[Senate Hearing 108-563]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 108-563
NATIVE AMERICAN FISH AND WILDLIFE RESOURCES MANAGEMENT ACT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON
S. 2301
TO IMPROVE THE MANAGEMENT OF INDIAN FISH AND WILDLIFE AND GATHERING
RESOURCES
__________
APRIL 29, 2004
WASHINGTON, DC
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
93-499 WASHINGTON : DC
____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado, Chairman
DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii, Vice Chairman
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona, KENT CONRAD, North Dakota
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico HARRY REID, Nevada
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota
JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota
GORDON SMITH, Oregon MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
Paul Moorehead, Majority Staff Director/Chief Counsel
Patricia M. Zell, Minority Staff Director/Chief Counsel
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
S. 2301, text of................................................. 3
Statements:
Carlson, Ervin, president, Inter-Tribal Bison Cooperative.... 88
Dubray, Fred, Inter-Tribal Bison Cooperative, Rapid City, SD. 88
Frank, Jr., Billy, chairman, Northwest Indian Fisheries
Commission................................................. 65
Inouye, Hon. Daniel K., U.S. Senator from Hawaii, vice
chairman, Committee on Indian Affairs...................... 1
Jackson, Gordon, director, Business and Sustainable
Development, Central Council Tlingit and Haida Tribes of
Alaska..................................................... 85
Mayo, Randy, first chief, Stevens Village, AK................ 82
Myers, Sonny, executive director, 1854 Authority............. 73
New Breast, Ira, executive director, Native American Fish and
Wildlife Society........................................... 78
Patt, Jr., Olney, chairman, Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish
Commission................................................. 67
Smith, Hon. Gordon, U.S. Senator from Oregon................. 71
Schwalenberg, Dewey, natural resource/environmental program
director, Stevens Village, AK.............................. 82
Zorn, James, attorney-policy analyst, Great Lakes Indian Fish
and Wildlife Commission.................................... 75
Appendix
Prepared statements:
Carlson, Ervin............................................... 95
Frank, Jr., Billy............................................ 103
Jackson, Gordon.............................................. 108
Mayo, Randy.................................................. 98
Myers, Sonny................................................. 113
New Breast, Ira.............................................. 98
Patt, Jr., Olney............................................. 100
Smith, Hon. Gordon, U.S. Senator from Oregon................. 95
Schwalenberg, Dewey (with attachment)........................ 118
Zorn, James.................................................. 142
NATIVE AMERICAN FISH AND WILDLIFE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ACT
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 2004
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Indian Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in room
485, Senate Russell Building, Hon. Daniel K. Inouye (vice
chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Inouye and Smith.
STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL K. INOUYE, U.S. SENATOR FROM HAWAII,
VICE CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
Senator Inouye. The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
meets this morning to receive testimony on S. 2301, a
discussion draft bill that was introduced on April 7, 2004 to
provide for support for the activities of tribal governments in
managing fish and wildlife and gathering resources.
The Native American Fish and Wildlife Resources Management
Act of 2004 was developed by Indian tribes and the tribal
organizations they charter to provide for the prudent
management of fish and wildlife resources, as well as by Alaska
Native governments and organizations. The act builds upon the
foundation of earlier measures, some of which have been enacted
into law, which are designed to more specifically address the
nature of the United States' trust responsibilities as they
relate to the natural resources that are held in trust.
Tribal governments are the principal stewards of the
natural resources of tribal lands. For thousands of years
before European contact, tribes also served as the responsible
stewards of the natural resources on millions of acres of land
that were under their dominion and control. There were no
shortages of resources in earlier times because the tribes
regulated fishing and hunting and gathering in a manner that
would assure the protection and conservation of our precious
natural resources.
They harvested only what was necessary for their
subsistence and for those with whom they traded. But then came
the massive influx of those who came to settle in America. With
their westward expansion came the clear-cutting of forests, the
resulting erosion of land, and the introduction of chemicals to
foster the growth of agricultural crops that began to affect
the quality of water in the streams and rivers and even the
ocean, and later the construction of dams to provide
electricity.
All of these developments have had a devastating impact on
the fish and wildlife and the habitat that is their home and
which Indian tribes and other concerned citizens seek to
preserve and protect. We have been for many years now at a
critical juncture in maintaining the health and the very
survival of wild species. The list of species that are
threatened or endangered continues to grow and tough economic
decisions have to be made.
For instance, today on the front page of the Washington
Post we read about a new rule being proposed by the National
Marine Fisheries Service which announces that the
Administration will now count hatchery-bred fish when it
decides whether stream-bred wild salmon are entitled to
protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The bill that is the subject of the testimony we will
receive today was largely drafted in Indian country by those
who have expertise in the management of fish and wildlife
resources. It is a work in progress, but I think it is
important to note that this bill is not intended to, nor will
it affect either an expansion or diminishment of tribal rights.
What it is designed to do is provide support for what tribal
governments are doing every day with increasingly limited
resources to protect fish and wildlife, not only for the
domestic consumption and subsistence uses of its citizens, but
protecting these precious resources for all of our Nation's
citizens.
In many areas of the country, tribal governments are
working with Federal agencies and State governments to develop
and implement management schemes that will preserve fish and
wildlife resources and foster the healthy growth of fish and
wildlife populations. Each government has the responsibility of
managing fish and wildlife resources within their respective
jurisdictions, but working together Federal agencies and State
and tribal governments are far better equipped to provide
protections for fish and wildlife that do not honor
jurisdictional boundaries, as for instance when the various
species of salmon return from the ocean to their streams of
origin to spawn.
So we must all work together, and tribal governments must
have the resources to carry on their traditions of responsible
stewardship.
[Text of S. 2301 follows:]
Senator Inouye. Now, may I call upon our first panel. The
first panel consists of the chairman of the Northwest Indian
Fisheries Commission of Olympia, Washington, Billy Frank, Jr.;
the chairman of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission
of Portland, OR, Olney Patt, Jr.; and the chairman of the
Southwest Tribal Fisheries Commission of Lakeside, AZ, Mr.
Arthur ``Butch'' Blazer.
May I first call upon Chairman Frank.
STATEMENT OF BILLY FRANK, Jr., CHAIRMAN, NORTHWEST INDIAN
FISHERIES COMMISSION
Mr. Frank. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I am Billy Frank,
chairman of the Northwest Indian Fish Commission for the last
25 years. It is an honor to be here today with members of the
committee, as well as our chairman.
On behalf of our 20 tribes of the Northwest Indian Fish
Commission we are pleased to appear before the Senate Committee
on Indian Affairs to provide supportive comments on the Native
American Fish and Wildlife Management Act.
Today, we will provide some general comments with the
intention of providing more specific comments pertinent to S.
2301 over the coming weeks. We sincerely thank you and your
staff for your extensive investment of time and energy in this
legislation. We commend you.
Tribes have managed fish and wildlife resources for
thousands of years. Our treaties are now 150 years old in the
Northwest. In United States v. Washington, one of our cases
that was brought by the United States v. Washington in 1974 is
now 30 years old. Out of that case, confirmed by the United
States Supreme Court in 1979, came many legal principles as
other principles of our tribes.
One was the co-management of our tribes, that we use to set
regulations and work with all of our tribes. Out of that came
the Northwest Indian Fish Commission, an arm of all the tribes,
to coordinate all of our fishery issues, internationally and
200 miles out in the ocean. So we are managers.
We need funding. We need Congress to come forward with
legislation to give us funding for what we do as managers. We
need training and education. We need legal support, technical
and policy-level coordination support, and public opinion
support.
Tribes are good fish and wildlife managers. They always
have been. We are not asking for anything we are not already
supposed to have--to fish, hunt, gather and manage. It should
not scare anyone. We are not trying to take over Federal lands
or anything else. We are looking for ways to work together for
common benefits.
We gather berries from Canada clear down into Mexico on the
Cascade Range, that runs south from Canada. That is where we
have our ceremonies--up in the mountains on Federal lands. The
range of the mountains are all Federal lands. It is protected
by our Federal Government. But on that mountain they have signs
that these areas are set aside for treaty Indian rights, for
camping, for ceremonies. They have parks. They have real nice
places for us to camp and have fires and gather our medicines,
as well as our berries.
It is a place for Indian people to come and drive around
and think back of the memories of the many times that they have
camped in that mountain. My brother and I drive there at least
five or six times a year and just drive through the roads and
think of all the memories of our past, of our grandmas and
grandpas, and our children that played and enjoyed that
mountain.
We have memoranda of understandings; we have agreements
with the Federal agencies that protect that land--for not only
us, but for everyone, all the public; not only for the 20
tribes that I represent--it goes clean into Oregon and the
Yakimas on the other side of the mountain. All of our people
enjoy that range of mountain that is Federal lands. This bill
would enhance all of that that I am talking about.
We need protection. We need protection. I talked about the
Federal funding. We are looking out into the next 100 or 200
years of protection and managing the resource in our country,
in our own backyards. We have agreements with the big business
of the State of Washington. We have agreements with the timber
industry on timber fish and wildlife. We have agreements with
in-stream flows, with the utilities on our rivers. We have
hundreds and hundreds of rivers and streams. We have agreements
with the agriculture people, as well as a lot of our people
that live on our watersheds.
The Indian tribes are on those watersheds 24 hours a day.
We are there managing 24 hours a day. We live there. We have
coalitions of all people of the State of Washington. We have
coalitions of environmentalists. We have coalitions of
agriculture people, farmers, and timber people. We have
shellfish agreements out into the Puget Sound and along the
Pacific Coast. We are working with the Federal agencies as
partners, as well as the State of Washington and all their
agencies.
So we welcome and support this bill today, S. 2301. As you
said, it is working. In order for us all to work together and
make things happen, we have to sit down and try to get creative
in the language that we do not hurt anybody. We have to get
creative as thinkers and put thought into what we are talking
about; thought into talking for the fish; talking for the
animals; talking for the resource. How do we all talk and
protect them at the same time and find a balance out there,
with all the people that are moving into our country?
We will work with the local government, the planners, and
all. We have big water problems throughout our country and we
have to address these very important things. Our tribes stand
ready to do that, sir.
We want to thank you and the committee, especially you,
Senator, for being our person that always cares about Indian
treaties and Indian rights and our people.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Frank appears in appendix.]
Senator Inouye. I thank you very much, Chairman Frank.
May I call upon Chairman Patt.
STATEMENT OF OLNEY PATT, Jr., CHAIRMAN, COLUMBIA RIVER INTER-
TRIBAL FISH COMMISSION
Mr. Patt. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, on behalf
of the Columbia River treaty tribes I would like to thank you
for this opportunity to provide testimony on the Native
American Fish and Wildlife Resource Management Act of 2004.
My name is Olney Patt, Jr. and I am the executive director
of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, a
Commission formed by resolution of the Nez Perce Tribe, the
Confederated Tribes of Umatilla Indian Reservation, the
Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon,
and the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakima Nation, for
the purpose of coordinating fishery management policy and
providing technical expertise essential for the protection of
the tribes' treaty-protected fish resources.
Both independently and through their Commission process,
the Columbia River treaty tribes have worked cooperatively and
with some success with the states and Federal agencies, as well
as with private landowners to restore populations of the shared
salmon resource. The Columbia River treaty tribes see this bill
as an opportunity to provide a framework for tribes to deal
with specific on-reservation resource management issues, as
well as to provide a national framework that can allow tribes,
states and the Federal Government to also successfully address
regional management issues of shared natural resources.
I will focus on a couple of key elements of this bill in my
testimony today, and I will supplement the record with
additional written testimony within a few weeks.
Since 1977, our Commission has contracted with the BIA
under the Self-Determination Act, Public Law 93-638, to provide
technical expertise essential for the protection of the tribes'
treaty-protected fish resources. What we have learned during
this time is that through better regional coordination and
cooperation, we can spend more time working with state and
Federal land and water managers on developing shared resource
management strategies and less time in court.
Since the tribes formed the Commission, we have seen the
development and implementation of a cooperative harvest
management plan for the Columbia River. In the late 1960's and
through the 1970's, the tribes spent much time in court
debating how the tribes and States should share the
conservation burden of the shared salmon resource. By the late
1980's, the tribes and States had come up with an agreement on
a plan for co-management of this resource. This plan, though
currently under revision, has largely replaced the annual
litigation over the conservation and harvest management of the
shared salmon resource that originates in the Columbia River.
In the early 1980's, we witnessed a dangerous coast-wise
decline in Chinook salmon stocks from Southeast Alaska through
British Columbia and throughout the Pacific Northwest. The need
to deal with this conservation crisis helped to push the United
States and Canada to reach an agreement on the Pacific Salmon
Treaty of 1985. Under the treaty, there is now a management
structure through which the parties can share technical
information and develop strategies to deal with the management
problems concerning the shared salmon resource.
The Columbia River treaty tribes, along with the Western
Washington treaty fishing tribes were significant participants
in the negotiation of that treaty and continue to play a
significant role in its implementation.
Each of the examples I have outlined deal with complex
multi-jurisdictional management issues. This bill by
specifically allowing tribes to opt in to the resource
inventory and planning process recognizes the needs of the
individual tribes within regions and across the continent. This
bill does not force any tribe to undertake the resource
inventory and management planning process provided in this
bill.
Undertaking a resource inventory and survey could only
occur at the request of the tribe. The development of the
resource management plan would then follow at a pace set by
each individual tribe. Nor would this bill require any tribe to
abandon a current management plan, co-management agreements, or
any other working resource management plan. It does offer the
promise of a structure and the resources that can be utilized
by the tribes at their option in developing new plans or in
revising old management plans.
I would like to note one important element in this bill.
Section 202 of the bill provides a framework to increase the
educational opportunities for tribal members to gain the
knowledge and training necessary to manage tribal resources. It
also provides an opportunity for tribes to coordinate and
cooperate with other tribes, with universities and others as
appropriate on technical and scientific issues associated with
resource management.
We see great promise in the development of tribal
cooperative research units at universities across the country.
Within the Columbia River Basin, the Commission, working with
its members tribes, identified a critical regional need for
additional facilities to handle genetics work associated with
regional management restoration activities.
On behalf of its member tribes, the Commission entered into
a memorandum of agreement with the University of Idaho to cite
these facilities at the University's aquaculture research
facility. Building upon that agreement and acknowledging the
desire of other tribes in the basin to participate in the
opportunities offered by our arrangement with the University,
we have worked with the University to outline a memorandum to
establish a cooperative research unit that other tribes can
join as well.
The formation of that tribal cooperative research unit at
the University of Idaho provides several benefits. It allows
the tribes to have their own staff driving the research agenda
and working on resource issues of importance to the tribe. It
offers tribal staff the opportunity to reach out to the non-
tribal community through teaching assignments at the
University. It provides a place for tribal members attending
the University to take on undergraduate or graduate degree
research work.
All of this would be accomplished in a cooperative,
coordinated research forum that could include other state or
Federal researchers. I would note that it is important that we
ensure that the opportunities laid out for tribal students in
this section of the bill, especially as to the development of
the cooperative research unit system, are integrated with the
opportunities and work of the Indian college system.
For the reasons I have laid out in my testimony today, the
Columbia River treaty tribes support the general concepts and
opportunities provided in the language of the Native American
Fish and Wildlife Resource Management Act of 2004. We would
welcome the opportunity to work with you, other members of the
committee, and with your staff to fine-tune the bill to ensure
that it meets the needs of all the tribes within the United
States and to ensure its passage here in Congress.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Patt appears in appendix.]
Senator Inouye. I thank you very much, Chairman Patt.
Chairman Frank and Chairman Patt, both of you have very
eloquently described the successes that your commissions have
had in developing and establishing relationships with the
Federal Government and the State and county governments. Does
this measure do that also, to enhance and encourage tribal
commissions or tribal governments to establish these
relationships?
Chairman Frank.
Mr. Frank. Yes; it does. We see this bill as a very
important step for the U.S. Congress to assure us that we will
be managers of the resource and enhance our ability to manage
just like the States do. We are all part of it and we work
together to make that happen. We have so many agreements in the
last 30 years that I talk about of co-management. This bill
will enhance all of the agreements that we have put together.
Senator Inouye. Chairman Patt.
Mr. Patt. Yes; I believe so. The tribes have been major
parties to all of the decisionmaking processes in the
Northwest. In many cases, we find that we have to reestablish
our place at the table with each new process. This bill carves
out a place for the tribes to be at that table at all times.
We have been major parties, as I pointed out, to the
Pacific Salmon Treaty, United States v. Oregon, the major
management plan for the Columbia River Basin and so forth.
Senator Inouye. So this bill, if passed, would give you a
foundation of laws that would protect these relationships?
Mr. Patt. Yes.
Mr. Frank. Yes.
Senator Inouye. Do you believe that without tribal
involvement or tribal commission involvement in the management
of resources, the overall health of the resources will suffer?
Is this something that just the Federal Government can do?
Mr. Patt. No; I believe because of the nature of the
Federal Government personnel in the region, it is often
necessary to reeducate new people who are coming in, say, for
instance in the Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA and all of the
various Government agencies we work with; the Forest Service,
BLM, as to treaty rights and to educate them on existing
agreements. Often when these Federal officials are well
educated on the tribes' role in the regional management
process, they are reassigned. So this is kind of an ongoing
process.
Senator Inouye. Chairman Frank, this measure calls for
programs such as seafood marketing programs. Why do you think
that these programs would provide assistance of value to
tribes?
Mr. Frank. I think that it will give us an opportunity to
put our marketing schemes forward with the Federal Government.
Marketing right now with Indian tribes in the Northwest and our
fishery is at about the lowest level that I can think of right
now. No one wants to buy our salmon. There is so much salmon
out there now. They call it Atlantic salmon. They are penned
salmon. We Indian tribes in the Northwest, we are catching
Pacific salmon. They are wild. So we do not have a market for
that. This will give us an opportunity to expand our market
into the Federal system and start supplying, maybe working with
the Army or whoever it might be. It is a great opportunity for
us.
Senator Inouye. In my opening statement, I referred to an
article that appeared in the Washington Post about the counting
of salmon by using the hatchery-bred salmon as part of the
count. What do you think about that?
Mr. Patt. We have not had a chance to look at the full
proposal of the Federal Government. I have only just read the
article myself. What it represents to us is maybe another
changing of the rules. We have been dealing with NOAA Fisheries
and the Fish and Wildlife Service extensively on different
listed species, from bull trout to salmon and steelhead stocks.
It seems to me that this is kind of an all-or-nothing approach.
We have struggled with NOAA Fisheries and the Fish and Wildlife
Service in our efforts to restore salmon, using appropriate
stocks and the wise use of artificial production. We have been
hamstrung at every turn by the scientific certainty that they
are demanding, such as the hatchery genetic management plans
that are necessary in order for us to implement any artificial
production measure.
This seems to turn that whole rule clear around to where
there is going to be no distinction between wild and hatchery-
reared fish. So there are many, many facets of this, one of
which is a bill by Norm Dicks to mark all hatchery-bred fish at
federally funded hatcheries. If those are going to be part of
the listed species, there is going to be some considerable
discussion about that.
Mr. Frank. Senator.
Senator Inouye. Chairman Frank.
Mr. Frank. If I could comment. They have a new rule that
they are trying to put together. They have to be very careful
what they are doing. I mean very careful because the wild
salmon in the Pacific Northwest are still wild. If the rule
says everything is going to be hatchery, then there will not be
any in-stream flows; there will not be any timber, fish and
wildlife agreements in the Northwest to grow trees and have
shade along the streams and the temperature of the water and
the gravel in the streams; debris in the stream, logjams.
They have to be very careful what direction they are going
when they talk about wild salmon and artificial salmon. This is
very dangerous ground. It better be well thought out when they
do something like that, because we have a lot of agreements in
the Northwest with our neighbors, and working together and
trying to find a balance on wild and artificial. We have
hatchery reform that has been taking place in our country. It
is very serious. The Federal Government is involved in that,
NOAA, all of us, the State of Washington and all of our tribes.
So we feel that we are going forward. We are taking steps
to make the hatcheries reform to wild and how they can work
together in our country.
Senator Inouye. In other words, do you believe that if this
new rule is put into effect without consultation with tribal
governments and commissions, it may place the wild salmon in
jeopardy?
Mr. Patt. As I said, I have not had a chance to look at it,
but yes, I believe so. I believe just as Mr. Frank has stated,
that it will probably loosen up rules. Right now we have a
major issue in the Columbia Basin on summer spill. I think this
may be geared toward that as the NOAA Fisheries and the
Bonneville Power Administration has canceled a couple of
meetings with us in the last two weeks. Those meetings were
intended to bring this proposal to us on summer spill. I
suppose this would be a way around that.
Senator Inouye. May I request that both your commissions
look into this matter and share with us your thoughts on this?
Mr. Patt. Yes.
Mr. Frank. Yes; we will, absolutely.
Senator Inouye. Senator Smith.
STATEMENT OF HON. GORDON SMITH, U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON
Senator Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to
be with you today and express my support for the Native
American Fish and Wildlife Resources Management Act. I have a
longer opening statement. In the interest of time, I will put
it in the record.
[Prepared statement of Senator Smith appears in appendix.]
Senator Smith. I believe that what underpins this act is
the natural stewardship Native Americans feel to the
environment. Their actions are borne out by a millennia of
history in managing their lands and their resources. I think no
matter what the law is, their conduct will be above and beyond
that law because that is part of their culture and their
history that is unchangeable.
I would--as one familiar with many of the issues Mr. Frank
and Mr. Patt are discussing here--like to welcome them both as
Northwesterners. Mr. Patt is a neighbor in Warm Springs, OR. I
would express at least my view that in terms of hatchery fish,
the management of hatcheries needs to be done very carefully
and to the highest of standards. If done so, it can be done in
a way that is consistent with preserving wild fish.
It is my understanding that the highest scientific
practices require that hatchery fish come from the eggs and the
milt of last year's wild fish. I have not heard scientists
describe a genetic difference between those fish 1 generation
or 1 year removed from the other as being genetically inferior
or somehow inappropriate to be in the ocean or in our rivers,
but some believe that they are. I do not think it is an either/
or equation. I think we can have both if it is done carefully
and to high scientific standards.
As to the whole issue of spill, I hope what is being done
is attention being given to hard data as to what provides the
greatest survivability, improves the survival of the fish that
are migrating to the ocean. I have been shown data that
suggests that spilling them actually heightens their mortality.
More of them have gas bubble disease. They float, they get
picked off, they are made more vulnerable than by some of the
other means to get them through or past the dams, which at the
same time can produce electricity.
The only thing I am saying is if you save more fish by
running the dams and spilling less, and you could also create
electricity, it seems to me that reasonable people and courts
looking at facts can experiment to find out what the truth is.
I think everyone approaching this issue needs to have as their
objective saving fish and producing the energy that we
desperately need to improve economic opportunity in Washington,
Oregon, and Idaho, where we have some of the highest
unemployment rates in the country. That rate does not come down
if energy production fails to go up, or if energy prices remain
high.
So what I am being told is there is hard data, objective
science which suggests you can produce energy and save more
fish. I think that is a worthy thing to do. It speaks for
itself. No one, and myself among them, wants to stop spilling
if it means we destroy a species. I just simply want to know
what the facts are. I think that is what I am hearing from many
of you, along with a word of caution. Be careful. I share that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Inouye. Thank you very much, Senator Smith.
Mr. Frank. Senator.
Senator Inouye. Yes; Chairman Frank.
Mr. Frank. I would just add to that, Senator Gordon Smith
from Pendleton, OR. I am proud of what has taken place with all
the tribes in Oregon. I have been down to visit them and
working with the farmers and working with the state, as well as
within the reservation or adjoining the reservation. You have a
lot of water flowing now, and working together is very
positive.
Now, the hatcheries, I would hope that the United States
would give very long thought about hatcheries reform or
hatchery rule or whatever they are talking about, because we in
the Northwest, all of us, we are talking about the next 100
years. We are not talking about a quick fix like a rule. We are
talking about getting the people and the public behind
everything that we are doing as far as hatchery reform, and try
to find that balance, as our Senator from Oregon was talking
about, and to have time to do that.
Now, I hope if a rule comes out that they give a lot of
thought to hatchery and wild salmon.
Senator Smith. Absolutely.
Mr. Patt. Senator Smith, we also have been striving to come
up with some good numbers on the curtailment of summer spill.
One of the big hurdles in doing that is BPA's regional battle
cry of $77 million to save 24 fish. That has not helped the
effort at all. However, we are working with NOAA Fisheries and
we think we are coming closer to some agreement on the juvenile
mortalities.
I was just told that our staff will be meeting with your
staff tomorrow morning to go over some of those numbers.
Senator Smith. We look forward to that.
Senator Inouye. I thank you very much, Chairman Frank and
Chairman Patt.
Our next panel, the executive director of 1854 Authority of
Duluth, MN, Sonny Myers; the attorney-policy analyst of the
Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission of Odanah, WI,
James Zorn; the executive director of the Native American Fish
and Wildlife Society of Broomfield, CO, Ira New Breast.
Mr. Myers.
STATEMENT OF SONNY MYERS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 1854 AUTHORITY
Mr. Myers. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee, my name is Sonny Myers. I am the executive director
of the 1854 Authority. What we are is we are an intertribal
natural resource management organization that implements the
off-reservation hunting, fishing and gathering rights of the
Grand Portage and the Bois Forte Bands of the Lake Superior
Chippewa in the area that was ceded in the Treaty of 1854. So
we are up in northeastern Minnesota.
I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to
comment on this important piece of legislation. I consider it
an honor to be here today. I would also like to make a special
note to the committee staff who have been working very hard,
been very active in gathering actual tribal input. It seems
like the current draft is a direct reflection of what the
tribes have been trying to bring forth. And also from my
perspective, their understanding of the real-world political
processes, how these things actually work and moving these
things along, has been very, very helpful because I am a little
bit new at this process.
As everyone in this room is aware, great things have been
happening in Indian country relating to tribes' ability to
oversee its own members and also to oversee its own reserve
resources; 15 years ago, I am speaking from Minnesota, at least
from our perspective, a Band member would have been arrested
and actually was arrested for moose hunting off the
reservation. Now, the right was there, but now today we are
actually at the table not only participating in the
discussions, but providing valuable input into harvest quotas
that are set for both the State and tribal hunters.
Ten years ago, a bi-national effort to protect the waters
of Lake Superior was brought forth. That meant every
jurisdiction was at the table, except for the tribes. Actually
now today we are not only at the table, as well as other tribal
organizations, but in many cases tribal staff are key members
of working committees there.
Really, about 5 years ago, things are a little stickier in
the fishery realm; there is a stigma attached to fish and
Indians back home, but the concept of cooperating on a
fisheries information gathering effort with State folks did
happen, but it was a real grudging affair. As I speak, last
night and tonight members of my staff will actually be out
there working in a very cooperative, friendly manner on
gathering that type of information.
I just wanted to say that. You know, it has really been our
charge or our commission to champion the tribes' rightful place
among the stakeholders in managing the shared resources in the
area that has been reserved in the 1854 Treaty area.
So indeed, great things have been happening. I wanted to
make note of that because we are very thankful for the
foundations that have been laid and the groundwork by many of
the people, especially out in the Northwest, and some of my
colleagues here from Wisconsin, sort of laid the groundwork for
our successes in Minnesota. But also as everyone in here is
aware, there is a constant striving or a constant effort to
erode the sovereignty that the tribes are working very hard to
maintain.
Hence, we think this Native American Fish and Wildlife
Resource Management Act will hopefully be a means to take or
move tribal fish and wildlife management to its rightful place.
So I just have a few comments on the proposed legislation,
why we think it is necessary and hopefully these things will be
addressed and are addressed in the proposed legislation. We
think it is necessary because it expressly recognizes that
Indian tribes must have a role in managing ceded territory of
fish and wildlife resources. Not only should the tribes be at
the table, but as time is telling, it is actually a benefit to
have the tribes at the table when discussing these resource
issues.
Statutory acknowledgment of these treaty rights is
necessary because the rights are too often subordinated to the
interests of others who have no treaty rights, but have strong
political influence. Even though we are gaining ground in
respect, very often and most often we are lumped in with other
special interest groups when it comes to frameworks in which to
provide comments and to be part of the process.
Last, I just want to say that we are sensitive to the
concerns of others, the tribes are, but we must ensure that the
quality and the quantity of the fish, game and traditional
plants, and the access to them, is not diminished because of
land management practices that do not consider treaty rights. I
wanted to quantify ``access'' to mean that is both the physical
access of actually getting to an access, and also some of the
methodologies. This is especially a concern for us in our lands
which are managed by the Federal Government. The 1854 Treaty
encompasses both a national forest and a designated wilderness
area, so we are talking a large portion of the 1854 Treaty area
where the Band members hunt, fish and gather is managed by the
Federal Government.
So last, I will just close with this legislation hopefully
should not be construed as a replacement for what is going on,
but really hopefully what it would do it really would enhance
what is going on and further the cause of establishing the
tribes' rightful place among the stakeholders in managing these
shared resources that have been reserved.
My ancestors had the foresight to reserve those rights and
we are thankful for that. We are beneficiaries of some very
explicit treaty language for ceded territories, and hopefully
we can have the foresight to preserve those rights.
Again, I would like to thank the committee for the work
that has already been completed, and I really look forward to
bringing this important legislation to fruition.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Myers appears in appendix.]
Senator Inouye. I thank you very much, Mr. Myers.
Mr. Zorn.
STATEMENT OF JAMES ZORN, ATTORNEY-POLICY ANALYST, GREAT LAKES
INDIAN FISH AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION
Mr. Zorn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Smith, other
members of the committee. Again, it is a great honor to come
before this committee and talk about this important matter. As
you recall, last June 3 we had an oversight hearing where
tribes and tribal organizations from around the Nation came and
helped to present a record for this committee as to what Indian
tribes and their agencies are doing out there to protect
natural resources and to help tribes exercise their sovereignty
over those resources.
The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission is an
agency of 11 Chippewa tribes located in Minnesota, Wisconsin,
and Michigan. All of those tribes have signed treaties with the
United States whereby they ceded a large section of land in
those areas, and in those treaties they specifically reserved
the right to continue to hunt, fish and gather--in essence to
continue their life-ways on the lands that were ceded.
The tribes' rights include the right to regulate their own
members and to play a role in the management of those natural
resources that are subject to the rights, as well as in
protecting the habitats and ecosystems that support the
resources that are harvested.
So that is our perspective here today. We offer our written
testimony. We will let that go in the record and we will just
offer some thoughts now orally to highlight what is in the
testimony, and we hope that our June 3 testimony also is
brought into this record, or at least considered.
We are extremely grateful to the committee and the
committee staff, as well as to the tribes from around the
Nation and their staff, for the hard work that has gone into
developing this bill. It is very clear that this committee
listened very carefully to the tribes, not only on June 3, but
about 10 or 12 years ago when a previous version of this bill
was being kicked around and being considered. There is great
sensitivity by this committee to the needs in Indian country
and this bill reflects that.
What this bill, in our view, is really about is identifying
the Federal role to support and assist the tribes as they play
their proper role in natural resource management particulary
within tribal communities, where the tribal governments have
the most important role to play, as well as with other tribes,
perhaps with whom they share use areas like in our situation
with the ceded territories and in the Northwest. I think we
often forget that the term ``co-management'' also includes
management among the tribes. This is a very important aspect
that the bill properly recognizes.
And, ultimately, the proper rule with other governments and
with the larger community, beyond the tribal community, because
these natural resources are shared by everyone. The tribes want
to play their role in protecting the natural resources and in
sustainable populations of natural resources for generations to
come, not just for them, but for their neighbors.
As I understand this bill and as I understand how it is
drafted, the tribes are not asking for any rights or
responsibilities that they do not already have. Each tribe has
the rights that it has, and those rights simply are what they
are. The bill then is really, in our view, a tool to help the
tribes realize and achieve their rights as governments to be
involved in natural resource management activities, both on the
reservation and off the reservation where existing tribal
rights and responsibilities attach.
Senator Inouye, to use a phrase that was used many years
ago in Wisconsin, we view this bill as Congress helping ``cast
the light,'' so to speak, on the Federal Government's proper
role, particularly the executive branch's proper role, in
honoring and supporting tribal rights and management
responsibilities both on and off the reservation, in fulfilling
the purposes of the Self-Determination Act to get the funds and
the responsibilities for running those programs down to the
tribes themselves, and not to a Federal bureaucracy, and to
ensure that wherever Federal authority is carried out, by
whatever Federal agency, those agencies and that authority is
carried out in a way that does not infringe upon the tribes'
rights, and in fact honors them and helps support them.
This really is not just about tribes. It is about the
Nation as a whole. As we recently found out in a strategic
planning process with the Fish and Wildlife Service's Fisheries
Program, partners and stakeholders from around the Nation--from
the Federal Government, State governments, non-governmental
organizations and tribes--got together and talked about the
crises that are facing this Nation's natural resources,
particularly aquatic habitats. There is a call now for a
national aquatic habitat initiative because of common problems
faced around the country, particularly with invasive species,
habitat loss and so on.
In that strategic planning process, there was the
practical, if not legal, recognition that the tribes need to be
there; that the job cannot be done without tribes. Tribes
control a great deal of land and resources on the reservation.
And, they play a great role where they have ceded territory
rights in ensuring the sustainability of resources. The
partners uniformly recognized that tribes need to be at the
table if this Nation is to succeed in passing on the legacy of
natural resources that we inherited, if not a better one.
With those background comments, we have a few particular
comments on the bill's provisions. I will just highlight them
briefly. First of all, we hope the bill does not result in the
creation of a new bureaucracy within the Department of the
Interior. We just hope that the committee assesses that. We
understand that there is a dialog between tribes and the
committee, and there will be a dialog with the Interior
Department as this bill moves forward. This is just something
we want to keep in mind--The purpose of the bill is to get the
funds and responsibilities out to the tribes. We should be
careful not to keep them within the Federal agencyif a tribal
natural resources management program is created within
Interior.
Second, we understand there may be some prospective issues
with the bill that involve the dilemma that Federal agencies
face. We call it the dual mandate dilemma, where Congress
legislates particular responsibilities for an agency, such as
for the Forest Service with national forests, saying this is
your job. The statute says this is what the agency must do. Yet
there is the separate stovepipe of obligations of each agency
with respect to the tribes' reserved treaty rights, where that
agency must honor those rights, and must carry out its
responsibility and authority under the other specific act in a
way that is consistent with those rights.
It is not a matter of taking over the Federal lands from a
tribal perspective, especially the lands off the reservation.
It is a matter of having the Federal agency recognize tribal
rights, making sure those rights are implemented, and making
sure the Federal land is managed in a way that does not
infringe upon those rights and supports the habitats of the
natural resources that are subject to the rights. So we do not
think that this is a big problem and we offer our experience
with the Forest Service and with the National Park Service over
the last 10 to 15 years as examples of how things might work
out.
In terms of how the Self-Determination Act funding might
fit in that circumstance, our agreement with the Forest
Service, for example, is that the Forest Service will recognize
and assist the tribes in implementing their treaty gathering
rights. Yet when it comes time to getting positions on our
staff to deal with the Forest Service, the Forest Service will
say--``we do not have the funds; we are not authorized to give
you funds.'' In fact, we were turned to the part of the Forest
Service called State and Private Forestry to look for those
funds. So our hope is that through this act we can then say,
when we have our arrangements set, that the Self-Determination
Act can help give us our infrastructure on the tribal side that
we need to help implement that agreement.
Second, in terms of the natural resource management
planning and other requirements of the act, we certainly hope
that the act is not intended to require the tribes to change
their natural resource management traditions or methods, or to
change or alter their existing management plans, to either
conform to the bill's requirements as a prerequisite for the
exercise of retained tribal sovereign prerogatives to carry out
those natural resource management activities or as a
prerequisite for Self-Determination Act funding or technical
assistance. Let's make sure we do not slide backwards through
this bill. Let's make sure that we use the foundation we have,
move forward, and bring more funds and more tribes into the
assistance that the Federal Government should be providing.
Finally, I know that there are portions of the bill that
need to be developed, in particular with respect to health
issues and the idea that ``what good are these natural
resources if they are not safe for tribal members to consume.''
The Commission offers its assistance to help develop those
provisions. It could be somewhat complex, given that this calls
into question perhaps the FDA-type responsibilities about the
safe handling and processing of foods and so on. But it also
carries issues like Mr. Frank identified, such as the idea of
wholesome tribal wild rice harvested from nature. The rice is
good; it is clean. It is probably about $10 more a pound than
California-grown paddy rice, which might be genetically
modified, and tribes are at a tremendous competitive
disadvantage because of that type of situation. So perhaps this
bill could help.
With those comments, we submit our written testimony for
the record. We continue to engage in the dialog with the staff
and the other tribes, and we certainly thank the committee for
its attention to this matter.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Zorn appears in appendix.]
Senator Inouye. Thank you very much, Mr. Zorn.
Mr. New Breast.
STATEMENT OF IRA NEW BREAST, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIVE
AMERICAN FISH AND WILDLIFE SOCIETY
Mr. New Breast. Hello, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for this
honor and opportunity for the Society to speak before the
committee today.
We would like to first again express our gratitude for the
committee's interest and hard work, particularly the staff, and
also recognize the dedication of the working group that has put
together much of the language that encompasses the bill.
Our statements are fairly short. The Society, of course, is
a national nonprofit organization that encompasses assisting
tribes for informational networking, education and scientific
purposes. Ours is not necessarily an advocacy organization, but
we do have short comments that we would like to put into the
record.
The bill that we are discussing here today obviously does
face a number of challenges, the scope of which is vital in
every aspect that is contained within the language of the bill,
but it is broad. Because it is broad, there are many challenges
that arise with the overall future and success of the bill. We
have confidence in the working group that is addressing these
things, but we would like to encourage that all concerned
recall the original theme of the bill from the 1993 history to
the recent Portland 2003 January discussions, is to address
fundamental fish and wildlife conservation management. So in
the bill, quite possibly explore avenues to narrow the focus of
the bill, to encompass that theme and keep it in mind. Of
course, that is as we discuss and try to consider what
challenges may face the bill for the future.
Ultimately, the success of the bill, of this endeavor, will
be measured by the eventual funding for this language of the
bill. In particular, the achievement of this will be in the
term of permanent funding. We understand the parameters that
are affecting the strategies in the withholding of identifying
funding for this bill, and hope for the future as we go forward
that this may be realized in the future.
As an example of what the funding might look like, for over
more than 500 Federally recognized tribes, and to realize the
intent of the bill and proceed productively, the numbers that
will have to be realized to provide base funding for tribes
will have to be in the hundreds of millions. We realize this
may be sometime in the future. But that keeps in mind from an
individual standpoint as a former Director of the Blackfeet
Fish and Wildlife Department, we remember this bill, and
remember what the hopes that it had entailed basically to
provide tribes with the funding capability to manage their fish
and wildlife programs, their resource. So we encourage the
committee and the working group as they move along to keep that
in mind as we move along.
Certainly, the Society supports the tribes in their efforts
to realize this type of legislation, and particularly because
we are so strong as an informational networking group, we
encourage the use of the Society to disseminate some of the
information to the tribes. I would like to point out that many
tribes do not want organizations. They are in some respects
independent, and so find it difficult at times to have their
voice heard in different forums. So they look to the Society to
perhaps provide that gap of information.
So when we are talking about strategies in the development
of this bill, and how we are incorporating all of the tribes,
it would be in their interest to be able to at least have the
benefit of understanding what those strategies are, rather than
seeing the end product of what those strategies were trying to
achieve, knowing that the overall effort is one for the benefit
of all the tribes in their fish and wildlife interests.
That concludes the Society's comments for today.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. New Breast appears in appendix.]
Senator Inouye. I thank you very much.
All of you have suggested that this measure provides a
statutory recognition of treaty rights. In essence, this bill
does not create any further rights for Indian tribes. However,
it will provide funds that would make it possible to implement
these rights. Is this bill necessary to do that? Or can you
just carry on the way you are now?
Mr. Myers. I can take a shot at that. I think it is
necessary. There is really limited amount of money, at least in
our perspective; I should not say our perspective, the tribal
perspective; there are not a lot of funds available to actually
do work. We are not looking to create new levels of bureaucracy
or new programs or whatever. But the funds are limited on a
major scale.
That is one of the reasons, I guess every time I come out
here I may sound like a broken record, but I champion the
Circle of Flight program, and on the grand scale it is
relatively meager dollars, what it does on the ground is really
allows the tribes to become a player out there in the ceded
territories. We cooperate with the Federal Government. We
cooperative with country governments, state governments. There
are private organizations like Ducks Unlimited, as well as
individuals who are just interested in a certain resource.
So I guess hopefully what this bill would do would maybe
expand some of those areas where funding may become available.
Even that one sort of gets put on the cutting floor every year.
But again, on the grand scale, a meager amount of dollars, but
on the ground where the tribes are actually working, it has
just done amazing things for us.
Senator Inouye. So you consider the important element to be
funding?
Mr. Myers. Certainly a part of it. We could have the
statutory framework to say, yes, we are tribes and we have the
rights out there, and that is all fine and dandy, which helps,
but it is certainly nice to have some funds available to
actually participate in those processes. I do not think anyone
is looking for expanded programs, but it would really be nice
to have some dollars to hit the ground and work on the
resources with.
Senator Inouye. Mr. Zorn.
Mr. Zorn. To endorse and to add to what Mr. Myers said, the
bill certainly is necessary from the perspective of Congress
directing Federal agencies to recognize the Federal
Government's trust and treaty obligations. We often hear from
agencies that ``oh, it is not within our organic statute,'' say
the Army Corps of Engineers about the issuance of 404 permits,
``it is not within our statutes here to look at tribes and
their treaty rights as anything else other than a public
interest-type criteria.'' The Corps needs to recognize that the
Federal Government does have unique obligations towards tribes.
In that sense, this bill would be very necessary and very
helpful to get those other agencies to recognize and implement
the Federal Government's trust and treaty obligations.
Then the bill is also necessary in the context of the
larger picture forboth congress and executive branch in terms
of the standing of tribal natural resource management programs,
that they are a congressionally recognized, important aspect of
tribal sovereignty and that they should get the attention they
deserve, hopefully within Interior as well as within other
agencies. And the bill would allow the tribes and others to do
the battle for the budget. We can no longer hear that, well,
natural resources are over here; no they are here; they are
center stage; they are part and parcel of tribal sovereignty
and a very important part. So in that sense, the bill is very
necessary.
Will the tribes continue, as Senator Smith said, to do what
they have done for millennia without this bill? They certainly
will. Will this bill help them do a better job and help this
Nation do a better job and get better results for this Nation's
natural resources? This bill will certainly help and is
necessary.
Senator Inouye. Mr. Zorn, in your written testimony, you
spoke of the dual management dilemma. Can you give us an
example of that?
Mr. Zorn. For example, the national forests, as Mr. Myers
said. They are part of the public land-base off the
reservations where the tribes may exercise their treaty-
reserved hunting, fishing, and gathering rights. The tribes
went to the national forest and said, look, we think we can
gather some wild plants here for medicinal, cultural and other
purposes like we have always done, including wild rice. You
would face potentially the argument that the National Forest
Management Act, the Four Corners statute of that agency, did
not say anything about the Forest Service recognizing and
implementing these rights and honoring these rights. It
provided no guidance to the agency as to how the Forest Service
should exercise its Federal management responsibility over
those lands to make sure those tribal rights were indeed
honored.
So we sometimes will face the issue where the agency will
say, ``we have this job to do that Congress gave us, but
Congress has provided us no guidance as to that other stovepipe
of the trust and treaty obligations.''
Senator Inouye. Mr. New Breast, how do you view this bill
as assisting your organization?
Mr. New Breast. One of the mechanisms of assistance that
this bill would do in regard to creating the type of base
funding that is needed throughout Indian country is raise
capacity for all aspects of the infrastructure of an
organization, whether they are tribal fish and wildlife or they
are broader Indian organizations. In that, they raise the
capacity. They also inherently imbue far more capability to
productively interact on a cooperative basis, whether it is
collaboration that translates into cooperative agreements,
memoranda of agreements.
For instance, from personal experience, the Blackfeet Tribe
got themselves involved with an international cooperative
agreement which dealt with the Canadian Government, provincial
and Federal; dealt with Canadian tribes; and dealt with the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The national parks were also
involved in this agreement. It all had to do with recovering
the endangered bull trout in the St. Mary drainage of Montana.
Through that cooperative effort, there existed very little
funds. But through the united effort, much work has been able
to be done. On a scientific basis, we were able to put together
all of our information in one area so that we could effectively
address that resource. So it continues to be a success up in
Montana, and that is one example.
The Acoma of New Mexico worked very cooperatively with both
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Federal agency law
enforcement, as well as the New Mexican entities. These type of
cooperative efforts serve only to be enhanced. What we face
today is nationally, regardless of who the entity is that is
managing the fish and wildlife, is a steady decrease in the
interest in the viability of our fish and wildlife resource. So
tribes just look to try and play their part in that overall
role of united effort to see the best interests of fish and
wildlife.
So that is how I see the priorities being directed as an
endeavor for not only the tribes, but as they outreach to other
entities as well.
Senator Inouye. Senator Smith.
Senator Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As I have listened to the testimony, it does seem to me
that this bill is important because it gives the tribes an
authoritative voice, though not a veto, in the formulation of
Federal natural resource policy. I think that that is an
authoritative voice that is long overdue in being heard on a
government-to-government basis.
So I had intended in my opening statement to express
support for the Native American Fish and Wildlife Resources
Management Act of 2004, and my able assistant has pointed out
to me I expressed support for the current statute, the National
Indian Forest Resource Management Act. So for the record, I
correct that and simply conclude my part in the hearing today
by saying I hope that this new Act will further add to the
discussion of self-determination and self-governance of Native
Americans.
Thank you, sir.
Senator Inouye. I thank you very much.
This bill may have an impact upon every tribe in this
Nation. Are there any exceptions that might be anticipated? Are
your problems the same as the problems of the Northwest or the
Southeast?
Mr. Zorn. If I may, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Inouye. Sure.
Mr. Zorn. The tribes' situation with natural resource
management and natural resource management activities are very
similar, but each tribe has its own bundle of rights,
responsibilities and sovereign prerogatives. As we know, a
tribe retains that authority which they have not voluntarily
relinquished, or Congress in the exercise of its plenary power
has not taken away. Each treaty needs to be looked at in its
own particular circumstance, own particular terms, own
particular historical examination of what that treaty was
intended to mean and what it actually does mean.
So in that sense, there certainly are individual tribal
needs that may be different from tribe to tribe. There
certainly are different regional needs. I do think that that is
one thing that we must pay attention to in this bill, that as
you try to paint with as broad a stroke as possible to handle
some of these very similar problems, that you make sure that no
tribe's individual sovereign prerogatives are left out of the
picture here in some way. I think some care is going to have to
be given to that.
Mr. New Breast. Mr. Chairman, just as we often see that
good science provides the answer to many difficult questions,
just as I mentioned earlier, the topic of fundamental fish and
wildlife conservation management being the theme to direct
that, despite the differences, if you will, inherent
differences of tribes in regard to what their cultural
situation is, their relationship to the resident habitat and
the resources, that general theme will provide the guidance,
the beacon that needs to come through and reach the needs of
the tribes.
Senator Inouye. I thank you, gentleman, very much for your
contributions. May I assure everyone here that all of your
prepared statements will be made part of the record.
And before I forget, the record will be kept open until May
31, so if you wish to make addendums or corrections, please
feel free to do so.
Our final panel consists of the first chief of Stevens,
Stevens Village, AK, Randy Mayo, accompanied by the Natural
Resource and Environmental Program director of Stevens Village,
Dewey Schwalenberg; and the director of the Business and
Sustainable Development Central Council Tlingit and Haida
Tribes of Alaska, Juneau, AK, Gordon Jackson; and the president
of the Inter-Tribal Bison Cooperative, Rapid City, SD, Ervin
Carlson, accompanied by the Inter-Tribal Bison Cooperative of
Rapid City, Fred Dubray.
Mr. Mayo.
STATEMENT OF RANDY MAYO, FIRST CHIEF OF STEVENS
VILLAGE, AK, ACCOMPANIED BY DEWEY SCHWALEN-
BERG, NATURAL RESOURCE/ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAM
DIRECTOR
Mr. Mayo. Thank you, Chairman Inouye, members of the
committee, honored guests, for this opportunity to testify
before you here in the oversight hearing on S. 2301, a
discussion draft bill that would improve the management of
Native American fish and wildlife and gathering, and for other
purposes.
I am honored by this invitation to present oral testimony
to the committee. Our written testimony has already been
submitted by our tribal natural resource director, Dewey
Schwalenberg, seated here to my left.
I speak today in support of this bill and on behalf of my
215 tribal members, and for the other community residents of
Stevens Village, who would stand to benefit from the resource
management and protection that this bill will provide to my
community.
Stevens Village is located 90 air miles north of Fairbanks
on the north bank of the Yukon River. There are 30 households
in the village and 90 residents. Most are tribal members and
shareholders in the Dinyee Native Village Corporation. I am the
vice president of the Dinyee Corporation. The remainder of the
tribal members reside in Fairbanks or other communities because
they need to have work, which is difficult to find in the
village.
Many of our members would like to live in the village and
most do use fish and wildlife and forestry resources from our
traditional lands during certain seasons of the year. There are
no roads to Stevens Village. Transportation is by small plane,
by boat up the Yukon River from the Yukon River Bridge on the
Dalton Highway, 27 miles downstream from the village, or by
snow machine or dog sled to the bridge in the winter. Barges
come up the river twice a year to deliver fuel and construction
materials. Air freight for personal goods to the village is 45
cents per pound. None of the houses have sewer and water, but
we do have treated water and sewer to the school and water
plant.
The school has 13 students from preschool to 12th grade.
The Council is the largest employer in the village and we have
seven full-time workers and 12 to 15 seasonal workers. The
tribal lands and natural resources program employs most of our
workers for fisheries, wildlife, forestry and environmental
projects. Without the resource program, the community would
have little employment. Funding for these programs has been
challenging to maintain. Periodic grants have kept the program
going for the past six years, but permanent funding is
necessary soon or we will lose this portion of our economy.
Our people are very much dependent upon the salmon that
comes up-river in the summer and on moose that live around the
village. The moose population is at a very low level and we
have taken steps to begin raising buffalo to supplement our
meat supply.
To provide the technical comments on this bill, I will ask
Mr. Schwalenberg to use the rest of our time to highlight our
technical testimony.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Mayo appears in appendix.]
Senator Inouye. Mr. Schwalenberg.
Mr. Schwalenberg. Thank you, Chief Mayo, and thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Our written testimony will explain what type of programs
that the tribe up in the Yukon River area actually undertakes.
What I would like to talk a little about this morning is the
genesis of where the tribal authority for managing resources
comes from in Alaska.
As you know, in the bill there is a title III section on
Alaska Native Fish and Wildlife Programs, and I think a lot of
people do not understand that each tribe in Alaska does have a
constitution. The tribal government in Stevens Village's
constitution was passed in 1939 and approved by the Secretary
of Interior, and it was amended in 1990. Under the provisions
of the constitution, we see that one of the critical
responsibilities of tribal government is management of natural
resources for and on behalf of the benefit of its people. So
that is where the tribe assumes is authority to manage
resources.
Stevens Village is also a government in the town site and
the only government, only municipal government, and therefore
has responsibilities of managing resources and the well-being
of its people in pretty much about 3,000 acres of land.
So what type of management program the Stevens Village
Council has put together has been one of managing the moose
populations, wildlife, fisheries, environmental testing of its
waters and its resources, and above all putting together
employment opportunities for its people.
So we serve as program director and managers to train local
people in how to conduct research technician activities, how to
collect traditional harvest data. We work cooperatively with
the State of Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service refuge program. We work cooperatively
on aerial moose surveys. We did a northern pike radiotelemetry
project for about 6 years that indicated there was negative
impact on large quality fish populations, which in turn led to
the State of Alaska Board of Fish making some regulatory
changes that benefitted the tribes, its members and also the
State residents.
We do the same thing with the Subsistence Board for moose
hunting regulations and the bear hunting regulations that the
tribal government determined were necessary through our
research, were taken to the Board of Subsistence. The Board of
Subsistence passed those regulations.
So the tribes in Alaska are not attempting to develop a
brand new system. They are using the existing system out there
that protects the resources. What we are asking for in this
bill is the fact that the Federal Government recognize the
contribution that the tribal governments are making and
recognize the struggle that these tribal governments in Alaska
are making, and hopefully we will be able to find some
permanent funding so that these programs would be able to
become more institutionalized in a cooperative manner with
State and Federal.
But in conclusion, what I would like to do is just tell you
one quick anecdote an elder in the village told me when I
questioned when I first showed up there 12 years ago. I
questioned the management, whether people knew professional
management, et cetera. I really did not know. I was naive. So
one of the elders told me about an experience. He was up one of
the tributary rivers in the late fall. The water levels had
receded and there was a beaver dam with a beaver pool. He said,
behind the beaver pool all the whitefish and the pike were
trapped in that beaver pool. I said, well, what did you do? And
he said, well, I opened it up so that they could get out.
So people historically have known how to manage their
resources. He opened that beaver dam up so those whitefish
could get back to the main stem of the Yukon River and survive
the winter, because back in the shallow waters of a beaver pond
they are going to freeze to death over winter.
It is just one of these anecdotes after another that
indicate to me that tribes and the Native people of Alaska have
always participated in resource management. It was a
traditional sense of management, and that is what we have done
in our program. We have incorporated those traditional values
and management practices into our scientific programs, and that
is why we feel they are so successful.
So we are very supportive of this bill. One technical
question I brought up in S. 2105 is the term ``Alaska Native
fish and wildlife organizations.'' I noticed in our attempt to
bring this bill before you, we have put Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act and we have put the Indian Self-Determination
Act provisions together in the title III Alaskan section, so
that all of those provisions together make this portion of the
Act. I did notice one thing in section five where it says, the
term ``Alaska Native fish and wildlife organization means
commission authority or other entity chartered for the primary
purpose.'' We believe strongly in the Indian self-determination
that that should read, ``authority or other entity chartered by
one or more tribes for the primary purpose.''
If we do not keep the tribes involved in this explicitly,
we are going to find out that the tribes will end up as normal
not receiving any of the benefits of this act. The tribes can
cooperate with their village corporations and regional
corporations to conduct management activities, but we would
like to see that tribal language in this bill.
Thank you very much.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Schwalenberg appears in
appendix.]
Senator Inouye. I thank you, sir.
Mr. Jackson.
STATEMENT OF GORDON JACKSON, DIRECTOR, BUSINESS AND SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT, CENTRAL COUNCIL TLINGIT AND HAIDA TRIBES OF ALASKA
Mr. Jackson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
My name is Gordon Jackson. I am the director of business
and Sustainable Development for the Central Council of Tlingit
and Haida Indians of Alaska, with 24,000 members located
throughout the Pacific Northwest.
I also provide staff support to the Southeast Alaska Inter-
Tribal Fish and Wildlife Commission. I am also the Chairman of
the Board of Kake Travel Corporation.
We have provided written testimony and rather than read it,
I am just going to provide some information in supplement for
the record. I think that a lot of folks that talked about the
bill, I really appreciate the opportunity to be part of this. I
have been in Portland and have spoken to various members of the
group behind me by e-mail or by teleconference. I think that
the bill has come a long ways. It is getting better every time
a draft is developed. I think that by the time it gets through
the whole process, I think it is going to be a very good piece
of legislation.
As the director of business and sustainable development in
southeast Alaska, I find that job relatively tough. Over the
last several years, we have developed economic summits in
several communities in southeast Alaska from Prince of Wales
Island to Angoon and Hoonah. We find a number of things
relating to the needs of the communities almost the same. Some
of the items that have been developed over the last several
years is that we find that the logging economy is getting
smaller and smaller. As the Native corporations complete the
harvesting of their land, we have lost thousands of jobs in
village Alaska. That is in contrast to the big boom of the
1990's. Hundreds of people are out of work in the communities
relating to logging.
In addition to the downturn of the logging economy, there
is a huge downturn in the fishing industry that continues in
villages today with the loss of processors and markets,
primarily due to the influx of farmed salmon throughout the
world. Farmed salmon has taken over the market for wild salmon,
and I think it has been devastating throughout the Pacific
Northwest.
There has been little penetration of tourism in rural
communities in southeast Alaska, although there is going to be
almost 900,000 off-loaded in Juneau, relatively little of them
trickle in to the smaller communities of southeast Alaska. I
think that the prospects of getting any kind of those jobs are
really small.
So the unemployment rate in smaller village Alaska is very
high. The prospects for any kinds of huge economic development
activity is very small.
Because of the decline in the fishing community and the
commercial fishing in our communities, and the need to address
subsistence consistently in southeast Alaska, we in the Central
Council developed a southeast Alaska Inter-Tribal Fish and
Wildlife Commission. We wanted to address subsistence and
commercial fishing. We patterned our organizational structure
based on the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and
Northwest Indian Fish Commission. All of our members joined
this Commission by resolution, and have made this organization
very strong and have upheld our responsibilities to address
these many things.
We have done a number of things over the last couple of
years since the organization was organized. We have worked
cooperatively with many organizations, including the Migratory
Bird Council. Several years ago, the Migratory Bird Treaty
organized a cooperative body that is composed of all of the
regional village and regional tribal organizations, and the
state and Federal Government. You have a great big cooperative
body that figures out the seasons for taking of migratory birds
up and down the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.
We have addressed through cooperative associations the
Marine Mammal Act, where members of the body of the association
in Alaska addresses marine mammals up and down the coast of
Alaska. We have been monitoring the Pacific Salmon Treaty. Lots
of our fish originate from the Great Columbia River Basin.
Earlier today you heard folks talking about spill over the
Columbia River. That affects the fish for the tribes in Oregon
and Washington. It also affects the return of the Chinook
salmon in southeast Alaska, which come in great numbers and
used to come in millions of numbers throughout the coast of
southeast Alaska. Whatever happens on the Columbia River
negatively also negatively affects the people in southeast
Alaska.
We have worked to develop a plan to work cooperatively with
the State of Alaska. We have been monitoring the cruise ships
that go through southeast Alaska that have been known to dump
gray water throughout the interior surfaces of southeast Alaska
that affect not only the wild salmon, but our subsistence way
of life, so we are monitoring that very carefully.
Addressing commercial fishing has been relatively rough. I
grew up in that industry. In my short lifetime, I witnessed
huge problems in the downfall of this industry. When I was
young, that industry was the number one employer in southeast
Alaska. Today, that is struggling. Last year, I provided on
June 3 some really depressing figures relating to the downfall
of that industry in southeast Alaska. The limited entry permit
system came into existence in the 1970's. That provided the
right for many of the people to fish in southeast Alaska. In
the 1970's, the community of Kake received 29 limited entry
permits. They have eight active permits now. The community of
Angoon received 27 active permits. They now have one active
permit. The community of Hoonah had 53 limited entry permits.
They now have four active permits.
There are few processors available in the villages, and
this will not get any better this year, with two more
processors announcing the fact that they are going to be
leaving southeast Alaska. This is due to a whole bunch of
things relating to the market in wild salmon. Like I said
earlier, the inundation of farmed salmon throughout the world
has had a devastating impact on the marketing of wild salmon in
Alaska.
Another thing that has been really affecting the fishing
community in southeast Alaska is the loss of halibut IFQs. One
huge example of this loss is that in the community of Kake, the
National Marine Fisheries Service told us last week when we
were working on a piece of legislation in the State legislature
that the community of Kake started out with 300,000 pounds of
halibut IFQ, with the IFQ ability to sell those IFQs that came
along with the rule and regulation, they now have only 100,000
pounds. It basically means 200,000 pounds of halibut has been
lost through the sale of the individual fishing quota for
halibut.
Now, the National Marine Fisheries Service through the
North Pacific Fisheries Management Council has adopted a rule
and regulation that allows communities to buy as a first right
any halibut or black cod quota that leaves the community. We
have been working on ways to implement that and have worked on
loans relating to it because we feel very strongly about the
local control of fisheries. I think that that will do a heck of
a lot to keep the halibut quota within the community.
I think that, in looking at a lot of the provision of S.
2301, I think that a lot of it will address many of the items
relating to what is needed in the Pacific Northwest, for
instance, marketing of Alaska and Pacific Northwest wild
salmon.
The markets have been in a dump the last 5 to 10 years. The
loss of that market to farmed salmon is a direct result of a
number of things, including not only marketing, but also
different value-added products and other things like keeping
the fish cold and making sure that the quality is good. But
that provision, I think, is great. I think that anything that
relates to marketing of salmon is good. The more markets we
open up domestically on a national level and international
level I think is pretty good.
S. 2301 is a good step toward self-sufficiency and self-
determination. Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much for giving
me the opportunity to comment on this. I think as we go through
the process it will be much improved. We look forward to its
implementation and enactment.
Thank you very much.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Jackson appears in appendix.]
Senator Inouye. I thank you very much, Mr. Jackson.
And now may I call on President Carlson.
STATEMENT OF ERVIN CARLSON, PRESIDENT, INTER-TRIBAL BISON
COOPERATIVE, ACCOMPANIED BY FRED DUBRAY, INTER-TRIBAL BISON
COOPERATIVE, RAPID CITY, SD
Mr. Carlson. Good morning, Honorable Senator. I thank you
for allowing me here to speak and present this morning.
For the record, my name is Ervin Carlson. I am the
president of the Inter-Tribal Bison Cooperative, a nonprofit
organization. We are comprised of 53 federally recognized
tribes across 18 States. I am honored to present this testimony
on behalf of the ITBC members in support of passage of S. 2301.
The ITBC commends the committee's efforts to finally
acknowledge and reaffirm the special relationship that exists
between Native Americans and the fish and wildlife of this
country.
Native Americans have long believed they exist as co-owners
of this Earth, with fish and wildlife. S. 2301 provides Native
Americans an opportunity to develop the capacity and access to
resources to protect, preserve and enhance fish and wildlife
resources, including buffalo. While ITBC strongly supports and
endorses S. 2301 as it applies to all fish and wildlife
resources, my following remarks are specific to buffalo as
ITBC's primary objective is to assist tribes with restoring and
enhancing buffalo on Indian lands.
Historians estimate that approximately 30 million to 80
million buffalo thrived on the Great Plains of the United
States for many centuries, before they were hunted by the non-
Indian to near-extinction in the 1800's. Native Americans of
the Great Plains thrived on the abundant buffalo prior to being
relocated and restricted to Indian reservations.
For many generations, buffalo ensured the survival of
Native Americans of the Great Plains. Naturally, this
coexistence of Native Americans and buffalo on the Great Plains
resulted in the longstanding spiritual and cultural connection
between Native Americans and buffalo.
Buffalo provided Native Americans with food, shelter,
clothing and essential tools, and ensured the continuance of
their subsistence way of life, resulting in a self-sufficient
existence that was devastated along with the destruction of the
buffalo herds.
The lifestyle of the tribes dominated by interaction with
the natural world was profoundly impacted by the needless loss
of the buffalo that most tribes still consider to be a
holocaust. While Native Americans of the Great Plains have been
forced away from their customary subsistence lifestyle, their
profound respect for buffalo remains. Buffalo remains an
integral part and component of the cultural and religious
beliefs and ceremonies of Native Americans.
The passage of time has not diminished the spiritual and
cultural connection that we Native Americans have with buffalo,
and a strong desire exists among Native Americans to repopulate
Indian lands with healthy buffalo. In 1992, seven tribes
committed to this, to preserving the sacred relationship
between buffalo and Native Americans, and established the ITBC
as an effort to restore buffalo to Indian lands.
ITBC focused its restoration efforts on reservation lands
that often did not sustain other economic or agricultural
efforts. Lands that were unproductive for farming or raising
livestock were and still are suitable for buffalo. ITBC began
actively restoring buffalo to Indian lands upon the receipt of
limited grant funding from the Department of the Interior.
The organization began with seven founding tribes and
approximately 1,500 animals. Today, 53 tribes have joined ITBC
and 35 of those tribes have various sizes of herds, with
approximately now 15,000 animals. However, the restoration
efforts remain in the infancy stages as the buffalo herds have
not yet developed to a degree to overcome the loss to the
tribal cultures as many herds are comprised of very few animals
and many herds remain vulnerable to limited resources for
proper management.
Many ITBC member tribes desire to raise buffalo only as a
spiritual and cultural effort. These tribes wish to cultivate
their religious and spiritual connections to the buffalo and
are not interested in commercial marketing of the buffalo for
economic development efforts. However, some of these tribes are
interested in the harvest of buffalo only for the purpose of
feeding tribal members. Therefore, while ITBC's restoration
efforts remain paramount, numerous ITBC member tribes that have
maintained viable buffalo herds are now interested in
developing the means to provide buffalo to Native American
populations as a healthy food source.
Native Americans currently suffer from the highest rates of
type 2 diabetes and they also suffer at extreme rates from
cardiovascular and various other diet-related diseases. Studies
indicate that type 2 diabetes commonly emerges when a
population undergoes radical diet changes. Native Americans
have been forced to abandon traditional diets rich in wild
game, buffalo and plants. Based on current data, it is safe to
assume that disease rates of Native Americans are directly
impacted by a genetic inability to effectively metabolize
modern foods. Range-fed buffalo meat is low in fat and
cholesterol and is compatible to the genetics of Indian people.
ITBC strives to develop an educational initiative to
reintroduce buffalo into the diets of Native Americans to
combat the high rates of diet-related diseases.
With that history as to the buffalo there, I would also
like to talk about our support for S. 2301. ITBC supports the
passage of Federal legislation that acknowledges the
significant relationship between Native Americans and the fish
and wildlife resources located on Indian lands. Native
Americans coexisted with fish and wildlife in this country for
many centuries. The rights of tribes to continue with hunting,
fishing and gathering wildlife resources has been recognized
and guaranteed in Indian treaties between tribes and the United
States.
S. 2301 will acknowledge the inherent sovereign authority
of tribes to manage fish and wildlife resources within their
respective jurisdictions, and provide tribes with the means to
develop and achieve meaningful management objectives.
Legislation specifically authorizing tribes to manage fish and
wildlife resources is consistent with the promotion of tribal
self-determination.
Additionally, ITBC believes S. 2301 will foster the sound
management of tribal fish and wildlife resources, that in turn
will have a positive effect on tribal economies. S. 2301
solidifies the trust duty of the United States to ensure proper
management of tribal fish and wildlife resources.
S. 2301 will provide critical funding to allow Native
American tribes to investigate and inventory fish and wildlife
resources, and then to develop the capacity to effectively
manage those resources. Upon proper identification of
resources, tribes will be empowered to address the protection,
conservation and enhancement of fish and wildlife. Presently,
many tribes have not developed regulatory schemes for their
fish and wildlife resources such as buffalo, and do not have
the trained personnel to best protect these resources. S. 2301
will allow tribes to develop effective management plans that
will maximize the production of fish and wildlife, including
buffalo, to better meet tribal subsistence, ceremony,
recreational and commercial needs.
Additionally, S. 2301 will create employment opportunities
for tribal members in wildlife management positions. S. 2301
also establishes a framework for the long-range goal of some
ITBC member tribes to commercially market buffalo meat through
the authority, to develop certification standards, and
marketing initiatives. ITBC member tribes have been frustrated
with the inability to coordinate with the Secretary of
Agriculture to furnish tribally produced, range- fed buffalo to
the food distribution program for Indian reservations. S. 2301
would allow ITBC member tribes to develop an alternative,
tribally controlled program to distribute natural range-fed
buffalo to Native American populations.
Additionally, S. 2301 requires the Secretary of Agriculture
to consult with tribes to allow tribes meaningful participation
in USDA programs and to improve the diet-related health
conditions of Indian people.
Finally, S. 2301 would allow ITBC and its member tribes the
resources to offer meaningful alternatives to the needless
killing of Yellowstone-area buffalo.
In conclusion, the passage of S. 2301 will ensure that the
critical efforts of ITBC to restore buffalo to Indian lands
will continue. Currently, ITBC has been funded only by yearly
grants with no assurance of continuous funding. Although ITBC
has made significant and admirable progress to restore buffalo
to Indian lands, the herds remain in stages of infancy.
Consistent and adequate funding is critical to continue with
the restoration efforts.
S. 2301 will allow tribes to achieve the goal of providing
healthy range-fed buffalo to American Indian populations to
combat diet-related diseases. Most importantly, S. 2301 will
allow tribes to restore and manage buffalo herds on their
tribal lands in a manner that is compatible with the economic
goals and the spiritual and cultural beliefs of the tribes.
ITBC believes that this legislative effort is long overdue
and strongly urges its passage. And also we would urge to
incorporate some appropriate language in there to ensure that
the buffalo are protected and managed in a manner compatible to
the tribal interests.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Carlson appears in appendix.]
Senator Inouye. I thank you very much, Mr. Carlson.
Chief Mayo, I have listened to your testimony very
carefully. You speak of your village being landlocked during
the wintertime. There is no highway connecting you to the rest
of Alaska. There is no air base and a barge goes up there twice
a year, and they charge you 45 cents a pound, and your
unemployment is high. How many people live in Stevens Village?
Mr. Mayo. Probably about 90 to 100, give or take the 10
people that go back and forth or so.
Senator Inouye. So the population of your community is 90
people?
Mr. Mayo. Just in our community, but we have a great many
tribal members living all over, Fairbanks, Anchorage, down in
the Lower 48, that because of economic and educational
opportunities have had to move.
Senator Inouye. And you believe that this measure will
address your conditions?
Mr. Mayo. I believe it would really help in rebuilding our
community through the different aspects that this bill would
do. Even though we sound very remote and a very small
community, with the coming of the oil pipeline and road, that
caused a great impact by people coming in to our area and
competing for a very limited subsistence resource.
In the first place, we have to develop a resource program
there, and also this would really help us, and the educational
and training aspects of providing employment, but also get our
elders involved to start training and give insight to our
younger tribal members in the cultural and spiritual aspects in
our relationship with the land and animals around us.
It would really give them some identity and a foundation to
get out there in the world and seek higher education to start
learning the western biological aspects of resource management.
And also, in the ways of some of the marketing of seafood and
bison section of it, that eventually we have to start becoming
self-sufficient. We see that down the road this would provide
culturally relevant economic development opportunities for us.
I also serve as the Chairman of the Council of Athabascan
Tribal Governments, a 10-member inter-tribal consortium. In
fact, I recognize two tribal members that have gone out and
have come back to the communities and are offering some of
their educational training to the efforts of looking after our
natural resources and lands surrounding our communities. If I
could recognize Craig Fleener and Ben Stevens here, if they are
still here. They had to leave to another meeting.
We also have a lot of our younger high school kids that are
very interested. They want to stay at home, but the
opportunities are very limited. We are entering a new economy
now, and that being a more and more cash-based economy. For
years, like I mentioned, we have to develop a program because
of the impacts coming off of this oil pipeline road. Even in
the wintertime, a lot of recreationists and just competition
for a limited resource already that a lot of our people do want
to move back.
I myself, my family had to move for economic and
educational reasons, and after being out in the world quite a
few years, I found my way back home and I am now raising my
family in our ancestral homeland. We had cobbled our resource
program together with an unsteady funding base for quite a few
years now, with the help of our Director who is also trained,
and other younger tribal members, we jus get by on whatever we
can raise to ensure that we look out for these resources in the
most traditional manner in contemporary times as possible, and
reaffirm our relationship with these animals through our tribal
governance.
We have been for many years working as cooperative managers
with the Fish and Wildlife Service. We are located in the Yukon
Flats National Wildlife Refuge, so we work as cooperative
managers with these folks, and also with the state Department
of Fish and Game, and as Dewey here had mentioned, that we work
within the existing system up there to affect regulation and
change based on the collection of scientific data. In this way,
we try to insert a lot of our traditional knowledge and
science, just our understanding of the resources and lands
around us, through our program here.
So I see this would really help us out in the long run.
Senator Inouye. I thank you very much, Chief.
Mr. Schwalenberg, what role do Alaska Natives have at this
moment in developing regulatory programs to manage fish and
wildlife programs? Do they have any role?
Mr. Schwalenberg. Currently, the role of Alaska Natives in
the management regime is an advisory role to the existing Game
Board of Fish through an advisory council or through the
subsistence board through rural advisory councils. Native
people also form co-management entities with Federal agencies
such as the Whaling Commission or the Sea Harbor Commission,
the Sea Otter Commission, where the agencies work directly with
Native subsistence users to form these working groups. And then
the management that is developed through those groups is
implemented by the state and Federal agencies.
The tribes themselves have no position on any of these
commissions or entities. Tribal governments do not have a seat
at the table, but Native people do. So the regime is pretty
much involved Native people, but has ignored the tribal
governments and their specific governing role.
Senator Inouye. But tribal people have what role? Advisory
only?
Mr. Schwalenberg. Yes; everybody is in an advisory capacity
within the existing regime.
Senator Inouye. Would this change the situation, this bill?
Mr. Schwalenberg. We do not believe that it is going to
change that situation because the tribes are not intending to
exercise any authority over the State or Federal management of
resources. The tribes are intending to manage resources for the
benefit of their people and they will do it in a cooperative
manner because, as an example, the corporation lands, Stevens
Village has a land-use plan and has a land-use agreement with
its village corporation. The village corporation has 136,000
acres around the village, and the tribe serves as the managing
entity that manages the resources within those corporation
lands. The Doyan Regional Corporation throughout the Yukon
Flats has about 2.4 million acres of lands, and we work
cooperatively with them.
So the bill does not recognize any authority that the
tribal governments do not currently have, nor does it diminish
any of the authority that the tribal government has because of
its sovereignty and its constitutional provisions. So the
Government recognizes that the lands that it has authority on,
and where it does not have legal authority, it develops
cooperative management agreements and then participates in the
management.
Senator Inouye. Thank you very much.
Mr. Jackson, you spoke of your high unemployment rates and
that fish and wildlife, fishing especially, may be the only
source of food and employment you have. What has been your
experience with co-management agreements regarding the
management of fish and wildlife?
Mr. Jackson. Our experience has been very positive. At the
table, for instance, at the Migratory Bird Treaty, the state
and Federal Government work with tribal governments in the
development of a plan relating to migratory birds in Alaska.
And we developed rules and regulations relating to it. We
worked all these policies out amongst one another. I think it
works very good in the case, along with marine mammals.
In many cases, many communities initiate these kind of
things. For instance, last year I could tell you about Kanalku
Creek on Admiralty Island in Southeast Alaska, the runs of red
salmon, sockeye salmon were going low. They decided at the
local level that they would not take any of those sockeye
salmon until the runs came back. With the state and Federal
Government, they developed a plan, initiated by local folks
that would do that. Everybody has basically watched that creek
and managed it together.
So I think in my experience in Alaska, it has been real
positive if everybody understands their role. I know there has
been a lot of debate relating to that. It only breaks down when
one party does not understand their duties and
responsibilities. As long as everybody understands their role,
I think it works fairly decently and you are able to work out
the kinks.
Senator Inouye. Do you believe that this legislation would
encourage the continuation of such co-management agreements?
Mr. Jackson. I think it would. There is adequate provision
in the legislation that allows for cooperative agreements among
everyone.
Senator Inouye. Thank you.
Mr. Carlson, you spoke of your buffalo herd increasing from
1,500 to 15,000, and you mentioned that you were receiving a
grant per year. How much do you receive?
Mr. Carlson. Our funding is through the Department of the
Interior. In the past year, we received $2.2 million, but this
is funding that is just yearly funding and subject to change at
any time or not be there. That is a real problem to ITBC.
Senator Inouye. So you received $2.6 million last year?
Mr. Carlson. $2.2 million.
Senator Inouye. $2.2 million. What would you need to
increase your herd further?
Mr. Carlson. We have 53 member tribes as of now, and just
to speak on the money that we need, the $2.2 million sounds
like maybe a lot of money, but in fact when it is distributed
out between the needs of the 53 tribes, it does not cover that.
I believe a two percent increase would help the tribes to get
the herds to a sustainable amount.
Senator Inouye. In order to implement the provisions of
this measure, obviously it would necessitate funds. I would
like to receive from all of the witnesses today some indication
of what level of funding would be necessary to reasonably put
this bill into effect. We would like to know what we are
talking about as to what the level of funding may look like. I
am certain my colleagues would like to know.
Yes, sir?
Mr. Carlson. As to ITBC and to the restoration efforts, I
would like to answer the question that was asked a little
earlier about the funding, and also to this which you are
asking now. With ITBC, we take the proposals from those 53
tribes, and they put down their needs of funding that they
need. Currently, that need would be $20 million. So the $2.2
million is far below the $20 million that is needed.
Senator Inouye. With that, I would like to thank all of you
for your testimony today. It has been extremely helpful. As I
indicated earlier, the record will be kept open until May 31.
If you have any addendums or corrections to make, please submit
them to the committee.
With that the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., the committee was adjourned, to
reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
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A P P E N D I X
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Additional Material Submitted for the Record
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Prepared Statement of Hon. Gordon Smith, U.S. Senator from Oregon
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank our witnesses for
testifying today on the Native American Fish and Wildlife Resources
Management Act of 2004. I hope today's hearing will further add to the
discussion of self-determination and self-governance.
Effective development and poverty alleviation often hinges on
improved tribal control. Empowering tribes with culturally appropriate
means to enhance and maximize tribal capability and capacity in
managing fish and wildlife resources is in the interest of all
Americans. I am committed to supporting the economic development of
Native communities through such economic opportunities as natural
resource development and the conservation and management of fish and
wildlife resources.
Tribes have a close relationship with fish and wildlife that goes
much further than the Federal stewardship. Indian people must live
with- the consequences of their action or inaction. This intimacy has
built strong cultural and traditional ties to fish and wildlife that
have existed for thousands of years. Thus, tribes are much better able
to manage their resources.
This legislation is an excellent step toward decentralization of
Federal control to tribal management. The National Indian Forests
Resource Management Act [NIFRMA] of 1990 is an excellent precedent to
the benefits of such decentralization. Tribes today manage their own
forests at such an innovative and sustainable level that many are
entering into stewardship agreements to help manage our national
forests with the U.S. Forest Service.
Tribes have only been able to develop such expertise in managing
their resources with the help of such pioneering legislation as NIFRMA.
Today's hearing will provide insight into Native American Fish and
Wildlife Resource Management Act of 2004 as another excellent piece of
legislation toward self-determination and economic opportunity for
Native Americans.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing and I most
interested in today's testimonies. I look forward to working with
tribal leaders, administrators, and other stakeholders in achieving a
better management of Native American fish and wildlife resources. Thank
you.
______
Prepared Statement of Ervin Carlson, President InterTribal Bison
Cooperative
Good Morning, Honorable members of the Senate Committee on Indian
Affairs. My name is Ervin Carlson and I am the president of the
InterTribal Bison Cooperative [ITBC], a nonprofit organization
comprised of 53 federally recognized tribes across 18 States of the
United States. I am honored to present this testimony on behalf of the
ITBC member tribes in support of passage of S. 2301. ITBC commends this
committee's efforts to finally acknowledge and reaffirm the special
relationship that exists between Native Americans and the fish and
wildlife of this country. Native Americans have long believed they
exist as co-owners of this earth with fish and wildlife. S. 2301
provides Native Americans an opportunity to develop the capacity and
access the resources to protect, preserve and enhance fish and wildlife
resources including buffalo. While ITBC strongly supports and endorses
S. 2301, as it applies to all fish and wildlife resources, my following
remarks are specific to buffalo as ITBC's primary objective is to
assist tribes with restoring and enhancing buffalo on Indian lands.
Historians estimate that approximately 30 to 80 million Buffalo
thrived on the great plains of the United States for many centuries
before they were hunted by the non-Indian to near extinction in the
1800's. Native Americans of the Great Plains thrived on the abundant
buffalo prior to being relocated and restricted to Indian reservations.
For many generations, buffalo insured the survival of Native Americans
of the Great Plains. Naturally, this co-existence of Native Americans
and buffalo on the Great Plains resulted in the longstanding spiritual
and cultural connection between Native Americans and buffalo. Buffalo
provided Native Americans with food, shelter, clothing and essential
tools and insured the continuance of their subsistence way of life
resulting in a self sufficient existence that was devastated along with
the destruction of the buffalo herds. The lifestyle of the Tribes,
dominated by interaction with the natural world, was profoundly
impacted by the needless loss of the buffalo that most Tribes still
consider to be a holocaust.
While Native Americans of the Great Plains have been forced away
from their customary subsistence lifestyle, their profound respect for
buffalo remains. Buffalo remain an integral component of the cultural
and religious beliefs and ceremonies of Native Americans.
1 The passage of time has not diminished the spiritual and cultural
connection between Native Americans and buffalo and a strong desire
exists among Native Americans to repopulate Indian lands with healthy
buffalo.
In 1992, seven tribes, committed to preserving the sacred
relationship between buffalo and Native Americans established the ITBC
as an effort to restore buffalo to Indian lands. ITBC focused its
restoration efforts on reservation lands that often did not sustain
other economic or agricultural efforts. Lands that were unproductive
for farming or raising livestock were and still are suitable for
buffalo. ITBC began actively restoring buffalo to Indian lands upon the
receipt of limited grant funding from the Department of the Interior.
The organization began with the 7 founding tribes and approximately
1,500 animals. Today, 53 tribes have joined ITBC, 35 of them have
buffalo herds of various sizes with a total of approximately 15,000
animals. However, the restoration efforts remain in infancy stages, as
the buffalo herds have not yet developed to a degree to overcome the
loss to the tribal cultures, as many herds are comprised of very few
animals and many herds remain vulnerable due to limited resources for
proper management.
ITBC's primary focus remains on the restoration of buffalo to those
Indian reservation lands that can sustain them to reestablish the
sacred relationship between tribes and buffalo. Although ITBC has been
successful in its 10 years of existence with restoring buffalo in
limited numbers to some Indian lands, many other tribes desire the
means to establish sound buffalo herds, but lack the resources to
fulfill that desire.
Many ITBC member tribes desire to raise buffalo only as a spiritual
and cultural effort. These tribes wish to cultivate their religious and
spiritual connections to the buffalo and are not interested in
commercial marketing of the buffalo for economic development efforts.
However, some of these tribes are interested in the harvest of buffalo
only for the purpose of feeding tribal members. Therefore, while ITBC's
restoration efforts remain paramount, numerous ITBC member tribes that
have maintained viable buffalo herds are now interested in developing
the means to provide buffalo to Native American populations as a
healthy food source.
Native Americans currently suffer from the highest rates of Type 2
diabetes and they also suffer at extreme rates from cardio vascular and
various other diet-related diseases. Studies indicate that Type 2
diabetes commonly emerges when a population undergoes radical diet
changes. Native Americans have been forced to abandon traditional diets
rich in wild game, buffalo, and plants. Based on current data, it is
safe to assume that disease rates of Native Americans are directly
impacted by a genetic inability to effectively metabolize modern foods.
Range fed buffalo meat is low in fat and cholesterol and is compatible
to the genetics of Indian people. ITBC strives to develop an
educational initiative to reintroduce buffalo into the diets of Native
Americans to combat the high rates of diet-related diseases.
Additionally, ITBC strives to develop processes to facilitate
providing tribally raised range-fed buffalo to Native Americans
dependent on Federal food distribution programs. Currently, buffalo
meat provided to Native Americans living on Indian reservations is
often not natural range fed buffalo but grain-fed buffalo raised by
non-Indians. Grain feeding buffalo compromises the health benefits of
the buffalo food products. Without adequate funding, ITBC cannot insure
that Native American populations are provided range fed buffalo
produced by Native American tribes.
In addition to buffalo restoration and providing range-fed buffalo
to Native American populations as a healthy food source, some ITBC
member tribes are interested in utilizing buffalo for tribal economic
development efforts. Thus, ITBC has now undertaken efforts to, insure
that ITBC member tribes have opportunities to develop economically
sustainable buffalo herds through the development of marketing
initiatives. The current sizes of Tribal buffalo herds limit achieving
economic sustainability of the herds and of the buffalo projects
providing tribes with economic benefit. However, with adequate funding
to develop sustainable herds, commercial marketing of buffalo remains
an important goal for many ITBC member tribes.
Since its inception in 1992, ITBC has participated in the
longstanding debates of the Greater Yellowstone Inter-Agency
Brucellosis Committee [GYIBC], an organization established to address
the risk of Yellowstone National Park buffalo transmitting brucellosis
to livestock. Yellowstone National Park buffalo possess pure bison
bison genus genetics, unlike other North American strains that indicate
cross-breeding with cattle. ITBC desires to transfer excess Yellowstone
buffalo to tribal lands as part of ITBC's restoration efforts. However,
Yellowstone buffalo have been determined to be at risk of brucellosis
and the current policy of the GYIBC has been to kill buffalo that
wander out of the Yellowstone Park for feeding purposes.
ITBC has recently obtained a non-voting seat on the GYIBC with the
intention of supporting alternatives to address the Yellowstone buffalo
brucellosis concern including the development of more effective
vaccinations and quarantine facilities for testing and treatment. ITBC
remains hopeful that Yellowstone buffalo, upon successful treatment to
diminish brucellosis concerns, may be transferred to tribal lands.
ITBC supports the passage of Federal legislation that acknowledges
the significant relationship between Native Americans and the fish and
wildlife resources located on Indian lands. Native Americans co-existed
with fish and wildlife in this country for many centuries. The rights
of tribes to continue with hunting, fishing, and gathering wildlife
resources has been recognized and guaranteed in treaties between tribes
and the United States. S. 2301 will acknowledge the inherent sovereign
authority of tribes to manage fish and wildlife resources within their
respective jurisdictions and provide tribes with the means to develop
and achieve meaningful management objectives.
Legislation specifically authorizing tribes to manage fish and
wildlife resources is consistent with the promotion of tribal self-
determination. Additionally, ITBC believes S. 2301 will foster the
sound management of tribal fish and wildlife resources that in turn
will have a positive effect on tribal economies. S. 2301 solidifies the
trust duty of the United States to insure proper management of tribal
fish and wildlife resources.
S. 2301 will provide critical funding to allow Native American
tribes to investigate and inventory fish and wildlife resources and
then to develop the capacity to effectively manage those resources.
Upon proper identification of resources, tribes will be empowered to
address the protection, conservation and enhancement of fish and
wildlife. Presently, many tribes have not developed regulatory schemes
for their fish and wildlife resources, such as buffalo, and do not have
the trained personnel to best protect these resources. S. 2301 will
allow tribes to develop effective management plans that will maximize
the production of fish and wildlife, including buffalo, to better--meet
tribal subsistence, ceremonial, recreational and commercial needs.
Additionally, S. 2301 will create employment opportunities for Tribal
members in wildlife management positions.
S. 2301 also establishes a framework for the long-range goal of
some ITBC member tribes to commercially market buffalo meat through the
authority to develop certification standards and marketing initiatives.
ITBC member tribes have been frustrated with the inability to
coordinate with the Secretary of Agriculture to furnish tribally
produced range-fed buffalo to the Food Distribution Program for Indian
reservations. S. 2301 would allow ITBC member tribes to develop an
alternative tribally controlled program to distribute natural range fed
buffalo to Native American populations. Additionally, S. 2301 requires
the Secretary of Agriculture to consult with tribes to allow tribes
meaningful participation in USDA programs and improve the diet related
health conditions of Indian people.
Finally, S. 2301 would allow ITBC and its member tribes the
resources to offer meaningful alternatives to the needless killing of
Yellowstone Area buffalo.
Passage of S. 2301 will insure that the critical efforts of ITBC to
restore buffalo to Indian lands will continue. Currently, ITBC has been
funded only by yearly grants with no assurance of continuous funding.
Although ITBC has made significant and admirable progress to restore
buffalo to Indian lands, the herds remain in stages of infancy and
consistent and adequate funding is critical to continue with
restoration efforts. S. 2301 will allow Tribes to achieve the goal of
providing healthy range-fed buffalo to American Indian populations to
combat diet related diseases. Most importantly, S. 2301 will allow
Tribes to restore and manage buffalo herds on their Tribal lands, in a
manner that is compatible with the economic goals and the spiritual and
cultural beliefs of the tribes.
ITBC believes this legislative effort is long overdue and strongly
urges passage.
______
Prepared Statement of Randy Mayo, First Chief, Stevens Village IRA
Council
Chairman Inouye, members of the committee honored guests, thank you
for this opportunity to testify before you during the oversight hearing
on S. 2301, a discussion draft bill that would improve the management
of Native American fish and wildlife and gathering, and for other
purposes. I am honored by this invitation to present oral testimony to
the committee. Our written testimony has already been submitted by our
tribal natural resource director, Dewey Schwalenberg seated here to my
right. I speak today in support of the this bill in behalf of my 215
tribal members and for the other community residents of Stevens Village
who stand to benefit from the resource management and protection that
this bill will provide to my community. Stevens Village is located 90
air miles North of Fairbanks, AK on the North bank of the Yukon River.
There are 30 households in the village and 90 residents. Most are
Tribal members and share-holders in the Dinyee Native Village
Corporation. I am the vice president of the Dinyee Corporation. The
remainder of the tribal members reside in Fairbanks or other
communities because they need to have work which is difficult to find
in the village. Many of our members would like to live in the village
and most do use fish, wildlife, and forestry resources from our
traditional lands during certain seasons of the year. There are no
roads to Stevens Village. Transportation is by small plane, by boat up
the Yukon River from the Yukon River Bridge on the Dalton Highway 27
miles down stream from the village or by snow machine or dog sled to
the Bridge in the winter. Barges come up the River twice a year to
deliver fuel and construction materials.
Air freight for personal goods to the village is 45 cents per
pound. None of the houses have sewer and water but we do have treated
water and sewer to the school and water plant. The school has 13
students from pre-school to 12th grade. The Council is the largest
employer in the village and we have 7 full-time workers and 12-15
seasonal workers. The tribal Lands and natural resource program employs
most of our workers for fisheries, wildlife, forestry, and
environmental projects. Without the resource program the community
would have little employment. Funding for these programs have been
challenging to maintain. Periodic grants have kept the program going
for the past 6 years but permanent funding is necessary, soon or we
will loose this portion of our economy. Our people are very much
dependant upon the Salmon that comes up-river in the summer and on
moose that live around the village. The moose population is at a very
low level and we have taken steps to begin raising buffalo to
supplement our meat supply.
To provide the technical comments on the bill I will ask Mr.
Schwalenberg to use the rest of our time to highlight our technical
testimony.
______
Prepared Statement of Ira New Breast, Executive Director, Native
American Fish and Wildlife Society
Mr. Chairman, Vice Chairman and distinguished committee members:
My name is Ira New Breast. I am the executive director of the
Native American Fish and Wildlife Society and an enrolled member of the
Blackfeet Tribe of Montana. I would like to respectfully thank you for
the opportunity to present testimony to the Senate Committee on Indian
Affairs on the development of the ``Native American Fish and Wildlife
Management Act of 2004.'' I am grateful that the discussion draft Bill
has been presented to tribes, tribal organizations and others for
comments and appreciate this committee's willingness to listen to and
work with such entities to make this legislation the best that it can
be.
The society is a national non-profit organization, established in
1982, whose mission is to assist Native American and Alaska Native
Tribes with the conservation, protection and enhancement of their fish,
wildlife, habitat and cultural resources. The Society strives to assist
tribes in their development and implementation of sound laws,
regulations, policies and practices that preserve and protect fish and
wildlife resources, are consistent with and enhance cultural traditions
and values and improve the general welfare of Indian peoples through
fish and wildlife related educational activities.
As a national organization the Society has a unique national
perspective, all tribes have distinctive perspectives and interests
with a variety of fish and wildlife resources, diverse habitats and
signature approaches to management. Our organization is not a
substitute for important government-to-government relationships with
tribes, we do offer forums in which Federal agencies can initiate
outreach to that end. The Society does not act in representation or
proxy of individual tribes. The Society does have mechanisms to
facilitate astute tribal deliberation to planning, development and
operational efforts surrounding fish and wildlife in Indian country.
As an individual, I have 16 years experience working in the field
managing fish and wildlife. For 12 of those years my work activities
have included nearly all aspects of tribal fish and wildlife
conservation management, they extend into administration, law
enforcement, policy and regulatory development, fund raising, and local
to national representation. My experience has led me to witness first-
hand the in depth needs that exist and depend in order to support
management by tribes for their fish and wildlife resource. From this
grassroots perspective I recall the history of the proposed legislation
and continue to hope for the original purpose and intent.
While development of the Native American Fish and Wildlife
Resources Management Act is a strong statement of the Federal
Government's commitment to Indian resources, tribes need the Federal
Government to reinforce their management capabilities by and through a
renewed and clarified commitment to tribal fish and wildlife resources,
further defining the application of trust responsibility in the arena
of Tribal fish and wildlife relationships. Funding cuts, reductions in
programs and inequities or inconsistencies in budgeting and support
perpetuates a lukewarm and uncertain commitment by the Federal
Government and cause difficulties for tribes in properly managing
natural resources. General Federal conservation and management programs
targeting resource protection on a broader, national scale do not
provide a consistent support mechanism upon which strong and effective
tribal conservation and management programs can be built. Tribes need
legislation to help resource management on Indian lands. Without
specific devotion to the fundamental management of Indian resources,
shortfalls and gaps will continue and resources will suffer.
The Society can attempt to provide its perspective on the
challenges facing tribes as they strive to develop and sustain fish and
wildlife management programs on tribal lands or for tribal resources.
If legislation is to effectively respond to the challenges, the bill as
currently drafted needs to be narrowed and refined, identifying support
mechanisms for on-the-ground management and conservation of fish and
wildlife in Indian country. The bill needs to focus on fundamental fish
and wildlife conservation management and should not be diverted for
other purposes. While support of special and specific interests are
valid in certain areas of Indian country, S. 2301 attempts to achieve
too much and should not dilute the basic unmet needs that exist for
many Indian tribes. Legislation and funding for core tribal fish and
wildlife management programs should be stabilized, made equitable and
consistent between tribes, and not be provided on a sporadic,
competitive basis. In anticipation of objections to the success of the
S. 2301, strategic foresight may prudently include a streamline
structure consistent with the original intent, theme and title of this
legislation.
In the event that the legislation is enacted, S. 2301 does not
identify funding sources and will likely go unfunded, distinctive
special issues or needs may find a higher degree of success on an
individual basis or practical channel. Special issues and needs may
likely be best effective and given attention in a bill suited to the
particular issues or needs. Unique interests should be addressed, but
should be addressed in regards and in deference to affected
representatives and unmet needs that do not exist for other tribes.
Tribes must be afforded equitable opportunity reflected by their unique
circumstances across the nation, as each tribe has some level of unmet
resource management needs. Resource needs that exceed fundamental fish
and wildlife conservation management needs (like the need for
enforcement officers, scientific capacity or operational assets) may be
dealt with on an alternative basis.
The Society is encouraged by the emphasis on resource education as
it is consistent with the priorities of the Society. This bill will
take a leap forward in supporting sorely needed educational programs in
tribal fish and wildlife management. it may be possible to combine some
of the education provisions and to review the programs relative to
current, similar programs.
Fundamental tribal fish and wildlife conservation management should
be supported and funded by the Federal Government on a permanent, non-
exclusive and equitable basis, to secure adequate resources, and truly
make this a success. Over the years, conservation and management
programs for States and U.S. territories, funded by Federal dollars, do
not translate into conservation and management benefits for Indian
country. This legislation will demonstrate for tribes equity in their
part to manage vital natural resources that benefit the American
people. We look forward to working with the committee to identify this
resolve and to implement or reinforce programs for the benefit of
tribal natural resources. Thank You.
Prepared Statement of Olney Patt, Jr., Executive Director, Columbia
River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, on behalf of the Columbia
River treaty tribes, I would like to thank you for this opportunity to
provide testimony on the Native American Fish and Wildlife Resources
Management Act of 2004. My name is Olney Patt, Jr. and I am the
executive director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
The Commission was formed by resolution of the Nez Perce Tribe, the
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the
Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon and the
Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation for the purpose of
coordinating fishery management policy and providing technical
expertise essential for the protection of the tribes' treaty-protected
fish resources. Both independently and through their Commission
process, the Columbia River treaty tribes have worked cooperatively,
and with some success, with the States and Federal agencies, as well as
with private landowners, to restore populations of the shared salmon
resource. The Columbia River treaty tribes see this bill as opportunity
to provide a framework for tribes to deal with specific on-reservation
resource management issues as well as to provide a national framework
that can allow tribes, states and the Federal Government to also
successfully address regional management issues where there are shared
natural resources.
I want to note that I will focus on a couple of key elements of
this bill in my testimony today and that I will supplement the record
with additional written testimony within a few weeks.
Since 1977, our Commission has contracted with the BIA under the
Indian Self-Determination Act (P.L. 93-638) to provide technical
expertise essential for the protection of the tribes' treaty-protected
fish resources. Through a governing body of leaders from four tribes
working together to protect their treaty fishing rights and a staff of
biologists, hydrologists, law enforcement personnel, and other experts
advising tribal policymakers, this Commission has demonstrated that
tribes are able to coordinate with a multitude of parties on a
regional, national, and international level. What we have learned
during the history of the Commission is that through better regional
coordination and cooperation, we can spend more time working with state
and Federal land water mangers on developing shared resource management
strategies and less time in court.
Since the tribes formed the Commission, we have seen the
development and implementation of a cooperative harvest management plan
for the Columbia River. In the late 1960's and through the 1970's, the
tribes spent much time in court debating how the tribes and states
should share the conservation burden of the shared salmon resource. By
the late 1980's, the tribes and states had come to an agreement on a
harvest plan for co-management of this resource, with some agreement on
production programs. This plan, though currently under revision, has
largely replaced the annual litigation over the conservation and
harvest management of the shared salmon resource that originates in the
Columbia River.
On an international scale, in the early 1980's we witnessed a
dangerous coastwide decline in Chinook salmon stocks from southeast
Alaska, through British Columbia, and throughout the Pacific Northwest.
The need to deal with this conservation crisis helped to push the
United States and Canada to reach an agreement on the Pacific Salmon
Treaty in 1985. Under the Treaty, there is now a management structure
through which the parties can share technical information and develop
strategies to deal with management problems concerning the shared
salmon resource. The Columbia River treaty tribes, along with the
western Washington treaty fishing tribes, were significant participants
in the negotiation of that Treaty and continue to play a significant
role in its implementation.
Now each of the examples I've outlined deal with complex, multi-
jurisdictional management issues. More often than not, we would
anticipate that individual tribes would use the management planning and
resource inventory structure outlined in this bill to address on-
reservation resource management issues. At the same time, this resource
inventory and management planning process may have an application for
shared resources off reservation, such as salmon. In either case
though, this bill acknowledges the importance of the tribes to
participate in the resource planning and management of resources they
reserved to themselves through the treaty process with the United
States, or that have been recognized through executive orders,
statutes, judicial decrees, or through other methods. Just as
importantly, the structure and process laid out in the bill can help to
prevent surprises to resource users on the a reservation or,
particularly in the case of shared resources that may be taken by
tribal members off-reservation, the planning process can help to
prevent surprises for non-tribal members off-reservation.
This bill, by specifically allowing tribes to opt-in to the
resource inventory and planning process, recognizes that the needs of
individual tribes differ within regions and across the continent. This
bill does not force any tribe to undertake the resource inventory and
management planning process provided in this bill. Undertaking a
resource inventory and survey would only occur at the request of a
tribe, the development of a resource management plan would then follow
at a pace set by each individual tribe. Nor would this bill require any
tribe to abandon a current management plan, co-management agreements,
or any other working resource management plan. It does offer the
promise of a structure and the resources that can be utilized by all
tribes, at their option, in developing new plans or in revising old
management plans.
I would like to note an important element in this bill: Section 202
of the bill provides a framework to increase the educational
opportunities for tribal members to gain the knowledge and training
necessary to manage tribal resources. It also provides an opportunity
for tribes to coordinate and cooperate with other tribes, with
universities and with others as appropriate on technical and scientific
issues associated with resource management.
We see great promise, both for tribes and for natural resource
management, in the development of tribal cooperative research units at
universities across the country. Within the Columbia River basin, this
Commission, working with its member tribes, identified a critical
regional need for additional facilities to handle genetics work
associated with regional salmon restoration activities. On behalf of
its member tribes, the Commission entered into a Memorandum of
Agreement with the University of Idaho to site these facilities at the
University's aquaculture research facility. Building upon that
agreement, and acknowledging the desire of other tribes in the basin to
participate in the opportunities offered by our arrangement with the
University, we have worked with the University to outline a memorandum
to establish a cooperative research unit that other tribes can join as
well.
The formation of that tribal cooperative research unit with the
University of Idaho provides several benefits: It allows the tribes' to
have their own staff driving the research agenda and working on
resource issues of importance to the tribe; it offers tribal staff the
opportunity to reach out to the non-tribal community through teaching
assignments at the University; and it provides a place for tribal
members attending the University to take on undergraduate or graduate
degree research work. All of this would be accomplished in a
cooperative, coordinated research forum that could include other State
or Federal researchers, as the tribes might determine is appropriate. I
would note that it is important that we insure that the opportunities
laid out for tribal students in this section of the bill, especially as
to the development of the cooperative research unit system, are
integrated with the opportunities and work of the Indian College
System.
I also want to touch upon another section of the bill dealing with
hatchery programs. As we've learned in the Pacific Northwest,
hatcheries can be a part of the problem--but can also be a significant
part of the solution--in ensuring the sustainability of a fishery
resource. It all depends upon how the goals and objectives of a
hatchery program are reached by a tribe or in some situations, by a
tribe in coordination with other co-managers. The section of the bill
that provides for assistance to the tribal hatchery programs is geared
to dealing with both strictly on-reservation tribal hatchery program
activities as well as situations where tribal hatchery programs may be
located at least partially off-reservation. In addition, it provides an
opportunity for a tribe, or tribes, to enter into cooperative
agreements with Federal agencies to either co-manage a hatchery program
or takeover the management of a hatchery program. In either case, we
would anticipate that funding for such hatchery management or co-
management programs would originate initially with the cooperating
agency, either the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National
Marine Fisheries Service, and not originate within the programmatic
budget of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. We could have already utilized
these provisions within the Columbia River basin to enter into mutually
beneficial cooperative programs but were hampered by the Federal
agency's lack of Congressional authority to do so. This section of the
bill would allow us to take advantage of such a cooperative venture in
the future.
For the reasons I've laid out in my testimony today, the Columbia
River treaty tribes support the general concepts and opportunities
provided in language of the Native American Fish and Wildlife Resources
Management Act of 2004. We would welcome the opportunity to work with
you, other members of the committee and with your staff to fine tune
the bill to ensure that it meets the needs of all of the tribes within
the United States and to ensure its passage during this Congress.
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