies and cosmologies of their society, they are
    instructed in the methods of hunting and preserving subsistence foods.
    They are taught about the environment and wildlife and how to read
    climatic changes, ice conditions or changing tides.
        The third element of subsistence includes the economic aspect,
    which consists of the production, distribution and exchange and
    utilization of natural resources. Production includes the procurement
    and preservation of subsistence foods.
        Distribution and exchange refer to the movement of subsistence
    goods or the sharing of subsistence foods through the social network.
    Since land was traditionally owned in common, utilization of land and
    resources require the sharing of resources. It generally begins with
    the initial distribution at hunting or fishing sites followed by a
    secondary distribution through extended kin networks and the ceremonial
    sharing. Subsistence economies also include the exchange of surplus
    resources for resources that may not be readily or locally available.
    Utilization includes the consumption of wildlife and natural resources
    for food and their use for arts and crafts or other utilitarian objects
    or equipment such as walrus or bearded seal skins, which are used in
    the manufacture of boats and other items.
        Alaska rural communities are characterized by a dual or mixed
    economy. In today's subsistence economy, cash is a vital element. It is
    necessary to purchase rifles, ammo and other tools, supplies, equipment
    such as snow mobiles. Cash is acqui red in multiple ways. The hunter or
    spouse may be a full or part time wage earner or a family member may
    earn income through the sale of arts and craft or subsistence service.
    An elderly member of the social unit may receive a transfer payment and
    contribute portions of this income to support the subsistence
    enterprise.
        The importance of the subsistence economy in Alaska cannot be
    overstated. It provides a major portion of the diet in rural Alaska and
    Native households. The subsistence studies conducted by the State of
    Alaska attest to this importance. The significance of subsistence can
    be seen as even more important with the absence or limited wage income
    opportunities in rural Alaska or its seasonal nature. The limitations
    on wage income opportunities in rural Alaska are further exacerbated by
    the highest cost of living within the United States. Without a
    subsistence economy, hunger would be the norm in Alaska Native and
    rural communities. These assertions are all verifiable by hard
    statistical data.
        Policymakers and social scientists once simply assumed that
    subsistence hunters and gathers would move in a unilateral direction
    from subsistence hunting and fishing to a cash economy. The history and
    case study of Alaska Natives refute this assumption. However, the
    persistence of the subsistence lifestyles of Alaska Natives cannot be
    attributed to the absence or constraints of wage opportunities in their
    communities. Alaska Natives have opposed legislative measures that cast
    subsistence as welfare or portrays it as a form of underemployment.
    This perspective ignores the social, cultural and ideological
    importance of subsistence and the attachment that Natives have to their
    way of life.
        Despite the changes within Native communities, Alaska Natives
    remain culturally distinct from the larger American culture and
    society. Their worldview differs in that they recognize and maintain a
    special or a spiritual relationship to wildlife. I wear the Eagle on my
    clothing and the Sun and Shark on my jewelry, not for decorative or
    aesthetic reasons, but because of the relationship I have with their
    spirits and with my ancestors who acquired these rights and
    relationships for me and other members of my clan. Another major
    cultural difference between Natives and non-Natives, that is
    particularly relevant to the subsistence issue, is that Native
    societies maintain a group orientation rather than the individualistic
    nature of the American society and American values.
        Native cultural and religious ideologies can sometimes be protected
    under the freedom of religion'policies and laws. For example, in the
    Carlos Frank case, the Athabascans won a lawsuit against the State of
    Alaska in which they had been charged for hunting a moose out of
    season. In this case, the moose was required for a traditional
    ceremony. Alaska Natives are required to feed the spirits of their
    ancestors.
        Laws embody the values of their society, and American law generally
    reflects the individualistic nature of this society rather than the
    group orientation of Native societies. American values, however,
    recognize the importance of cultural diversity. Our laws and policies
    theoretical embrace the philosophical construct of cultural diversity,
    but this does not necessarily mean they will reflect the group
    orientation value held by Alaska Natives and American Indians\1\.
    However, the Federal Government does accord Alaska Natives and American
    Indians a special political status. This unique political status, which
    differs from that of all other Americans, implicitly offers the
    opportunity to acknowledge and protect the different cultural values
    that characterize American Indian and Alaska Native societies. In the
    case of Alaska Natives, their cultural values and subsistence
    protections were possible, in part, through the Alaska National
    Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \1\ The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
    recognizes the significance of a group orientation with the designation
    that items of cultural patrimony should be subject to repatriation
    claims.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        ANILCA is imperfect in fully protecting the cultures of Alaska
    Natives, but fortunately, as it has been interpreted and implemented,
    ANILCA has offered the only measure of protection for subsistence
    against the State of Alaska, which has refused to recognize a rural
    subsistence hunting and fishing priority. Title VIII of ANILCA requires
    that ``subsistence uses'' be given priority over the taking of fish and
    wildlife for other purposes. It defines ``subsistence uses'' as the
    ``customary and traditional uses by rural Alaska residents. . . ''
    ANILCA provides a priority for rural residents of communities that have
    a customary and traditional uses of a particular resource. I am not a
    lawyer, but as an anthropologist, I note the significance of ANILCA is
    that it provides protection for ``communities'' or for groups rather
    than individual-based uses and protection based on customary and
    traditional uses.
        The State of Alaska has not yet adopted an amendment to its
    constitution to give a subsistence priority to rural Alaska. The
    prevalent argument advanced by a small, but vocal minority of Alaskans
    is to oppose a constitutional amendment because it violates ``equal''
    access to fish and wildlife. This argument is used to support
    amendments to ANILCA rather than to bring the State into compliance
    with Federal law. My purpose is not to discuss the contradictions and
    fallacy of the equality argument as it is used in the subsistence
    debate. All laws make distinctions among classes of people and
    citizens, and in Alaska, its citizens were willing to amend the State
    Constitution to give a small number of individuals the right of access
    to most all of Alaska's fisheries through the Lilmited Entry Permit
    System (less than 14,000 permit holders take 97 percent of the fishery
    resources in Alaska). Additionally, Alaska extends to only a 1,000 or
    more individuals the right to hold guiding perrnits to large tracts of
    land.
        It is important to assess the underlying meaning of the equal
    access argument as advanced by the subsistence opponents to understand
    the potential ramifications should they be successful in amending
    ANILCA to embrace their ideology. I would suggest that they seek to
    advance an ``individualistic'' subsistence priority rather than that
    embodied in ANILCA that recognizes a rural, community-based traditional
    and customary subsistence use. This ``equality'' argument as it is used
    in the subsistence debate is ludicrous given the earlier constitutional
    amendment that provided for an inequitable allocation of natural
    resources and in view of the scope of political and fiscal inequity
    endured by Alaska Natives.
        I have attempted to describe the dynamics and significance of
    Alaska Native subsistence economies and culture. I suggest that ANILCA,
    as it is written, protects the group realities and nature of Alaska
    Native subsistence activities. The Native community and AFN have
    resisted both legal and political attempts that would alter these
    protections. I would pray that Congress will not condone the 12 further
    erosion of subsistence and cultural protection for its indigenous
    populations. I would hope that Congress will see that ANILCA is a means
    to ensure the cultural survival of Alaska Natives and to maintain the
    rich cultural diversity of this country. I would hope that Congress
    will continue to support and urge the State of Alaska to advance a
    constitutional amendment that brings it into compliance with ANILCA. It
    would be my hope that Congress will continue to support ANILCA as it is
    written, unless in its wisdom, it should choose to adopt a Native
    subsistence priority.
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