October 9, 2009

Alaska land grab - Sacredness gone hog wild

Like a Monument without a Tomb, the hearing Thursday before the US Senate was not of an age but for all time.

Commentary

By Alan Stein - Like a Monument without a Tomb, the hearing Thursday before the US Senate was not of an age but for all time.

The Senate's Lands and Forests Subcommittee took up a bill to transfer part of America's largest national forest over to a for profit corporation in Alaska--- 60,000 to 80,000 acres.

The Chair of the subcommittee, Ron Wyden, and the full committee Chair, Jeff Binghaman, left "to go vote" leaving as the acting chair Alaska Senator Murkowski, the sponsor of the special interest bill, S 881, and her side kick, junior Senator Mark Begich.

The latter bid farewell soon after saying hi y'all, leaving the senior Alaskan Senator to preside, albiet without any of her cosponsors as back up, there being three cosponsors in the entire Senate and they being from the states of Alaska, Hawaii, and Louisiana.

Like many of his predecessors who have come before Congress over the last 38 years looking for revisions to the final settlement of the 1971 Alaska Native Land Claims Act , Byron Malot, Sealaska board member , appeared in quasi Native American regalia. Today Byron appear in a beaded vest which is going to be pictured in Vanity Fair next month, you betcha.

Behind Byron could be seen Angoonian and Alaska State Senator Al Kookesh, about to go to trial for a fishing violation in his home town of Angoon (population about 1000), where he is, you got it, a big mucky muck. He too sat or sits on the Sealaska Board.

In the past, Angoonians presented Jimmy Carter with a head dress, even though that is not part of their wardrobe. After getting the headdress, Jimmy Carter declared all the land around Kookesh's home a National Monument. So the Angoonian Natives had to go more than a hunded miles south of their sacred home island to Prince of Wales Island to mow down thousands of acres of old growth forest, not to disturb their sacred sites don't you know.

Sacred sites were targeted by Malot who does not think Federal Law keeps them safe. At least he put forth that argument in asking that Congress modify the 38-year-old Alaska Native Land Claims Settlement Act which prohibits the use of cemeteries etc for anything but burying dead people. Malot assured Murkowski, under ferocious cross examination, that by golly they were not going to log or mine in cemeteries. To which the audience breathed a great sigh of relief. That and knowing language keeping chain saws out of cemeteries is in Sealaska's bill.

Whether Sealaska wants to bring tourists to its cemeteries and other sacred sites, like stone carvings on the beach, was hotly debated. The concern expressed by a Mr Jesen of the US Department of Agriculture and a Ms. Burke from the Bureau of Land Management is that revoking clause h1 of ANCSA, ( so Sealaska can run tourists into Wilderness areas/cemeteries), would be "bad precedent."

Revoking h1 could open all the Alaska National Monuments, National Wildlife Refuges, National Forests, and Wilderness Areas to purposes for which they were not created. Byron, again under careful scrutiny from Senator Murkowski, denied he knew of any other Native Corporations trying to change ANCSA. Of course he didn't promise this wasn't the case. And he claimed ANCSA has been modified about 40 times--about once a year. So much for finality of contracts.

While former Alaska State Trooper Claus ( who never met Sarah Palin's sister), testified on behalf of the South East Alaska Conservation Council that Sealaska's environmental track record for logging has not been good, Malot stated for the record that Sealaska practices "good silviculture"--- why they even plant new trees he stated. That would surprise the herds of deer now extirpated when Sealaska logged from the tops of mountains down to the valley bottom.

As to whether Sealaska was willing to opt for a place other than the northern portion of Prince of Wales Island, where half the trees have been cut already, Malot indicated his corporation would be good to the enviornment. The communities of Pt. Baker and Port Protection submitted petitions signed by 98% of the residenents opposing the transfer of land to Sealaska.

When Congress passed ANILCA in 1981, it set aside 100 million acres of majestic Alaska landscapes as a monument for all time.

But in Sealaska's world, Congress should rename the Nation's first national forest, the Tongass, after the Tlingit, Haida, and Simpsian Indians . Claus had another view. This national forest was established for all the citizens of this country, not just the thousands who get dividend checks from Sealaska Corporations logging operations.