HOUSE RESOURCES STANDING COMMITTEE September 12, 1997 9:15 a.m. Ketchikan, Alaska MEMBERS PRESENT Representative Bill Hudson, Co-Chairman Representative Beverly Masek, Vice Chair (via teleconference) Representative Fred Dyson Representative Joe Green Representative William K. ("Bill") Williams Representative Irene Nicholia Representative Reggie Joule (via teleconference) MEMBERS ABSENT Representative Scott Ogan, Co-Chairman Representative Ramona Barnes COMMITTEE CALENDAR Public Subsistence Hearing (* First public hearing) PREVIOUS ACTION See House Resources Committee minutes dated September 10, 1997. WITNESS REGISTER JOE AMBROSE, Legislative Assistant to Senator Robin Taylor Alaska State Legislature Capitol Building, Room 30 Juneau, Alaska 99801 Telephone: (907) 465-4906 POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on behalf of Senator Taylor. ROBERT BOSWORTH, Deputy Commissioner Office of the Commissioner Department of Fish and Game P.O. Box 25526 Juneau, Alaska 99802-5526 Telephone: (907) 465-6140 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. WILLIAM "BILL" C. THOMAS, SR., Member Southeast Native Subsistence Commission Box 5196 Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 225-4833 POSITION STATEMENT: Asked a question regarding subsistence. JOHN BORBRIDGE Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska; and Sealaska Corporation 603 West Tenth Street Juneau, Alaska 99801 Telephone: (907) 586-2132 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. ROBERT WILLARD, JR. Grand Camp of the Alaska Native Brotherhood; and Southeast Native Subsistence Commission 236 Third Street Juneau, Alaska 99801 Telephone: (907) 463-3451 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. DONALD WESTLUND P.O. Box 7883 Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 225-9319 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. MELVIN J. CHARLES Route 2, Box 7 Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 247-2059 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. ROYCE RENNIGER, Commercial Fisherman P.O. Box 702 Ward Cove, Alaska 99928 Telephone: (907) 247-2606 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. GEORGE JAMES, JR. Kuiu Thhinggit Nation 14055 First Avenue, N.W. Seattle, Washington 98177 Facsimile Telephone: (206) 362-7725 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. BOB WEINSTEIN P.O. Box 7801 Ketchikan Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 247-8103 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. JOE DEMMERT, JR. 2724 Fourth Avenue Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 225-5376 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. DICK COOSE P.O. Box 9533 Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 247-9533 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. K. A. SWIGER Ketchikan Sports and Wildlife Club 846 Brown Deer Road Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 225-1548 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. ERIC MUENCH P.O. Box 6811 Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 225-5372 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. GEORGE GARDNER, Member Ketchikan Indian Corporation Box 23407 Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 247-9516 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. LOREN CROXTON Box 1410 Petersburg, Alaska 99833 Telephone: (907) 772-3622 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. WALT SHERIDAN P.O. Box 21781 Juneau, Alaska 99802 Telephone: (907) 789-4059 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. HELEN DRURY 1011 Halibut Point Road Sitka, Alaska 99835 Telephone: (907) 747-8019 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. DONALD MacDONALD P.O. Box 207 Pelican, Alaska Telephone: (907) 735-2220 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. PAT GARDNER Box 1 Craig, Alaska 99921 Telephone: (907) 826-3288 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. TOM SKEEK, JR. Box 242 Kake, Alaska 99830 Telephone: (907) 785-4117 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. MIKE A. JACKSON Box 316 Kake, Alaska 99830 Telephone: (907) 785-6471 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. SAMUEL JACKSON Box 282 Kake, Alaska 99830 Telephone: (907) 785-3147 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. JOSEPHINE PAUL Box 206 Kake, Alaska 99830 Telephone: (907) 785-3161 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. KATHY HAWK Box 217 Kake, Alaska 99830 Telephone: (907) 785-3138 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. DENNIS WATSON, Mayor City of Craig Box 725 Craig, Alaska 99921 Telephone: (907) 826-3438 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. PATRICK MILLS Box 301 Hoonah, Alaska 88729 Telephone: Not provided POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. OWEN JAMES Box 461 Hoonah, Alaska 99829 Telephone: (907) 945-3721 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. GEORGE PAUL Box 724 Sitka, Alaska 99835 Telephone: (907) 747-0673 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. MATTHEW J. FRED, SR. Head Cultural Leader of Admiralty Island, Angoon Box 94 Angoon, Alaska 99820 Telephone: (907) 788-3101 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. BILL AUGER Box 9335 Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 225-2737 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. TERESA GARLAND, Executive Director Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce P.O. Box 5957 Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 225-3184 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. ROBERTA SHIELDS 6525 Roosevelt Drive Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 225-6334 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. EDWARD GAMBLE, SR. Box 33 Angoon, Alaska 99820 Telephone: Not provided POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. ALAN ZUBOFF Box 84 Angoon, Alaska 99820 Telephone: Not provided POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. MARLENE ZUBOFF, Executive Director Angoon Community Association Box 84 Angoon, Alaska 99820 Telephone: (907) 788-3411 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. LEE PUTMAN Ketchikan Sports and Wildlife Club P.O. Box 5814 Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 225-7694 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. KAY ANDREW P.O. Box 7211 Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 225-2463 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. BEN HASTINGS Ketchikan Sports and Wildlife Club P.O. Box 8432 Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 225-5014 (907) 723-1651 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. PATRICIA PHILLIPS Box 33 Pelican, Alaska 99832 Telephone: (907) 735-2240 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. JOHN PECKHAM, Board Member Southeast Alaska Seiners Association Box 8394 Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 225-6047 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. CHRIS JOHNSON, Gillnetter P.O. Box 9304 Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 225-3336 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. ED MARKSHEFFEL P.O. Box 9324 Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 225-7666 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. RICHARD JACKSON P.O. Box 8634 Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 225-0383 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. JANICE JACKSON P.O. Box 8634 Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 225-0383 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. LONNIE ANDERSON, Mayor City of Kake Box 500 Kake, Alaska 99830 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. THOMAS SKEEK, JR. Box 242 Kake, Alaska 99830 Telephone: (907) 785-4117 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. KATHY HANSEN, Executive Director United Southeast Alaska Gillnetters Association 5875 Glacier Highway, Lot 21 Juneau, Alaska 99801 Telephone: (907) 586-5860 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. PETER AMUNDSON 918 Jackson Ketchikan, Alaska 99901 Telephone: (907) 225-6036 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified regarding subsistence. ACTION NARRATIVE TAPE 97-60, SIDE A Number 001 CO-CHAIRMAN BILL HUDSON called the House Resources Standing Committee meeting to order at 9:15 a.m. Members present were Representatives Hudson, Dyson, Green, Williams, and Nicholia. Representatives Joule and Masek were in attendance via teleconference. Members absent were Representatives Ogan and Barnes. PUBLIC SUBSISTENCE HEARING CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON indicated the House Resources Committee held a 12-hour hearing on September 10, in Bethel, regarding subsistence. The hearing was an excellent input session. He said, "We're trying to glean, for the first time, I believe, through the legislative process, the wishes and the concerns and the interest and the recommendations of you, the folks of Alaska. I'll say it now, because we may have to say it again, that we're not here to tell you anything; we're here to simply listen to you. We will be using as a guide the task force which was put together by the Governor that includes the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, seven members. They have come forward with a proposed three-part solution to the subsistence problem, largely agitated by the October 1 court-appointed date that we are confronted with." CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON noted he is the Co-Chairman of the House Resources Committee along with Co-Chairman Scott Ogan, who was not able to attend. He introduced Representative Green and announced he is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee will be a prime committee that must also hold hearings before the legislature can take any legal action. If the legislature is called into special session, or when they go into regular session, any subsistence issue will also have to have hearings in the Judiciary Committee and the Finance Committee. Co- Chairman Hudson introduced Representative Dyson and Representative Williams. He also introduced Joe Ambrose of Senator Taylor's staff. He indicated Representative Irene Nicholia would be in attendance soon. CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON announced that there will be additional hearings regarding subsistence on September 24, in Fairbanks; September 25, in Wasilla; September 26, in Kenai/Soldotna; and September 27, in Anchorage. He then introduced Melinda Hofstad of his staff. Number 134 REPRESENTATIVE JOE GREEN introduced himself and said, "I would be representing the South Anchorage portion; so, obviously, my constituency will be from an urban type of attitude, and I would be less than honest if I didn't say that they collectively have a view that may not be shared by everyone here. It certainly was a view somewhat different than what we heard in Bethel. But what I would like to stress, and was very well done in Bethel, is that even though there may be differences of opinion within your audience here, certainly there have been differences of opinion among the members of the legislature." REPRESENTATIVE GREEN indicated subsistence is a very sensitive issue that sometimes goes beyond pure logic and certainly goes beyond economics. He asked that everyone remember that the committee wants to learn the logic and what the people feel. He said they hope to come up with something that will ultimately be the best for all of the people of the state of Alaska, and it may not necessarily be what the federal government wants. He said, "As you know, on many issues, we are not in sync with some of the things the federal government says, but by the same token, I'm not here to say that we won't be in sync with the federal government, especially on this issue." He said the committee is here to listen. Number 193 REPRESENTATIVE FRED DYSON introduced himself as being from Eagle River. He note he is also a Bristol Bay fisherman. He said he thinks he understands a little bit about commercial fishing and lifestyles that revolve around the water. Representative Dyson said a lot of what he learns is hard for him to quantify as there are a lot of subjective things. Number 212 REPRESENTATIVE BILL WILLIAMS said he was at the Bethel hearing and it was an experience. He said, "I think we heard what we expected in Bethel. There wasn't much deviation from what their thoughts were. I think we're going to hear both sides of the issue here, whether we have a constitutional amendment or not. We certainly didn't hear anything in Bethel saying that they wanted to not -- or have the constitutional amendment. There was a couple, but a lot of it was that they could care less about whether or not we went to federal management or not. I would hope that you would tell us how you feel about federal management or state management and why. Like the other committee members have said is that we're here to listen and get some good arguing points, on one side or the other, on why we should not have or have the constitutional amendment. And I would hope that you would talk on the Governor's proposal or any proposal, or how you would like to see it done yourself with -- hasn't been presented throughout the state or any other arena. It is a tough issue. One of the things that was brought to my attention during my tenure here in the legislature is anytime you start talking about a person's livelihood, money or subsistence, you really get the attention and it's one of the most difficult issues to talk about and try to handle. This is a difficult issue. I believe that we can take care of the issue. I feel confident that we will, even with all of the negative words out there in the newspaper saying that we're not going to have a special session. I would like to think we are going to have one and we will take care of this so that the federal government does not come in and manage our resources." He asked everyone in attendance that wishes to discuss the issue with him to feel free to contact him. Number 267 JOE AMBROSE, Legislative Assistant to Senator Robin Taylor, Alaska State Legislature, said as a member of the Senate Resources Committee, Senator Taylor will have ample opportunity to speak at the four hearings beginning on September 24. He noted also that Senator Taylor is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He said he would like to acknowledge the hard work of June Robbins, Legislative Information Officer. Number 280 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON noted the committee is also being assisted by Pete Ecklund. He said the committee has also had support and assistance by Ted Popely and Ron Somerville, who are in attendance representing the Speaker of the House. Co-Chairman Hudson indicated the committee member's files have copies of the task force proposal along with other information. He continued, "We're using the group of seven proposal because it is conclusive. It includes the potential changes to ANILCA (Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act), the issue concerning the constitution and some proposals as would be required according to at least that finding and that is not final. That is a, once again, it is a talking point, but it gives us something to speak from." He said Robert Bosworth, Deputy Commissioner, Department of Fish and Game, would give a presentation of what is included in the proposal and where it currently stands. Number 314 ROBERT BOSWORTH, Deputy Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner Department of Fish and Game, came before the committee. He said he was privileged to serve as staff to the task force in which the proposal was developed. Mr. Bosworth explained the proposal is a package deal which has three parts to it that are linked together. Mr. Bosworth said there were two primary goals that the task force set for itself in developing the proposal. The first was to ensure effective state authority over fish and game authority over fish and game management on all lands and waters of Alaska. The second goal was to recognize the paramount importance of the subsistence way of life to Alaskans. Mr. Bosworth said it was acknowledged by the task force that Alaskans may be reluctant to amend the constitution without knowing what changes might be made in federal law, ANILCA and also state fish and game statutes. There is recognition that each one of those components was linked to the other. The (indisc.) that the task force took is that the effective date of the ANILCA amendments and the effective date of the state statutory amendments will be the passage of the constitutional amendment. He said the notion is that the voters will know precisely what is in the ANILCA amendments and the state statutory amendments when they vote on the constitutional amendment. The proposal includes a (indisc.) Congressional determination that the state, upon passage of the constitutional amendment and implementation of the revised statutes, is in compliance with ANILCA and they (indisc.). He noted the constitutional amendment cannot be voted on until the November, 1998, general election. MR. BOSWORTH referred to the constitutional amendment and said under the proposal, the Alaska Constitution will be amended to permit, but not to require, the Alaska legislature to grant a subsistence priority to rural residents. At the same time, the state statutes will be amended to create a rural priority. Those statutes and the ANILCA amendments would become effective only if the constitutional amendment is passed. MR. BOSWORTH said the Alaska fish and game statutes will be amended to grant a subsistence priority to rural residents. Communities outside the current nonsubsistence areas will be classified as rural on the day that the state regains management. The Boards of Fisheries and Game, acting jointly through regulation, will have the power to change community classifications in the future as communities change. Mr. Bosworth said state statutes will also be amended to improve the proxy hunting and fishing provisions, to provide for educational hunting and fishing permits, to clarify the definitions of "rural of customary trade," to make clear that the subsistence priority is a reasonable opportunity to take and is not a guarantee of taking, and to refine the subsistence management system including adding a state regional council system. MR. BOSWORTH said the third part of the package relates to the amendments to federal law, Title VIII of ANILCA. The amendments fall roughly into four categories. The first category is one of definitions. A lot of the definitions that would be put into state law would need to be replicated in federal law. For example, "rural and customary trade," "customary and traditional" and "reasonable opportunity" are all important operative terms in state law which would be embedded in ANILCA. MR. BOSWORTH explained another category of ANILCA amendments addresses court oversight. Section 807 would be amended to state the standard of review for actions of the fish and game boards and to require the federal courts to give board decisions the same deference that would be given a federal agency decision. He said adding these standards is not believed to be a change in federal law, but the standards are not explicit in Title VIII. This is a clarification purpose. MR. BOSWORTH explained the third category of ANILCA amendments has to do with state management. Title VIII will be amended to make it clear that the state manages subsistence on lands and waters, whether federal, state or private. This will be done in three ways. Section 814 will be amended so that the Secretary of the Interior cannot make or enforce subsistence regulations while the state is managing. MR. BOSWORTH explained that Section 806, which presently requires annual reporting on subsistence by the Secretary, will be repealed. He noted that nothing would prohibit the Secretary from reporting on subsistence activities. MR. BOSWORTH said the third part of the aspect of the amendments is the definition of "federal public lands." It will be clarified to ensure that it excludes all private and state lands. The collective purpose of these amendments is to make it clear that the Secretary has no management authority while the state is managing in compliance with ANILCA. MR. BOSWORTH said the fourth category of ANILCA amendments has to do with the Congressional seal of approval, noncompliance, and neutrality on the Indian country issue. He said Section 805 will be amended to first declare the state is in compliance with Section 805(d) when it passes the constitutional amendment and statutory amendments and, secondly, to make future noncompliance a determination by the courts. So, anytime that the state may be accused of falling out of compliance with ANILCA, that determination would be made by the court system. Mr. Bosworth said he would be happy to answer any questions. Number 415 WILLIAM "BILL" C. THOMAS, SR., Member, Southeast Native Subsistence Commission, came before the committee. He indicated he is from Ketchikan. Mr. Thomas referred to Mr. Bosworth making reference to voting on the amendment by saying that if the amendment is adopted by the voters of the state, it would allow but not require the legislature to do certain things. He said he wonders what the contingency offers if the vote doesn't support the change / fails to change. He asked what would then happen. MR. BOSWORTH said as he understands the question, it is what happens if the voters did not approve a constitutional amendment. He said that was discussed by the task force. If the constitutional amendment does not pass, then neither the ANILCA amendments nor the state statutory amendments would come into effect. Number 444 JOHN BORBRIDGE came before the committee to present his testimony. He read the following statement into the record: "My name is John Borbridge, and I'm appearing before you today on behalf of the delegates from the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska and Sealaska Corporation to the Southeast Native Subsistence Summit. The Southeast Summit met in Juneau, Alaska, on July 17 and 18, to consider various proposals to amend state and federal laws relating to their subsistence lifestyle which is of paramount importance to our region's people. "A broad spectrum of Southeast Native leaders attended our regional summit. Besides the delegates from the Central Council and Sealaska Corporation, representatives from the Southeast Natives Subsistence Commission, the Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB), Alaska Native Sisterhood (ANS) Grand Camps, the Southeast Indian Reorganization IRA (Indian Reorganization Act) councils and Tlingit and Haida Community Councils carefully considered proposed changes to the Alaska Constitution, as well as to federal and state laws and regulations governing the taking of fish and game for subsistence purposes. "Represented at the summit, the Central Council, a federally recognized tribe with a membership of slightly more than 23,000 enrolled members. Also Sealaska Corporation, the regional corporation under ANCSA (Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act), with approximately 15,800 shareholders and ownership of 340,000 acres of surfaces estate and about 600,000 acres of subsurface estate. The corporation plays a vigorous role in preserving our Native heritage and our human resources through its scholarship program, the Sealaska Heritage Foundation, and the management and care of cultural and historic sites throughout our region. "The Southeast Native Subsistence Summit, like other similar subsistence summits held across Alaska, was a response to a call by three co-sponsoring organizations, the Alaska Federation of Natives, the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council and Rural Alaska Community Action Program. And the intention was that each of the regional councils should develop subsistence positions to be submitted at a later meeting which was held in August 26, 27 and 28, in Anchorage, and these recommendations would be for the development of subsistence regional positions. And at our regional summit, the delegates unanimously to adopt the following positions, each of which was rooted in Alaska Natives' long and proven history of nonwasteful fish and game management, as well as our use of traditional knowledge and ways of protecting food resources. "First, ANILCA Amendments. The delegates unanimously opposed any changes to ANILCA. Indeed, the summit twice addressed this issue, separately resolving that Southeast Alaska Natives will `in no instance agree to a resolution of the subsistence impasse that diminishes the existing protections afforded Natives under Title VIII of ANILCA.' This statement of principle was intended to clarify that Southeast Alaska Natives are seeking a `no net loss' of the protections currently afforded under ANILCA. It was intended to cover not only legislative actions, but any judicial intervention as well, including the Venetie and Katie John cases. "With respect to Alaska Native subsistence rights, the focal point of ANILCA is Title VIII. And in Title VIII, Congress provided that `subsistence uses' of fish and wildlife on the `public lands' are to be accorded a priority over all other uses. This means that `subsistence uses' of a particular fish stock or game population must be completely satisfied before commercial and sport uses of such a stock or a population will be permitted. And if, at any time, the fish or wildlife population is insufficient to satisfy all `subsistence uses,' the following criteria are to be applied in allocating among `subsistence users': (1) Customary and direct dependence upon the population as the mainstay of livelihood; (2) local residency; and (3) the availability of alternative resources. "Several provisions in the Governor's task force proposal would amend ANILCA, contrary to the regional summit's position. The potential ANILCA amendments in that proposal fall generally into four categories: (1) Amendments to definitions; (2) court oversight; (3) state management; and (4) Congressional seal of approval, noncompliance and neutrality on Indian country. Taking these aspects in turn: "Definitions. The Governor's proposal offers a number of definitions to terms used in ANILCA that taken together raise the fear that the rights granted by Title VIII may be whittled away piecemeal. For example, `customary trade' is defined in a way that does not appear to encompass the full range of traditional family and community network trade. A third key definition is that proposed for the phrase `customary and traditional.' The proposal also introduces the concept of providing Alaska Natives only a `reasonable opportunity' to take subsistence resources, rather than according a clear priority, as ANILCA requires. "Our concern that these and other `definitions' could be used to diminish our existing rights under Title VIII was a prime motivating factor in our unanimously held view that ANILCA simply should not be amended at all. "ANILCA's court oversight provisions. Under the Governor's plan, ANILCA, Section 807, will be amended to provide that the standard of review for state agency actions would be the deferential `arbitrary, capricious, or abuse of discretion' standard, and the federal courts would be required to give state agency decisions the same deference that would be given federal agencies. Our concern here is the state of Alaska does not have any special expertise in protecting Native rights that would command such deference. In our view, the purpose of Title VIII, that is the creation of an effective subsistence priority, must remain the guiding principle behind any judicial review of the state's actions. "The role of state management. The Governor's proposal calls for ANILCA's Title VIII to be amended to make it clear that: (1) The state is to manage subsistence on all lands and waters, whether federal, state, or private; and (2) the Secretary of the Department of the Interior has no management authority while the state is managing in compliance with ANILCA. Furthermore, ANILCA, Section 814, is to be amended by adding an additional sentence which prohibits the Secretary from making or enforcing subsistence regulations during any time that the state is in compliance with ANILCA, Title 805(d). ANILCA, Section 806, requiring annual reporting on subsistence by the Secretary, will be repealed, but nothing will prohibit the Secretary from reporting on subsistence activities. Finally, the definition of federal `public lands' will be clarified to ensure it excludes all private and state lands. Taken as a whole, these amendments seem calculated to minimize the future federal role in protecting Native subsistence rights. "Congressional seal of approval, noncompliance, and neutrality on Indian country. Under the Governor's proposal, ANILCA, Section 806, concerning federal monitoring would be repealed. The newly proposed ANILCA, Section 806, would provide that Section 805 will be amended to: (1) Declare the state is in compliance with Section 805(d) when the Alaskan voters pass the constitutional amendment and the state statutory amendments; and (2) make future noncompliance a court determination. The repeal of ANILCA, Section 806, would additionally require conforming changes in Section 813. "It has yet to be shown to our delegates how these provisions would give us protections equivalent to those currently contained in ANILCA. As with all of the Governor's proposed statutory amendments, until equivalent protection can be shown, we must continue to view those proposals with concern. "Native subsistence rights and related Indian country issues. Aside from its support for ANILCA, our regional summit also took action with respect to relative Native subsistence rights and Indian country issues, including the following: Support for an Alaska Native hunting and fishing subsistence priority; opposition to any income based limitation on entitlement to the subsistence priority; support for the repeal of Section 4(b) of ANCSA, which extinguished claims for aboriginal hunting or fishing rights; support for the enactment of the Alaska Native Hunting and Fishing Restoration Act; support for sending a letter to Secretary Babbit and Attorney General Reno requesting that the United States support Venetie in the United States Supreme Court by filing an amicus brief on Venetie's behalf; agreement to join in the filing of an amicus brief that is being prepared on behalf of Alaska tribes, corporations and other organizations in support of Venetie; and finally in this section encouragement of all Southeast Alaska tribes organizations to support the Native American Rights fund financially in its efforts before the Supreme Court in the Venetie case. With respect to these actions, first, the delegates indicated their support for an Alaska Native hunting and fishing subsistence priority. Such an Alaska Native priority is not currently contained in ANILCA. While Title VIII of ANILCA addresses the issues of subsistence management and use, it contains a preference for subsistence uses by `rural Alaska residents.' In any settlement of the subsistence controversy, the delegates opposed any effort to restrict the subsistence priority to Alaska Natives who are currently embraced within ANILCA's reference to `rural Alaska residents.' "It must be stressed, in this respect, that a family or community that shares a customary trade in subsistence resources will transcend rural/urban boundaries. An artificial boundary line that splits that family apart is arbitrary and it is destructive of Native culture. "For similar reasons, the delegates opposed any restriction based on individual income. To consider that is not the proper province of state and federal officials to pick and choose which Alaska Natives may learn and practice their traditional lifestyle. This is a decision that Alaska Natives must and are entitled to make for themselves. "With respect to repealing Section 4(b) of ANCSA, that provision purported to extinguish all claims of aboriginal title to land and `any aboriginal hunting or fishing rights' that may have existed in 1971. Congress purported to extinguish such rights despite vigorous Native opposition and our delegates urged Congress to repeal this attempted extinguishment of rights as a matter of law. "The summit delegates, by their passage of this portion of the resolution, did not intend to effect any other provision of ANCSA, including the land or monetary transfers contained in ANCSA. "In the same vein, the delegates urged the enactment of the Alaska Native Hunting and Fishing Restoration Act to restore Alaska Native hunting and fishing rights. "Fish and game management proposals. The delegates also endorsed the principles and actions that should be taken to provide sound management of fish and game resources. Those principles call for appropriate management actions to ensure the following: A sustained yield of fisheries and wildlife population; the protection of subsistence harvests in order to provide the maximum opportunity to meet the nutritional needs of Alaska Natives; the protection of subsistence harvests to provide a maximum opportunity to sustain the traditional and customary lifestyle of Alaska Natives; the protection of subsistence distribution systems in which resources are shared according to traditional and customary patterns, including the sales for cash within family and community networks; and the protection of habitat and the environment on which fish, game and flora depend. "I would note that there is a new addition to these management principles which highlights the Southeast Alaska Natives' beliefs that the protection of habitat and the environment is crucial to the overall protection of our fish and game resources. "Co-Management. Next, the delegates agreed to work to develop co- management requirements and guidelines for federal and state management of fish and game, governed by the following principles: Any proposals by representatives of the Alaska Native Community for changes in subsistence management shall include a provision for co- management by tribes and Alaska Native organizations as equal partners with other governmental entities; a Southeast Alaska Technical Conference to explore and define co-management should be convened and led by Southeast Alaska tribes and organizations. And again, I am presenting to you the actions of the Southeast Regional Summit. Each Alaska Native community should define co-management parameters itself within its traditional usage area, and each community should activate Tribal members, especially Elders and youth, to the opportunities of co-management. "Together these principles represent a new and significant concept in fish and wildlife management. Title VIII of ANILCA authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to enter into cooperative agreements with other federal agencies, the state, Native corporations and others `to effectuate the purposes and policies of Title VIII.' The concept endorsed by the summit delegates was to strengthen the statutory requirements so that co-management will be required in the future. The foresight and thoughtfulness of the delegates is clear in the additional requirement that a technical conference be held so that all Southeast Alaska Natives can have a better understanding of the issues involved. "The Marine Mammal Protection Act..." TAPE 97-60, SIDE B NOTE: The following was not recorded on tape, but was taken from Mr. Borbridge's written statement which he read: "...is an example of a federal statute that provides for a degree of co-management. In this regard, the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission's management, regulation and administration..." Number 001 MR. BORBRIDGE continued reading his statement into the record: "...of the Bowhead Whale and its subsistence hunts provide an example of just how successfully the principles of co-management can work. "The delegates of the Statewide Native Subsistence Summit direct that the leadership of the Alaska Federation of Natives, the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council and the RurAL Community Action Program should continue the work of the Statewide Native Subsistence Summit and `to work with Governor Knowles, the members of the Governor's task force, the members of the Alaska Congressional delegation and other interested parties to develop a resolution to the subsistence impasse consistent with the guiding principles adopted by the delegates to the Statewide Native Subsistence Summit.' Future discussions would be guided by these fundamental principles -- And this, Mr. Chairman, will conclude my testimony: (1) Future participation and consent of the Alaska Native community, including hearings in villages in each region. And I'm pleased, Mr. Chairman that you already have this underway and have been engaged in this process. (2) A subsistence priority based on Alaska Native community, religious/spiritual, nutritional, medicinal and cultural practices rather than an individualized or a needs-based system; (3) only amendments which enhance subsistence rights and maintain federal oversight at least to its current level; (4) co-management of fish and wildlife resources, including state, federal and tribal co-equal involvement; (5) full recognition of customary and traditional uses, including religious/spiritual and ceremonial; (6) effective comprehensive reform of state management system; (7) recognition that subsistence is a basic human right. "The regional and statewide summits, then, should be viewed as beginnings, rather than as the culmination of a debate. Your committee's interest in holding this hearing signals a willingness to search for common ground among us, and for that delegates for whom I testify today I can assure you that they are sincerely appreciative. Thank you for the thought that I know you will give the feelings that were expressed at our regional summit." Number 057 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN thanked Mr. Borbridge for a copy of his statement. He said, "Knowing that in any compromise, any agreement among people with differences of attitudes -- I am going you ask you two questions, and you may or may not want to answer them. First question: Do you feel that with litany of conditions that there is any chance for some movement there? And B: If there would be, do you feel that is any priority among the various things that are listed, that the Native community would feel these however many are absolutely, are non -- you can't change those and there may be some movement in other areas -- an all or nothing?" MR. BORBRIDGE said he thought Representative Green was asking, "Is there anything in prospects in our continuing in for ending up with something?" He stated that he feels very confident that the thrust of the thinking and the feeling of the Subsistence Summit was, first of all, we should carve out a set of principles and seek to determine on which principles the various regions could find agreement and where did the consensus exist. He said if they were going to engage in any conversations with the task force and other people, they would need to say, generally speaking, "Here are the principles we all agree to and here are some where there are some differences." MR. BORBRIDGE said given the attendance of over 900 people during the first day of the Subsistence Summit, they wanted to send a clear message that they feel very strongly about this. They were willing to leave subsistence work undone. He said they were also desirous of carving out common ground that existed them. This they have done largely. Mr. Borbridge informed the committee that he firmly believes, based on conversions and what he has heard from other regions, that yes, they do want to continue the conversations. He said this is not a "take it or leave it situation" at all. He did note that he doesn't have the authority to give the committee the priorities, as the feelings that were expressed seemed to encompass the whole range of what was presented. The Native people in the regions, through action taken at the statewide and regional summits, made it clear that they do want to contribute to efforts to solve the impasse. Number 121 REPRESENTATIVE WILLIAMS said to Mr. Bosworth, "Your Congressional seal of approval, noncompliance and neutrality on Indian country, it was my understanding that the state would be neutral on this and what you're saying today is that it isn't." Representative Williams said he was told by leadership that they weren't going to take a stand one way or the other as far as Indian country. Number 135 MR. BORBRIDGE indicated he could answer in part. He said the position they have taken is that the work they have done on subsistence has been basically neutral on the related Indian country issue. Number 147 MR. BOSWORTH said the operative wording which would be added to Section 816 under the proposal is, "Any assertion that Indian country or any other authority exists or does not exist within the boundaries of the state or any assertion that the Alaska National Interest Land Conservation Act is Indian law, no provision of this Act asserts such." CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said, "Neutrality." Number 160 REPRESENTATIVE WILLIAMS said Mr. Borbridge's comments were, "Congressional seal of approval, noncompliance and neutrality on Indian country." He said under the Governor's proposal, ANILCA Section 806, concerning federal monitoring would be repealed. He continued, "If we go along with this ANILCA 806 amendments, that the state would be taking a stand against Indian country and that isn't what Mr. Bosworth said." Number 160 MR. BORBRIDGE indicated that they are concerned with that possibility. He said the initial thrust of the amendment to ANILCA runs into the principal position taken by the Native delegates, which is that of opposition to any amendments to ANILCA. He said they were concerned with the possibility that could occur. Mr. Borbridge explained that they are continuing to analyze and examine the proposals brought forward by the task force. He noted that is a concern that they have. Number 192 REPRESENTATIVE IRENE NICHOLIA asked Mr. Borbridge whether he had problems with the third section where it says, "Any assertion that ANILCA is Indian law." MR. BORBRIDGE indicated they have concerns with it and they aren't at a point where they want to accept it as it is. He said they are continuing to analyze and they do have concerns about it. Number 213 ROBERT WILLARD, JR., came before the committee members. He said he represents the Grand Camp of the Alaska Native Brotherhood and the Southeast Native Subsistence Commission. He noted he is from Angoon but resides in Juneau. He read the following statement into the record: "We are here primarily, though, on behalf of our children and our grandchildren. The Southeast Native Subsistence Commission is sanctioned by the four largest Native organizations in the Southeast - the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, the Alaska Native Brotherhood Grand Camp, the Alaska Native Sisterhood Grand Camp and the Sealaska Corporation -- and is representative by 18 commissioners, each of whom is elected by their respective Southeast communities. "Mr. Chairman, Mr. Harold Martin, the president of the Subsistence Commission, is unable to present and regrets that he could not be here to testify as he had other commitments that he could not decline. "The ANB and the Subsistence Commission attended the statewide subsistence summit held in Anchorage in August and agreed with the decisions made by the various regions. I presented a copy of my report on the summit as an attachment to this presentation. "In the Southeast, you should know the subsistence users harvest less than 1 percent of the wild renewable resources, in the Southeast, in any given year. I would like to speak especially to the issue of linking subsistence priorities to individual or community circumstances. The Alaska Native Brotherhood and the Subsistence Commission are opposed to income levels as being a criteria for subsistence opportunity. The Alaska Native Brotherhood also opposes a community's economic circumstance as a reason to evaluate the communities' eligibility for subsistence opportunity. "Any such limitation would be contrary to the spirit of Title VIII of ANILCA, in that it would deny our Alaska Natives the freedom to preserve their rich heritage and their traditional lifestyle when some arbitrary income limit was reached. The Congressional leaders who enacted ANILCA in 1980 understood this, and in this regard, may I quote the remarks from Congressman Morris Udall in the Congressional record of November 12, 1980, and I quote: `The policy also requires that regulatory systems which employ income requirements not be imposed upon rural residents. Income requirements are, by their very nature, capricious classifications in rural Alaska, and consequently can be invidiously destructive to Alaska Native culture. Such a system would key eligibility on criteria which embody the seeds of destruction of Native culture sown in the guise of regulation. `It is the intent of this legislation, ANILCA, to protect the Alaska Native subsistence way of life for as long as the Alaska Native people themselves choose to participate in that way of life, and to leave for the Alaska Native people themselves, rather than to federal and state resource mangers, the choice as to the direction and pace, if any, of the evolution of the subsistence way of life and of Alaska Native culture.' "A system that tells Alaska Natives that, `no, you may no longer practice your traditional culture, because in our judgement you make too much money,' is wrong. Congress knew it was wrong in 1980, and it remains wrong today. "I should say that I've included the Congressional record of November 12 in this presentation. Congressman Udall, as you're all aware, was chairman of the U.S. House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee. His testimony was intended to explain the Congressional intent of Title VIII of ANILCA. "The primary concern of the Alaska Native Brotherhood is the subsistence lifestyle and the subsistence culture which, taken in tandem, the Congress called `cultural existence.' The cultural existence of the Tlingit and also the Haida, was kept alive by passing our knowledge from generation to generation. We learned where and when to hunt, fish or gather other resources; and how to prepare - to preserve the fish or game. These proven methods have been with us for thousands of years. "We have determined among ourselves to continue our cultural existence as we have the tribal obligation to pass the knowledge on to our children and to our grandchildren. What we need from the state is what we ourselves have so carefully passed down from generation to generation - cultural awareness, Mr. Chairman. You must know that the uses of the wild renewable resources are a vital to the cultures. "May I address Section 801(5) of Title VIII which asks that land managers seek out `persons with personal knowledge of local conditions.' In the Southeast, as well in other regions, there are elders that possess knowledge of the area, the terrain, seasons, reproduction patterns of the species and the effects of weather. Our elders are able to tell, in advance, which of the species will be in abundance and which species need protective attention to ensure reproduction. The state needs to recognize Tlingit or traditional knowledge in its management plans for the sake of the wild renewable resources. "Permit me to address the plight of the cultures of the tribal members who reside in Juneau and also in Ketchikan, and particularly the Native children. That Native child born in 1975, or in that period, is growing up without any knowledge of the subsistence lifestyle, as these two communities have been closed to subsistence since Title VIII of ANILCA was implemented in 1980. What are they going to teach their children is the question that needs to be answered, or is it the intent of the public policy to destroy their cultures? "A Native family, or indeed a Native community, transcends urban and rural boundaries. A grandmother may live in Hoonah, a grandson in Juneau, but each are linked by subsistence based traditions, and a subsistence priority that draws arbitrary lines between `urban' and `rural' members of a Native family is likewise destructive of the very culture it was designed to protect. "In sum, while Title VIII of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act is intended to protect and ensure continuation of the Alaska Native tribe cultures, the irony is that the `rural' limitation in Title VIII is systematically destroying the cultures of the Juneau and Native children. "I want to thank you for the consideration you have given me today. We should all take these proceedings as a sign that all of us are committed to working together to preserve this state's history and heritage. Perhaps, as a result of our efforts, the state of Alaska could become the first state in the union that takes the necessary steps to protect the cultures of its Native people. Thank you, Mr. Chairman." Number 336 WILLIAM "BILL" C. THOMAS, SR., Member, Southeast Native Subsistence Commission, was next to come before the committee to testify. He thanked Co-Chairman Hudson for the opportunity to testify. Mr. Thomas read the following statement into the record: "I reside at 35 Ridge Road in Ketchikan. I am a member of the Southeast Native Subsistence Commission representing the Ketchikan area Native community. "Some of my presentation was provided, but I take responsibility in any case. My sources tell me that Representative Hudson has stated publicly that subsistence should be based on the individual basis, with income as a determining factor as to the person's eligibility. Also, the community's economic circumstance be a qualifying factor. This is not in agreement with the Native community in Alaska. "I'm speaking from the results at the Native summit -- the subsistence summit in Anchorage. On November 12, 1980, in the Congressional record, Morris K. Udall, chairman of the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, explained the Conservation Act -- the Congressional intent of Title VIII of Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The policy also requires that the regulatory systems which employ income requirements not be imposed to rural residents. Income requirements, by their nature, capricious classifications in rural Alaska, and consequently can be invidiously destructive to Alaskan Native culture." MR. THOMAS said he knows he repeated Mr. Willard, but he felt it needed to be reiterated. He then continued reading: "We also note that customary and traditional subsistence uses must be evaluated on a community or area basis, rather than an individual basis. I note with interest that the leadership of this committee is hell bent on legislating Natives out of existence. I make reference to an article in the Anchorage Daily News quoting Representative Ogan that a constitution amendment should not occur unless we give up sovereignty and Indian country. If it does happen, it won't go unchallenged." MR. THOMAS indicated he will read the resolved portion of the resolution that was developed at the summit in Anchorage. He noted the guiding principles are included in information he gave to the committee members. "Now, therefore, be it resolved, by the representatives of the Alaska Native people assembled at the Native Subsistence Summit, that: "Appreciation is extended to the many Native delegates who came despite pressing unfinished subsistence work to demonstrate their deep commitment to the preservation of their customary and traditional subsistence lifestyle. "The delegates of the Native Subsistence Summit express their appreciation for the hard work and dedication of Governor Knowles and the other members of the Governor's task force in developing its proposal and the attendance of the Governor and other members of the task force at the Subsistence Summit." MR. THOMAS explained that is the spirit of the resolution and noted it is not all inclusive. The (indisc.) at the summit was that the people are anxious to see the state recapture management of those resources. He noted the committee members have a list of some of the conditions they would like to see included. MR. THOMAS informed the committee members that he is the chairman of the Southeast Regional Advisory Council. He noted that has been positive from the time of its inception or creation and that seems to be contrary to the commitment the state has demonstrated to the subsistence community. Number 400 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said he would like to note that he has not come to a final position. He stated he didn't feel it was his role to immediately determine what the final outcome is going to be until hearings are held. Co-Chairman Hudson explained he convinced the Speaker and other leadership in the House that the hearings should be held. This issue has been around for many years. It has divided the state of Alaska, and it is creating more division than probably any other single issue. He said he may have indicated that he felt that there was a leaning in the number of the people in the House and the Senate to something other than what had been presented by the Governor's task force of seven members. CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said, "I believe, Bill, and I would really ask that you and John Borbridge and other leaders, people who communicate with certain Alaskans, we need help in finding the solution on how we can reconcile the two sides, because if the two sides simply essentially speak into their own forum, it's a little bit like speaking, you know, to your own congregation. And we need to figure how we can get these words coming across to people, in many cases, exactly opposite views so that we can find that middle ground that will bring us back the rights to manage our fish and wildlife resources in the state as a state. I fear that, and I'll say this now for the record, I fear that probably more so than almost anything else, not so much on the game side because I think we've lost the management of the game in many areas of Alaska several years ago, but the fisheries, which is really vital to this area and Southeast Alaska Native and non-Native, has a different set of circumstances as far as management is concerned." CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said he'd mentioned during the hearing in Bethel that we have a massive drainage system called the Yukon River and there are so many elements of importance, both to a subsistence way of lifestyle, a commercial cash lifestyle and as well as a sports lifestyle. He said we have to find some solutions to this issue. Co-Chairman Hudson said it makes it difficult for the committee members to try to go back to their colleagues with some middle ground. He said, "We've got to find a process and if you can come up with any stronger good constructive ways to develop that process to where we can get people like yourself, who represent a particular view - a subsistence view, and we respect that. We're eager to have this input - can also be able to communicate with people who have a different advocacy and don't understand the intricacies of the subsistence way of life." Number 448 MR. THOMAS said he appreciates and respects the clarification Co- Chairman Hudson gave him. He stated he believes it, accepts it and thanks him. Number 450 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN said he hopes that everyone understands that when the committee members ask questions, they are not in a debative or an argumentive position. REPRESENTATIVE GREEN said, "If the resolve was to be that there would be a preference, would the community that you're representing be amenable to the -- and if we were able to regain control within the state, would you're community be willing to accept when there is a deficiency of game. We heard testimony just earlier that you're people know in advance when there is going to be a shortage and so, historically, you've adjusted to take that into consideration, but would the community be willing to say, `Alright, this area is going to be short this year, therefore, we're going to have to curtail even on a subsistence basis.' Would those kinds of things be amenable or would you prefer as we have heard a couple of days ago that the subsistence lifestyle says that when they need it, they'll get it? And that may be anytime opposed to perhaps an agency saying, `Well there is a limit here, if they want them they go get it.'" Representative Green said he is trying to get a feel that if Alaska ever did get control again, if there would be a reliance on that. Number 473 MR. THOMAS stated that is a good question. He also said he would appreciate more if the committee members would mention management rather than control. Mr. Thomas pointed out there is a distinct difference on how that is approached. Control is you want to possess something and management is you want to be part of something. REPRESENTATIVE GREEN stated that is a very good point and he stands corrected. MR. THOMAS referred to people who rely on subsistence and said, by their nature, when they see a stock that is probably imperiled they tend to leave it alone to give it chance to rebuild or find a way to enhance a natural rehabilitation. Number 480 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN asked Mr. Thomas if he sees any possible problems with restricting one area or group and not another such as the Tlingits or Yupiit. Number 490 MR. THOMAS indicated he doesn't see the possibility of problems. He stated that is why the regional concept is so effective. Mr. Thomas said you don't hear the subsistence community saying anything about when they are restricted; they don't say, "Well, I need six fish a day," or so many a day like other user groups. He said they don't protest, sign petitions, et cetera. With proper management, subsistence should not be an issue. Proper management would not make it an issue. Number 497 JOE AMBROSE, Legislative Assistant to Senator Robin Taylor, asked Mr. Thomas if his residence is within the city of Ketchikan and not in Saxman. MR. THOMAS indicated that he lives in the Borough of Ketchikan. MR. AMBROSE asked Mr. Thomas if he finds it ironic that he is a member of the Subsistence Advisory Board and he isn't subsistence- eligible because he is classified as urban. MR. THOMAS said it might be ironic, but he thinks it is practical. Number 512 DONALD WESTLUND was next to come before the committee members. He indicated he has lived in Ketchikan approximately 20 years. Mr. Westlund referred to information titled "Summary of Draft Package for a Subsistence Priority and Returning Fish and Game Management to the State," which said, "to recognize the paramount importance of the subsistence way of life to Alaskans." He asked if that is to all Alaskans or part of the Alaskans. MR. WESTLUND referred to the definition of "subsistence." He said the Webster's New World Dictionary, American Language, College Edition, states in definitions 3 and 4, "The means of support or livelihood." He noted it doesn't talk about lifestyles at all. He said the way he looks at this issue, Title VIII needs to be repealed from a rural priority to a personal use priority for all Alaskans. He stated no matter what is done to the Alaska Constitution, the federal courts will always have the final say under ANILCA as it is currently written. If Title VIII is changed from rural to personal use, you can still teach the taking of fish and game traditionally by all subsistence or personal use people, Native or non-Native. Mr. Westlund said somebody who was born in the state of Alaska is not a Native Alaskan. He said something that the Native community needs to look at is when they say "Native Alaskans," there are a lot of native Alaskans that do not have ancestral or culturally Native ties. Mr. Westlund said he has a long history, historically, through his ancestors, of a subsistence lifestyle or subsistence taking of fish and game. When you say, "Well, it's my inherent right," it's also his right. It may not be in Alaska, but it is throughout his ancestral heritage. MR. WESTLUND said he believes that what also needs to be tied into the ANILCA revision is we need to push for a new federal appeals court, as we can no longer deal with the one in San Francisco. MR. WESTLUND referred to a testifier who said the children of people who live in Ketchikan and Juneau, that are nonrural people, teach their children how to catch fish and about their traditional lifestyles; they currently do it under their personal use permits. He said he thinks personal use would be a good avenue for resolving these differences. MR. WESTLUND asked whether he is correct in saying that as ANILCA is currently written, a nonrural person has no subsistence rights. Number 559 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN stated that isn't quite true, as there are some areas, for example, were there are dip net rights in the Copper River and sometimes in the Kenai River. He indicated it's not subsistence use but it's managed under personal use. MR. WESTLUND said it is managed under personal use. He said a lot of people in Ketchikan have misconceptions that they are protected under ANILCA in that they have subsistence rights because they are Native. They live in a nonrural area, so they don't have subsistence rights. Number 568 REPRESENTATATIVE NICHOLIA referred to subsistence rights and Ketchikan not being a rural area, and she pointed out they do have the Tier 1 and Tier 2 requirements. The requirements are a right to a similar subsistence way of life which would give them the priority over the nonresidents coming in if there were a shortage of fish or game. Number 581 MR. BOSWORTH explained that one of the complicated issues that the department is currently dealing with is dual management, where you have a federal and state system together. REPRESENTATIVE NICHOLIA asked him to address the state law. MR. BOSWORTH said under state law, all Alaskans are eligible for subsistence. In times of shortage, there is the Tier 1 process which eliminates essentially nonresident hunters. He referred to Tier 2 and said a person would fill out a questionnaire and the most dependent individual is, therefore, eligible to participate and gets a permit for a Tier 2 hunt. He said, "Yes, we do have a process for making that determination under the state system." Number 591 MR. WESTLUND said the issue really needs review. He said, "If you do it under personal use for all Alaskans, whether you're Native or non-Native -- and I don't think that should be an issue. I think it should be a resident of the state has priority for a state resource. I really think that we could solve a lot of problems, get by a lot of bias and disagreements between cultures, if it was just under personal use for residents of Alaska. I think it would simplify ANILCA in a lot of ways. It would give everybody an equal stance in federal court, make it easier for the state to manage fish and game, and it might satisfy the federal government; I don't know." TAPE 97-61, SIDE A Number 001 MELVIN J. CHARLES was next to testify. He informed the committee members he is from Saxman. He stated he is not a public speaker, but he has been studying law for the last two years. Mr. Charles referred to rural and urban and said that is not in compliance with the Native lifestyle. He said, "For thousands of years my Native people have been controlling this land. Now we have strangers in our midst telling us what we can and cannot do. You cannot interfere with our lifestyle without just compensation. I feel that our Alaskan Native people should put a (indisc.) multi-million dollar lawsuit against the state legislators and law office against the state of Alaska for just compensation. I'm sorry, but I have a lot to say but I cannot say it at this time. Thank you." Number 050 ROYCE RENNIGER, Commercial Fisherman, came before the committee members to testify. He noted he lives in Ketchikan. Mr. Renniger said he thinks the issue should go the Supreme Court as there are too many loopholes and questions. He believes there are a lot of people who are really scared of what they'll wind up with and he is one of them. Mr. Renniger said, "As a commercial gillnetter, I don't know where I sit. Can somebody tell me when I'm going to get to fish if all this is enacted? And where do you cut off how much subsistence goes to an individual before I get to put my net in the water and earn a living? And I've lived in Alaska for 40 some years now. I'm not a Alaskan Native, but my wife was born and raised here, her father was born and raised here. Her family goes way back." MR. RENNIGER continued, "I think there is so many questions that a lot of people are really nervous about. And I, quite frankly, am going to sit here and tell you I don't think it's - I think it's going to get voted down because there are too many open loopholes. I see all kinds of loopholes in everything I've read here this morning because they're trying to satisfy every little detail. And I, quite frankly, don't see a problem. I don't see a problem, I really don't. Where is the problem? I've lived here all these years, and I've never known a problem to exist like this. I mean, people still get to go out and fish and hunt. Nobody is going hungry. Is anybody going hungry?" MR. RENNIGER continued, "There is problems in the Northern Region and I can understand that you got those in-river communities and stuff that a lot of times maybe they don't get the escapement they feel they need or whatever. And I'm going to go back to what I've said at every hearing I've ever been to in regard to fish and game: The state is too large to be managed the way it is in our fish and game management. It's way too large. They have problems in the North land that don't even relate to us and we have problems that don't even relate to them and they're trying to manage the whole thing under one scenario, one set of rules, and it never works. This is the first fish/game board management meeting that we've had here in Ketchikan that I thought went really well. Everybody went away a little bit unhappy and a little bit happy, if that makes any sense to you, because the Board of Fish[eries] did a real good job of addressing a lot of issues that we have down here. That's the way I feel, and a lot of my associates feel that way too, I believe. But it still is -- there were people that were really quite unhappy too because of the way -- it affects everybody in the state the way things go. And it's set up all wrong. Our state is too big. We need two states, and I've said it forever: Southeast Alaska and Alaska." MR. RENNIGER asked if you can satisfy the commercial fishermen, seiners, trollers and gillnetters, no matter where they come from and when will they be able to fish. He asked how it will affect the commercial fishermen. He said he doesn't see an answer. Number 119 REPRESENTATIVE NICHOLIA said everybody tends to forget that at one time there was a rural priority and it didn't change anything. The only time the rural priority kicked was when there was a shortage. She said it doesn't have an impact on Ketchikan because Ketchikan is a nonrural area. Ketchikan would fall under different regulations such as the Tier 1 and Tier 2 provision. Representative Nicholia said the current problem is that we have dual management in Alaska. The question is, "Which management regime do we want to be under? Do we want to be under dual management or do we want to regain statement management?" She said having a rural priority provision back in the state again and regaining statement management doesn't change anything for the commercial fisherman unless there is a shortage. MR. RENNIGER said as he reads the information and proposals that could fit in, it opens so many loopholes. He doesn't believe the federal government should be involved in anything that is being done in the state of Alaska. Our constitution says equality for all, and he feels that was a well-written constitution. Number 154 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said he wasn't in attendance to defend the proposal, as he wasn't a part of the seven-member task force that put together the three-part fix. The reason for trying to come up with some sort of a fix is because Alaska has been told by the courts that any management of fish and wildlife with a rural preference is in violation of the Alaska Constitution. Co-Chairman Hudson said Alaska has been told by the federal judges and authorities, the people who would manage and take over the management through Title VIII of ANILCA, that there must be a rural preference. MR. RENNIGER questioned whether that is discriminatory. CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said it may be, but it is the federal law. He referred to Mr. Renniger's saying that this should be taken to the Supreme Court and said there are many people who would love to see that happen because it might reconcile it. He said the problem is that it is not easy to get before the U.S. Supreme Court, as they don't hear just anything. He stated that Mr. Renniger is a commercial fisherman and noted one of his biggest concerns and the reason he wanted to see this issue go out for hearings is because he fears that dual management could be the U.S. Forest Service, national monuments, Bureau of Land Management, perhaps the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Co-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said, "All of these people having some invested interest in it, and as you know, these fish, they leave the stream and they go far to sea and they come back fat and some of them have a big `Canadian' on them.... You see how complex it is, but can you imagine how difficult it would be if all of the streams were thrown into the pot and everybody who felt like -- they're the Forest Service and they have responsibility in the Tongass out to three miles, usurp the three miles, they would essentially have a hand in trying to determine how the management is going to (indisc.) take place there. And if we don't do something, my fear is that we're going to have layer and layer of multiple management, tremendous expense, and we're not going to be able to operate as timely and as dynamically as I believe, at any rate, we have to do. Under a single management scheme by the state of Alaska, we can do that. And it's the proposal, at any rate, from the seven-member task force attempts to get the federal government to acknowledge that we are in compliance with federal law and, at the same time, provide whatever mechanism is necessary in the constitution, if we need be, or statutorily, at any rate, in order to obtain that right to manage our own fish and wildlife. To me, as a state's rights advocate, I am really offended by the federal government holding a hammer over our heads saying that you either play by our rules, which many of us believe are maybe not unconstitutional, but certainly in that fate when they granted us statehood." Co- Chairman Hudson stated that it is a complex issue, it's multi- tiered, we can do the management, we'll always probably have some federal involvement in the management because of the federal lands. CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said, "We have so many question marks involved into this whole thing now that at least this task force proposal tries to address all of those in a connective way. It ultimately places in your hands, the people of Alaska, an opportunity providing we, the legislature, give it to you to vote to determine whether or not you believe that there ought to be a way within the constitution for the lawmakers of Alaska, your representatives, to afford you the opportunity to pass the laws that will determine the management that will make certain that you know when you can fish, that will guarantee that fish are enhanced and habitat is maintained and hatcheries and things of this nature -- a whole management scheme. All rivers, as they cross through migratory ways, as you know the intercept cases and things of this nature, are extremely complex. But right now it's threatened, in my opinion, by the threat of the court ordered federal takeover and the ambiguity within the definitions of the instrument that would afford that takeover." Number 236 MR. RENNIGER said he came to Alaska in 1955 with his parents. He said he has been to Anchorage once, and he doesn't understand the problems in the North land. He referred to Representative Nicholia's saying that she has a rural problem right now and asked her where she is from. Number 245 REPRESENTATIVE NICHOLIA responded she is from Tanana on the Yukon River. MR. RENNIGER asked her what her problem is. He asked if she isn't getting enough fish. REPRESENTATIVE NICHOLIA stated she didn't say anything like that. MR. RENNIGER apologized for his misunderstanding. Number 250 REPRESENTATIVE WILLIAMS referred to Mr. Renniger's making a comment about going to the Supreme Court first. MR. RENNIGER interrupted, saying that he thinks our constitution is right. REPRESENTATIVE WILLIAMS said he knows what Mr. Renniger is saying. He pointed out there was constitutional amendment for limited entry which was passed. He discussed how his son has been fishing for the last ten years and wants to get a limited entry permit, but he can't afford it. Representative Williams said limited entry was a tool that this state saw how we could manage our fish resources in a better manner. He stated he agrees with that, but he doesn't agree with putting a price tag on limited entry permits. It should have gone back to the state where anybody could have got one. It was just a permit and wasn't "worth $50,000, $100,000, $250,000 or whatever it may have been." He stated that going to the Supreme Court is like trying to talk to God. You cannot talk to the judges, you can talk at them, but you can't talk with them. Representative Williams said he would prefer it stay out of the Supreme Court. He indicated he would rather negotiate something and get the management back to the state of Alaska. Representative Williams said he is not telling anyone how it should be done. What he would like to be done is to find a solution that would assure us that the state is in management. He said he agrees that we have the best management in the world. Representative Williams pointed out that he was fishing in 1955, when they used to fish seven days a week and at the end of the seine season they may have caught maybe 50,000 fish. Now you can get that in one day because of the fact that the management came to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. We have a proven system here. Number 295 GEORGE JAMES, JR., Kuiu Thhinggit Nation, came before the committee to testify. He spoke his Tlingit name and said his great grandfather and great grandfather also had the same name, Sumta (ph), which means "Always been there." Mr. James said he can trace his tribal lineage back before George Washington became President. Mr. James said that we have three choices to make. He continued to read his statement into the record: "The Native peoples of Alaska, the indigenous people only, have three choices to make. Only indigenous peoples can make these choices, no one else can make it for them. The choices have everything to do with your traditional tribal lands, waters and resources. You will choose who controls and manages everything. The three choices are, and mind you these choices were agreed upon by the United States, Great Britain and everybody that's a signatory to it and the U.N. (United Nations): 1) The number one choice is you and you're tribe can stay just as everything is now with the state of Alaska, with its ADCs and the United States government and its agencies controlling everything and telling you what to do; and 2) You and your tribe can choose to become like a commonwealth of Puerto Rico, where all the people run their country just like the United States of America, with no tribal control of any kind. You and your tribe will have no right to manage any agreements with any other nations and the United States of America are still going to be in control and be the big boss. And the third choice is the most important one of all. You and your tribe can choose to completely control everything in your traditional lands, waters and resources. No outside people can tell you and you're tribe what to do. The third choice completely gets rid of any control, rules, laws, regulations from both the state of Alaska and the United States of America. All their powers will return to you and your people and no one else. The third choice is for total independence and sovereignty. "The right for indigenous people of Alaska to make any of these choices are guaranteed by international covenants and agreements and laws. Article 27 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, GAR 1514 of 14 December, 1960, Declaration of Granting Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, (2) `All peoples have the right to self determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic and cultural development.' "Convention on elimination of all forms of racial discrimination protects rights to utilization of the resources, land and waters. "A draft convention and declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. "To add power to the strength of the covenants given by indigenous people of Alaska." Mr. James noted he also has copies of the "Smoking Gun." He said, "What the `Smoking Gun' says we have the land titlest specialist and there no one better than him in the United States. And what he did is he's did research at the Smithsonian, he did research at the Congressional records, he did research at the national archives. There is nothing on record to show that the United States bought Alaska. There is nothing on record to show that Russia sold it. There is nothing on record at all. If you folks know where the records are, please let me know." MR. JAMES continued to read his statement: "This document from the United States archives in Washington, D.C., clearly says that Russia never owned the region of Alaska; therefore, Imperial Russia could not sell what they did not own. You and your traditional tribe still own your traditional lands, waters and resources. "The Smoking Gun consists of a series of letters and documents from the United States archives in Washington, D.C., created between 1821 and 1824 during the negotiation of a convention between the U.S. and Russia brought about by an edict published by the tsar of Russia in 1821. "What are the next steps to take? 1) All of the indigenous peoples of Alaska will have to make a choice by voting. Only they can vote, no immigrants will be allowed to vote or campaign for or against these three choices. A special time for voting will be set aside. Maybe a year or so it will take, but it's up to the traditional tribal leaders and your tribal elders and councils to do this and this is guaranteed by the United Nations." Mr. James said by having this subsistence hearing, he sees people are trying to help them out, but who helped them when the legislature wasn't here. He stated they've done it by themselves, for thousands of years they did it by themselves. He gave the committee members copies of his testimony. Mr. James noted his attorney, Mr. James P. Bailey, also has a video. He noted Mr. Bailey, who is a doctor of law, land and is also a title specialist, told the tribal council that when they get close to the goal of being self governing, deal makers will be coming out of the woodwork and will make offers that will be hard to refuse. MR. JAMES pointed out that the term "Indian country" is being used freely. He said he would inform the committee he isn't an Indian. That is what Congress called them. The state now feels they have settle this subsistence matter once and for all. He asked what the big rush is as they have been here for 10,000 years. The term "rural priority" is always being used. Only the rural people can live a subsistence lifestyle. Mr. James asked the committee members if they came and asked him what they could have for breakfast. He said if he has to ask what he can eat, the committee better ask him what they can eat. He stated everybody deserves to live and he is getting tired of people telling him how to live. MR. JAMES explained his parents were moved off of Kuiu Island in 1934. There were more students on that island than in the Village of Klawock, where they were forced to move. He said this was all a conspiracy to take the land away from them and make them something that they weren't intended to be. Mr. James said they are willing to sit down and discuss the issue. He stated the choices are up to the indigenous people of Alaska and no one else. Number 421 BOB WEINSTEIN came forward to testify regarding subsistence. He noted he is a member of the Ketchikan City Council, but is testifying on his own behalf. Mr. Weinstein stated he is not a legal or constitutional scholar or a scholar on the issue of subsistence. However, one thing he has growing expertise in is the impasse of federal management. He said most people in Ketchikan have had it with federal management. Over the last year, a significant portion of their largest employer closed as a result of federal management. After ten years of study and $15 million of federal tax expense, there is the Tongass Land Management Plan (TLMP) which still can not answer whether there will be a sufficient timber supply in Ketchikan to meet current and planned capacity. MR. WEINSTEIN said his testimony is: It seems that the worst option is to do nothing and have federal management. He said the legislators have been elected to come up with the solution that can balance the competing interests and keep out further federal encroachment on the management of the lives of people in Ketchikan and elsewhere in the state. He noted he isn't familiar with the details of the task force proposal, but if that doesn't work the legislature needs to come up with another solution that will prevent further federal encroachment in the lives of our people. Number 452 JOE DEMMERT, JR., was next to come before the committee. He asked how many committee members have a limited entry permit. CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON indicated Representative Dyson has a limited entry permit. MR. DEMMERT suggested the rest of the committee is at loss. He said, "When the state amended the constitution, this very same provision that we're discussing amending -- where subsistence priority -- we gave over 90 percent of the salmon of the resource to people that own these permits. So, it puts the rest of you at a disadvantage right at the beginning, yet how many hearings did they conduct when they amended it to provide for limited entry. They were talking about up to 95 percent of the salmon resource. And I speak to the salmon simply because we are still the world's largest producer of wild salmon. When we amended the constitution to provide limited entry, we gave over 90 percent of that resource to the people that own these permits and the issue at the time was conservation of the resource. Today, we're talking about another amendment, that same provision in the constitution that provides equal access. (Indisc.) are we talking about a conservation issue? We're talking about listing two percent of the salmon resource, statewide, that is utilized for subsistence. I'd say the error in managing those resources in any given year is greater than the amount that's being utilized for subsistence. It has become such a divisive issue. What are the problems? What are we speaking about when we talk about amending the constitution to provide a rural priority. That priority goes into effect only when there is a shortage of a resource and I doubt if I ever see a shortage of the salmon resources in the rest of my lifetime. I've never seen that and I've been here for over 70 years now. I've been a commercial fisherman, this is sixty-first year as a purse seiner." MR. DEMMERT said he almost decided not to attend because two minutes provides a person hardly enough time to introduce oneself. Mr. Demmert continued to discuss his background by saying he has served two terms on the state Board of Fish and Game when it was a joint board. He served one term on the Board of Fisheries in 1986 through 1989, when the state enacted a new subsistence law. Mr. Demmert said it was the Board of Fisheries and the Board of Game that had to adopt regulations to enact the new law that would put the state in compliance with ANILCA. They spent endless hours and days conducting hearings throughout the state to come up regulations that would be acceptable and in compliance with federal law. The McDowell Group took it to court and, unfortunately, that new law was declared unconstitutional in the courts. He stated he still feels that the regulations that were adopted to enact that law would have laid subsistence to rest because they weren't speaking of a great deal of the resources. Mr. Demmert referred to comments from different people about going back to state management and said he fished under state management and has been a boat owner since 1949, and he knows what state management can do. He has served one term on the North Pacific Council. That is an example of state management which leaves a lot to be desired. Having served on the state Board of Fish and Game, the resource was number one, but that isn't the case with the North Pacific Council. Mr. Demmert indicated he didn't feel comfortable serving on the council even thought there were a lot of highly qualified people. He didn't agree with a lot of the decisions the council made as the resource was not the number one objective. MR. DEMMERT referred to the issues in relation to subsistence and amending the state constitution and said it has already been amended to deny most people equal access to our salmon resources. Many of the permit holders are nonresidents. He said he is having a difficult time trying to figure out what the main objections are to amending the constitution to provide for rural priority when it has already been amended to give away over 90 percent of salmon resources to the permit holders. Mr. Demmert said if the legislature would take a look at the regulations that the "North Pacific Council" spent so much time on, it could be a good starting point on how the state should go about managing subsistence - managing our salmon resources that would put us in compliance with state law. He noted Mr. Bosworth was at many of the hearings and he probably has a lot of information that would be very helpful to the committee, during deliberations, in getting the legislature to come up with an amendment to the constitution. He referred to one of the provisions in the regulations the council adopted and said it would provide personal use for other Alaskan residents. The only difference would be that you would need a sport fish license to participate. He indicated subsistence food has been a part of his diet since the beginning of his life and there isn't anyone around that is going to change that. He said even though he now resides in a nonrural community, he will still be able to go out and harvest the food that he has been accustomed to all of his life. Mr. Demmert explained that some of his close personal friends have changed their diets to a non-Native diet and many of them have medical problems. He hasn't had any medical problems, so there is no reason for him to change his diet at this point in his life. MR. DEMMERT said he thinks this subsistence issue has gone far beyond what any reasonable person would consider. Why deny people access to 2 percent of the resource? As an Alaskan, he would encourage all Alaskans to sit down and look at the pros and cons. MR. DEMMERT referred to a recommendation by the Governor's task force and said, "The one provision on amending would be permissive, you know, on it whether the priority would be agreed upon or not." He said he doesn't think that is a good provision because when we gave 90 percent of the salmon resource to limited entry permit holders, there were no restrictions on how limited entry would be adopted. Subsistence is 2 percent of the resource and we're trying to impose limits on how this should be implemented. He thanked the committee for the opportunity to speak. Number 569 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said he would like to personally thank Mr. Demmert for leading the committee into what he believes is an element of solution. He said if he heard him right, he isn't a strong advocate of federal control, but he believes we should manage our fisheries and game in the state of Alaska by the state of Alaska. Co-Chairman Hudson asked if he is correct in saying that. MR. DEMMERT responded in the affirmative. He informed the committee that before statehood, our salmon stocks were depleted to the point where some of them probably never recovered. Mr. Demmert said we've done a very good job, statewide, managing our fish and game resources. We made a very strong commitment in doing that, we hired some of the best scientists in the (indisc.) to guide us in the way that our fish and game has been managed as a state. Number 580 REPRESENTATIVE NICHOLIA commended Mr. Demmert for his services to the Board of Fisheries and the Board of Game. She said Mr. Demmert mentioned the Governor's task force proposal, which says, "The constitution will be amended to permit, but not to require ...." She asked Mr. Demmert whether he thinks that section should be changed from "may" to "shall require to grant a subsistence priority to rural residents." MR. DEMMERT said, "As I stated when we amended the constitution the first time to allow limited entry, I don't think we put any restrictions on how we should go about that, and I feel this provision in this proposal is restrictive. I think they were right to provide for rural preference and we should do it. That is the intent of the amendment to the constitution and that's what it should do." Number 592 REPRESENTATIVE DYSON stated that he shares Mr. Demmert's appreciation for the good job that the Department of Fish and Game has done in the management of the resources. He said he struggled when he was in Bethel to find out why many of the local residents had so much confidence that the federal government would do a better job. Representative Dyson said the federal management of fisheries in Washington and Oregon doesn't have a good record. Apparently, the people in Western Alaska are encouraged by what the federal government has done with the local subsistence boards as they have paid a lot attention to local knowledge and the wisdom of the elders. He said he feels their confidence has to do with that recent experience of dealing with the federal government. Representative Dyson indicated he doesn't share that confidence. He stated that over the 20 plus years that he has been fishing for sockeye, in the last two years we've seen a shortage in the Bristol Bay fishery, and 10 million fish from the Kvichavak River system have disappeared and it's unknown where they went. TAPE 97-61, SIDE B Number 001 REPRESENTATIVE DYSON thanked Mr. Demmert for his state service and for giving the committee his perspective. MR. DEMMERT indicated he had one other comment. He said in Southeast Alaska, we are clearly aware of what federal management has done to our other renewable resources. The timber industry has gone by the wayside, which he attributes to the federal management. Number 020 REPRESENTATIVE NICHOLIA referred to Representative Dyson speaking about Western Alaska and those people not having a lot of confidence in the state of Alaska. She said he failed to mention that the people also said they are losing faith in the state of Alaska because of the budget cuts to the Division of Commercial Fisheries and to the Division of Subsistence, the local and regional advisory committees and councils. So, their participation in the state process is diminished. Now the federal government is coming and providing the funds. Number 039 REPRESENTATIVE REGGIE JOULE explained he has been listening via teleconference from Barrow. He referred to the Bethel hearing and said he would like to bring up two issues. One is the issue of co- management. People feel very much a part of the process to a recognized system such as the federal Advisory Fish and Game Boards. They have seen it work. Their input to that system has made positive impacts in the preservation and in the harvesting methods. That is one of the reasons they are not afraid of federal management. Representative Joule explained that almost everyone who provided testimony said that while they would welcome federal management, they would prefer to see the legislature allow the people of the state of Alaska to vote on the issue of whether or not the state of Alaska should have a rural priority. Number 072 MR. DEMMERT indicated he had an additional comment regarding the proposed amendments to ANILCA. Our Congressional delegation has cautioned us for many years on opening ANILCA to amendments. We need to be very careful in how we go about doing that because if it was opened up, we could end up with problems like we had with our timber industry. We'll have people that are not familiar with the resources in Alaska that will come up with a mechanism that will have a drastic impact on Alaska resources. We need to listen to our Congressional delegation as they are cautioning us for a reason. Under federal management we could have environmentalists sitting on the panel that will have an impact on how we manage our fish and game resources. He again stated he believes state management is the best alternative we have available. Number 105 MR. AMBROSE referred to the term "in times of shortage" and asked if there is anything in the constitutional amendment that restricts the preference to "in times of shortage." He said he had thought it was the number one priority. MR. BOSWORTH informed the committee that the constitutional amendment provides that the legislature may enact laws allowing a rural preference. There is nothing in the constitutional amendment that speaks to "shortage." Number 118 MR. AMBROSE asked if there is anything else in the rest of the proposal that limits it to times of shortage. MR. BOSWORTH explained the way the preference is implemented by the boards of fisheries and game. It does provide that subsistence uses must be provided for, and once the boards have determined that has been accomplished, then other uses are provided for. Number 158 DICK COOSE came before the committee to testify. He stated he does not support the Governor's task force proposal or the Murkowski/Young proposals as written. Neither one of the proposals provide enough protection for Alaskans to manage our fish and game from the federal government control. They're too loose. He noted he has given the task forces his comments. Mr. Coose said he doesn't believe that ANILCA, Title VIII, is legal under our federal constitution and there are documents that he believes some of the state agencies have which stated that it wasn't legal when it was passed. He said in his opinion, the Governor and legislature needs to exhaust all legal means to determine whether or not that's true or not before Alaska is forced into negotiating with the federal government on the issues. We need to know without being panicked into doing it. MR. COOSE stated he believes that ANILCA, as written, is being used and abused mainly by people and organizations outside of this state. They are using it to stop resource management. The Tongass is part of it as they use it to prevent timber harvesting, mining or any other thing. We've got to be real careful about how we allow subsistence laws to be used because they will eventually screw up this state's economy. Mr. Coose said we have got to somehow look beyond the issue and look at the bigger picture and see how this is going to mess up this state. Mr. Coose informed the committee members he really supports all Alaskans being able to harvest fish and game to feed their families. It is a basic Alaskan right, it's all of our rights, as Alaskans, to be able to have fish and game on our table to feed our families. MR. COOSE said there is one really important aspect of ANILCA, Title VIII. He said he thinks that there was an intent to make sure that Alaskans could hunt and fish on all the federal lands that they designated as parks and refuges because otherwise, they would have taken that right always from all Alaskans. We need to attempt to protect the right to utilize our federal lands as we know best how to do it. He said he supports Alaskan's rights, under the existing state constitution and appropriate state laws, that will assure all Alaskans the right to continue to gather fish and game to feed their families. MR. COOSE informed the committee members that he does not support the commercial sale of any fish and game products or other things gathered for personal subsistence use. The federal courts and the government must not have any oversight over our fish and game management. Mr. Coose said he would ask the legislature to protect his Alaska personal rights and to protect the rights of Alaskans to manage their own fish and game resources, on a sustained yield basis, and to provide for Alaskans the right to gather fish and game to feed their families. Number 224 REPRESENTATIVE NICHOLIA asked Mr. Coose if he holds a commercial fishing permit. MR. COOSE indicated he does not. He said he doesn't consider himself a commercial fisherman. Mr. Coose said he enjoys sports hunting and fishing on occasion, but he thinks if someone needs to feel their family they need to be able to do it. Number 429 REPRESENTATIVE NICHOLIA said, "Say that you depend on the fisheries. Now there is a fishery shortage and you needed to feed you family. Would you appreciate it -- while you're trying to get that fish for your family and fishermen came down from Anchorage to fish in the waters here while you're trying to do that. Would you appreciate that? What's you views on that?" MR. COOSE said he doesn't think he'd feel good about that. He said he thinks management of fish and game is typically on a local type of a basis. Number 250 K. A. SWIGER, Ketchikan Sports and Wildlife Club, came before the committee to give her testimony, saying she agrees with numerous other speakers. She read the following statement into the record: "I'm a Native Alaskan, a lifelong resident of Alaska. My family has been here for 50 years, they've dedicated their lives to the future of this state and taken part in the challenge of a territory becoming a state. I want to go on record not supporting either the Governor's task force proposal or our Congressional delegation's solution to this problem. "The state constitution called for us all to be citizens. All of us are Alaskans, and to have equal access to the bountiful resources of our great land. I believe this constitution should be honored. The divisiveness created by ANILCA has, in my opinion, been detrimental to this state and its people. "It is an insult to me personally that subsistence rights be given to only certain people based upon whatever criteria, race, culture, finance or income or location in the state. It's all divisive criteria. If we all go back, even in the not so distant past, have not all of our forefathers at one time subsisted upon the bounties of the land and sea? Can this not be considered traditional and cultural? Furthermore, have we ever been asked how important subsistence is to us, or how we use the opportunity and depend upon it? "I believe the state constitution set out to respect this issue and, therefore, declared all Alaskans the subsistence entitlement. I, therefore, strongly urge the Alaska legislature to take actions to promote rectifying the wrong in ANILCA. "State management of fish and game has been highly successful in at least Southeast Alaska, presented today, if maybe not so successfully elsewhere in Alaska, but I believe overall it's been successful and it has done so with subsistence opportunities available to all. Has there been a problem? Do we have shortages that we can't rectify other than the cyclical nature of fish runs? "Lastly, it is of paramount importance that the legislature do what it can to ensure a continued moratorium, if necessary, of the federal takeover of fish and game and they do that before the details of this subsistence issue be worked out. They're planning to take over, as we all know on October 1st, the commercial fishery. This can only lead to a disaster. Federal management of resources have had a poor history in this state and should not continue. Thank you." REPRESENTATIVE GREEN referred to Ms. Swiger urging that the issue be resolved prior to October 1 and said there will be more public hearings up until that point. There will probably be no way to resolve the issue by October 1. He said there is probably divisiveness and asked what she thinks would be a way to resolve the issue that would satisfy the federal government. MS. SWIGER stated she doesn't envy anybody trying to solve this issue. She said she doesn't think it will be solved before the federal takeover. We all have to accept responsibility that this has been an issue coming for a long time and nobody wanted to touch it because of the critical emotional nature of the issue. It seems her that we are all at fault for not doing that. Ms. Swiger explained that from what she understands, Alaska's Congressional delegation has provided a moratorium hoping we would all get together and work it out. We haven't until now, a month before the federal takeover of the commercial fishery. Hopefully, what is now being done it will prove to the federal government that we're trying to do something and they will instigate another moratorium and we'll promise to continue to rectify this problem. She said that is the solution she sees. Ms. Swiger said to get the federal government out of the state is the most important thing we need to work on now and we'll hash out the subsistence rural preference or no rural preference later. REPRESENTATIVE NICHOLIA asked Ms. Swiger if she fishes or hunts. MS. SWIGER indicated she does both. REPRESENTATIVE NICHOLIA asked what she fishes and hunts for. MS. SWIGER pointed out that she is not a commercial fisherman. She said she fishes for salmon, and she sure would like to get her subsistence sockeye in the freezer. She noted she hunts for deer and would hunt for moose if she could. Number 359 ERIC MUENCH came before the committee to testify. He informed the members he lives in Ketchikan. Mr. Muench stated he generally supports the thrust of the task force proposal, but he does have problems with some of it. He indicated he supports a subsistence amendment to the Alaska Constitution. He said this a moral issue of fairness and local control of resources and it should have been a part of the Alaska Constitution right from the beginning. He stated he thinks it probably wasn't because in the 1950s when it was being written, he doubts that there was the ability to foresee the mobility - the ease of getting into the bush like there is now. Mr. Muench stated the need is now. Alaska needs to address the genuine subsistence concern needs of a significant portion of its people who depend on fish and game and natural crop harvest for most or all of their livelihood. That is independent of any need to resolve a conflict with federal law. That need is there too, but the need of fairness and local control is entirely a separate issue that stands on its own. MR. MUENCH said in order to get support, both the amendment and the law language needs to be fair to everyone in the state and should apply only where subsistence is truly needed. He said he thinks that is the key. Mr. Muench said he has been in Southeast Alaska for 36 years and he doesn't believe that he knows of any area in Southeast that is truly subsistence dependent. Even the smallest and most rural areas of Southeast have access to some form of work or income besides subsistence alone. There is logging, tourism, fishing or something else. Mr. Muench said it is primarily a problem in the North and Interior, of which he doesn't know a whole lot about. He said he doesn't know if there has been problems as far as actual food supplies to families up there or not, but he does believe that we need to have something in our basic state constitution and law that provides for those needs. MR. MUENCH said he believes there are three principles that would have to be adhered to in order to make it fair and make it apply only where needed. These would be that the subsistence preference apply only to geographic areas that are truly dependent on fish and game and natural crop harvest to provide the majority of residents with most or all of their livelihood. Secondly, he thinks subsistence harvest rights should apply only when that geographic area can sustain subsistence level harvest by all the residents that need it without causing resource depletion. Mr. Muench said the third thing he believes is subsistence harvest rights must apply to all permanent year-round residence of a subsistence preference area without regard to individual economic status or to race or to family history. Mr. Muench said with regard to that, he believes some of the points in the Governor's task force proposal are worth a comment. The priority statement of community or areas substantially dependent on fish and game for nutritional and other subsistence uses is good. Mr. Muench said he believes the second point relating to customary and traditional should not apply because subsistence is primarily an economic issue. It's an issue of whether the people are able to supply their livelihoods through other economic endeavors besides hunting and fishing. That will change over time and customary and traditional really has nothing to do with that aspect of it. MR. MUENCH said, "Regarding issue number six, nonrural subsistence, I don't believe that that belongs in this language. Taking fish and game for educational purposes, proxy hunting by nonrural residents -- there is nothing wrong with those things as a -- in individual cases, but I don't believe there should be a blanket language allowing those unless there is a special need demonstrated." MR. MUENCH explained that he believes there should be an emphasis on language in any constitutional amendment and law. He stated he has a particular problem with language that includes the word "rural." It has been really goofed up in the federal administration of ANILCA subsistence. Mr. Muench said rural doesn't mean a whole lot. Anybody that lives outside of a city or a built up area is rural. We have rural areas that are agricultural. We have rural areas where timber, fishing and other economic activity is very important and they don't have any subsistence dependence. He said he thinks the wording "subsistence dependent" rather than "rural" should be used. Mr. Muench said we have to be careful of the wording "customary" and "traditional," because the federal government has used those words to create a defacto segregation of subsistence rights by race. That should not happen under the state's program. MR. MUENCH said he does believe that ANILCA is not constitutional under the U.S. Constitution, but he doesn't believe that is an issue we can attack at this moment as a method of preventing federal takeover. He said, "I think we have to go the way the Governor's task force has proposed for now." MR. MUENCH quoted the Tenth Amendment from the U.S. Constitution. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the states respectively or to the people." He said there is nothing in the constitution that talks about federal management of fish and game. He indicated he believes that ANILCA as well as other things Congress has done over the years to centralize power in the federal government is unconstitutional. He said we should pursue that, but he doesn't think that at this time we can use that as a substitute for amending our own approach to subsistence needs in the state. Number 459 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN said he is a strong believer in state's rights and he thinks we have a government that is far too intrusive. He referred to Mr. Muench's saying that he doesn't think that the criteria should be based in economics, but rather an area that is dependent on subsistence. He asked him about people within an area that is considered to be subsistence dependent. He said what if there is a person that is independently wealthy and lives in an area that is subsistence dependent, by choice. Would that person, by virtue, have a higher right than someone who lived out of that area? Number 472 MR. MUENCH explained that his vision is to identify areas of the state that are genuinely dependent on subsistence for the majority of their population to make a living. He noted that when he speaks of economics, he is not talking only about industrial economics; hunting, fishing and trapping are part of some people's economics. Mr. Muench said he thinks that within the areas that are identified that way, they would have to be picked with a great deal of care and consistent conditions. MR. MUENCH said most of those conditions would be economic in nature, such as very few job opportunities or very little transportation availability to jobs outside of the area that people could use and still remain full-time residents of the area. Once these areas are identified, he doesn't believe that it would be proper to differentiate between residents because then it will almost be made into a welfare program or would introduce a possibility of differentiating by race or by customary and traditional language. He said he doesn't believe that is right. He believes that once the area has been identified, it needs to apply to all full-time year-round residents. Most of the subsistence preference people, in his view, would be Alaskan Natives, and he hasn't got a problem with that. He said his only problem is with designating a race or a family history as being the only people that would be eligible. Number 493 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said, "This is an interesting thing. I've also had a whole lot of wrestling with this concept of rural because I think that it's pretty nebulous and it could apply unequally in different circumstances. And your suggestion that we go to something like a subsistence dependent area or local or something like that where there is few job opportunities -- from my traveling around the state of Alaska, and I've visited many, many villages and larger communities in Alaska. There are hundreds and maybe even thousands of Alaskans who are stuck in a region because they don't have the wherewithal to, say, pick up and leave. And a lot of people who come to Alaska come from California or Idaho, like myself or something like that, and when time gets tough and you lose your job they can, you know, often fall back, you know, to where they came from and look for their family dependents. But many people who were born and raised in the Interior of Alaska and in the small villages, really that's where their network is, and as they've gotten older there just isn't any place else for them to go, nor could they survive any other place except under some sort of welfare scenario. So, I think that there is, with some good wordsmithing, some sincere understanding between Native/non-Native -- and non-Natives who have been born and raised into rural Alaska, without using the word `rural,' are trying to find some better description, maybe one of the solutions that we have to really work harder on here because I haven't heard it yet. I appreciate you're leading us into that way of thinking because I think that's necessary." Number 513 MR. MUENCH said he hopes that he didn't give the impression that he was suggesting that people should leave these remote areas. He said he believes people do have a right to live and to remain living in those areas, and to do it by means of subsistence type activities for a large part of their survival. He said he thinks that is the need for a subsistence amendment to the constitution. Number 548 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said, "When we talk about need we readily find that some folks, including John and some of the positions taken by AFN, is that they want no reference to need. But need doesn't necessarily have to mean - it doesn't have to mean `means.' It may mean, you know, desire to live in a certain area that has no other major job opportunities or economic opportunities for these people. So, I think that, you know, we've got to be careful here that we are - we throw away the opportunity to expand the search for the right definitions and it may not be need, but it may be need. Do you hear what I'm saying? It depends on whose terminology you're using." REPRESENTATIVE GREEN said, "Eric, you heard K. A. indicate that there is a need perhaps that if we could get some sort of a moratorium that we're really now focusing, a opposed to the prior 18 or whatever -- some as many as 30 years that we've kind of just ignored this problem -- and maybe because it hasn't been a major problem. A lot of people have testified today that `well, what's the problem? Things are going alright.' Do you feel that you share her concern or her feeling that if we were somehow granted a moratorium that we could reconcile the various differences that we've heard today?" MR. MUENCH said he has been concerned over the last few years that we, as Alaskans, have not done more to solve the problem. He said he thinks that the Governor's task force has gone a long ways towards starting that process. He said getting the federal government in here will create kayos and disaster all around. Mr. Muench said he thinks a moratorium would be in order if our Congressional delegation can swing it. He said he thinks we could then solve that problem. Mr. Muench stated he does believe that a majority of Alaskans would support a solution that they saw as fair and one that would apply only where needed. He thinks there probably wouldn't be support for the type of subsistence management that we have seen under the federal ANILCA administration. Number 550 REPRESENTATIVE NICHOLIA said, "I would hope that we would not give the public the understanding that there will be a moratorium, especially since we had Senator Stevens tell us right to our face that there would be no moratorium and that he wants to see a solution acted on by the legislature, and that he said when he spoke to us in our chambers during our session that there would be no moratorium." Number 560 GEORGE GARDNER, Member, Ketchikan Indian Corporation, came before the committee to give his testimony. He informed the members he is on the IRA Council which consists of 3,700 members, and he is also the chairman of the Subsistence Committee. He told the committee members he was born and raised in Craig and is 66 years old. He stated he lived on subsistence in his early days and still does today. At the IRA Council meeting on August 27, 1997, they gave the Subsistence Committee authorization to draft a position statement which he is submitting at this time. He continued to read the position statement into the record: "The Ketchikan Indian Corporation Tribal Council, at its regular meeting, August 27, 1997, unanimously opposed Governor Knowles' subsistence task force recommendations. The following is the support document and reference and rational: 1) Subsistence is a priority system only when resources are depleted to the point where the priority system `kicks in.' 2) Subsistence users historically use approximately 1 percent of the resources. 3) Subsistence users historically take only what they can use. 4) Alaskan Natives has historically depended on subsistence resources for a means of culture, economics and survival. 5) ANILCA, Title VIII, attempts to recognize that Alaska historically depends on subsistence. 6) The state of Alaska has historically tried to take away subsistence from the Alaska Natives. 7) Alaska Natives have historically been challenged to give up more and more subsistence to the point where they/we can give up no more! 8) Governor Knowles' subsistence task force is yet one more attempt to take away subsistence from Alaska Natives. "The Ketchikan Indian Corporation Tribal Council strongly supports the state of Alaska Constitutional amendments to comply with ANILCA Title VIII and absolutely no amendment to ANILCA." MR. GARDNER said he would like to adopt the testimony of John Borbridge's testimony of September 12, and noted the council also endorses that adoption. Number 592 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON indicated the committee has heard from everybody that signed up to testify. He said the committee would continue to take testimony from people who are on-line after lunch. The House Resources Committee recessed at 12:20 p.m. TAPE 97-62, SIDE A Number 001 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON called the House Resources Committee meeting back to order at 1:40 p.m. Number 027 LOREN CROXTON testified via teleconference from Petersburg. Mr. Croxton informed the committee members that he has lived in Alaska for about 39 years and in Petersburg since 1980. He indicated he'd been from the North Slope all the way to Ketchikan. Mr. Croxton said he thinks there is no question that we find an acceptable solution to the issue of subsistence. By bowing to the high-handed and, as he believes, the illegal action of the federal government in usurping our state right to manage our own fish and game resources, a right granted to us by the statehood compact, is wrong. He said he thinks it is ridicules that anyone would seriously consider amending our constitution when legal actions against this and other provisions of ANILCA are still pending in the courts. Our time, efforts and money could be better expended doing everything within our power to expedite these issues through the courts. Mr. Croxton said there must be something the legislature and Administration can do to hurry these issues along. He said he would strongly recommend that amending the constitution be considered only as a last resort. It should be seriously considered only after all other avenues have been exhausted. MR. CROXTON referred to a September 2, 1997, letter written by Representative Beverly Masek to the editor of the Anchorage Daily News. He said it puts the issue of subsistence in a much better perspective than he ever could. Mr. Croxton quoted from the letter, "Growing up in Anvik, my family truly depended on wildlife resources for our daily subsistence. Many villages are still living under similar conditions today. I can't think of anyone I've spoken to who is opposed to these villagers [having] the opportunity to feed themselves and their families. Therein lies the true solution to the problem surrounding subsistence in Alaska today. Working the equal rights provision out of our constitution, providing for a permanent privileged class, goes against everything America stands for. Alaskans deserve a solution based on the principle that all people be treated equal." MR. CROXTON informed the committee the Representative Masek further wrote, "I have great doubts that the proposal, as written, would truly return management to the state without unwanted federal interference." He urged committee members to read the letter, as he believes Representative Masek has an insight to this issue that most Alaskans would agree with. He stated he further believes that the Supreme Court would support these views. There are really only three courses of action. One is to amend the constitution. Mr. Croxton said at every opportunity, especially at election time, our Congressional delegation reminds us of how much power they have in Washington, D.C., but on this issue they are reluctant to say anything. He stated there is only one other alternative and that is to go through the courts. Mr. Croxton said a state can file directly into the U.S. Supreme Court, bypassing the lower court system. He stated he believes that is the best course of action that Alaska can take. Number 072 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said, "I understand your views on the constitution, but the thing that I feel really strong about and concerned about is the need to avoid a federal and multi-layered management scheme. What's your views on that?" MR. CROXTON indicated he agrees with Co-Chairman Hudson 100 percent. He explained he was in Alaska just prior to statehood, and that was when the federal government managed all of our fisheries. The last year under the federal government, we harvested about 23 million fish. Under state management, we are now harvesting something in the neighborhood of 200 million. He indicated the federal government has bungled just about every management program they have ever stuck their fingers in. He said he is saying that even though he did work for the federal government at one time. Mr. Croxton said he believes we should do everything we can to get total state management back from the federal government. Number 125 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said the committee is searching for good minds seeking solutions that return state management and takes care of those people who have a real need. He indicated when the committee was in Bethel, they heard from people who don't have jobs, don't a cash income or there are limited places to buy from and they depend upon the taking, processing, preserving and use of wild natural resources, whether it is in the rivers or on the land. Co-Chairman Hudson said he believes Mr. Croxton is right in that most Alaskans want to make certain that they have what they need and that the state take over this management. He indicated the committee members would welcome any ideas in writing. MR. CROXTON explained that in about 1986, the legislature did pass a subsistence statute which he thinks is fair. He said he believes it is very close to what everybody could agree on, but the only problem is that it doesn't comply with ANILCA. It defines "subsistence" as sustenance. It would be applied very selectively to those individuals who truly needed it. It set up another category of personal use for the rest of use who traditionally use the resources. It would take of those people who truly need the resource. He noted he would send the committee more information. Number 203 WALT SHERIDAN testified via teleconference from Juneau. He noted he is a board member of the Alaska Outdoor Council, but will be testifying on his own behalf. He said in his view there are two basic elements to the subsistence question. One element is economics, and it is about quantity. One element is cultural/traditional, and it is about value. Any of us who have had the privilege of traveling to rural areas of Alaska know that there are isolated villages where subsistence is clearly the economic driver of the communities economy. In these situations with few jobs and limited access to the cash economy, quantity of subsistence resources is important. Mr. Sheridan said in these limited situations, he supports an individual preference in times of scarcity. MR. SHERIDAN referred to the second element of subsistence, `cultural/traditional,' and said cultural/traditional is not about quantity. It is about value. As his Alaskan Native friends have so eloquently stated, "The cultural/traditional aspect of subsistence is about passing the values of respect for the land and its creatures on to the next generation." These important values, however, are not the sole property of any particular racial or ethnic group, nor do these values have any relationship to whether you are rural or urban Alaskans. He said he too shares these values as he learned them from his grandfather, grandmother and other family members. Mr. Sheridan stated he is also pleased to say he was able to pass these values on to his children and he looks forward to the opportunity of doing the same with his grandchildren. The harvesting of fish and game and other renewable resources is an important part of teaching the values of respect for the land and its resources. Preferential access to those resources, however, is not required. (Indisc.) what is required is reasonable access to resources and a personal commitment to passing the values on to future generations. MR. SHERIDAN said he would talk about the role of Native-owned lands in this debate. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act conveyed some forty million acres of land to the Alaska Natives. There were two principle purposes for these conveyances. One was to provide Alaskan Natives with a resource base in economic development. The other was in recognition of subsistence needs of Alaskan Natives. He stated that forty million acres is a lot of land; it is over sixty-two thousand square miles. On ANCSA land, Alaska Natives can grant, and in many cases are granting, exclusive use of these lands to their members, as appropriate. Subsistence is one of the principal purposes for the conveyance. However, it is also appropriate to recognize the role these lands play in helping to resolve the current subsistence dilemma. Mr. Sheridan said he thinks that is an element that has not so far entered into the discussions and debate. He thanked the committee for the opportunity to testify. Number 255 HELEN DRURY was next to testify via teleconference from Sitka. She stated she is a retired nutritionist from the Indian Health Service. She informed the committee members she worked at the Mt. Edgecumbe Native Hospital as a community nutritionist for ten years, from 1975 to 1985. Ms. Drury indicated she currently volunteers her help to the chief dietitian at the Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital. She said a nutrient analysis done while she was working, an analysis of 20 commonly used Native foods, showed the foods to be very nutritious. When the Natives eat these foods, it is not merely a way to satisfy hunger. It also has religious, spiritual and cultural significance, which White people have a hard time understanding. Elders who have used a diet largely of Native foods seem to live longer and more vigorously. MS. DRURY said she sometimes hears criticisms these days of the large amounts of money spent by the Indian Health Service on health problems among the Natives. This funding is spent because the people have such a difficult time getting many of their foods these days. She noted she has heard repeatedly, during the years she was working, how White people would come in and virtually wipe a beach clean of some of the foods that they depended on for their everyday foods. MS. DRURY explained that today, with severe cutbacks by Congress and the legislature, small communities will be severely hurt in that their local food usage must be limited. Food brought in by ferry, barge or air is mighty expensive, especially when it's done as a second delivery service from cities such as Juneau, Sitka and other towns. Their cost of electricity is exorbitant. MS. DRURY said she would remind legislators and others that from the day the first White person arrived on the shores of North America, we have literally taken over the food supply of every Indian tribe across the continent. How self-righteous we are when we criticize the human rights records of other countries. Let's improve our own records. This could be one time when we do the right thing. She stated Natives, especially in rural areas, are entitled to their own local wild food. Let's not make what is clearly an aboriginal right just another handout from the White man. Number 300 REPRESENTATIVE DYSON said, "I'm not familiar with any examples here in Alaska where - particularly in the non-Southeastern part - where the wild food supply has been wiped out for the aboriginal people. Can you help me?" MS. DRURY indicated she first heard this in Metlakatla. She explained that many years ago, an elderly lady was telling her about the large numbers of people that came in with the U.S. Coast Guard, taking so many of their things. Ms. Drury said maybe she got carried away by saying "wiped out," but they were severely impacted. She said in Hydaburg, you'll hear a story about how divers have wiped out abalone. She said she remembers hearing stories from people in other villages talking about the fact that such large amounts were being taken by White people. Number 318 DONALD MacDONALD testified from Pelican via teleconference. He said he has heard a lot of comments. He said he has lived in Alaska all of his life and his family has been here for about five generations. Mr. MacDonald informed the committee he was formally a federal fish and wildlife agent during the territorial days, so he has had some experience with the federal enforcement of fish and wildlife and other laws. He stated at that time, he can't recall a single case where they ever restricted anybody on the subsistence issue. Their main focus was on fisheries and, to some extent, on hunting. As far as other subsistence elements or concerns, such as berry picking, harvesting of kelp and herring eggs and other things, there was no absolutely no enforcement applied there whatsoever that he can recall. MR. MacDONALD said the Natives have the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which was supposed to lay to rest many of these issues, and yet they are claiming additional privileges on subsistence over and above what they've already been granted. That seems to be the basis of a lot of the dissension. Mr. MacDonald said he can appreciate the Natives in Interior Alaska having to rely more heavily on subsistence gathering, hunting and fishing than people do in Southeast Alaska. He said he doesn't see where they have ever been restricted in that regard, to the extent that the harvesting, under existing laws, hasn't provided them with the subsistence they need. Mr. MacDonald informed committee members that under federal law, fish traps and other things were legal. He questioned whether those kinds of things are still legal. Are we going to see the return of fish traps and other federal laws that existed in the past? Mr. MacDonald questioned what the federal laws are that will be enforced as of October 1, and who will enforce them. Number 377 PAT GARDNER testified via teleconference from Craig. He informed the committee he was born in a territorial hospital in 1938. He has seen a lot of changes, good and bad. Mr. Gardner referred to abalone and said if you don't have scuba diving equipment, you can't get them anymore, as they are almost completely wiped out. He said when he was growing up, he was raised on coho salmon. When the coho trolling prices went up, the Native people were forced to quit fishing cohos and go to sockeye salmon. He noted he currently commercial fishes and goes out and gets his coho salmon, as he doesn't like sockeye much. Mr. Gardner referred to subsistence bartering and trading and said they just bartered and traded with other Native groups as far as Seattle. Now just to deal with the people or try to barter and trade with Canada is something else when you deal with the government. He said he watched abalone disappear, so he isn't that excited about the state of Alaska taking over. Mr. Gardner referred to sea cucumbers and said he doesn't think there has been any studies done, as the Alaska legislature doesn't give the state departments enough money. The federal government seems to have too much money, so maybe they can run things better that the state of Alaska can. He again indicated concern with what will happen to bartering and trading. Mr. Gardner said there is nothing to lose by the federal government taking over. Number 407 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said Mr. Gardner indicated there was bartering and trading in the past. He asked Mr. Gardner what he did that constituted bartering or trading. MR. GARDNER said they used to trade with the Canadians, as they had argillite and hooligan grease which the Native Alaskans like. He indicated he is now paying $60 a quart for hooligan grease. Mr. Gardner said they used to trade fish eggs or furs. He discussed how he traded fish eggs with the Natives in Washington. Mr. Gardner said there is a lot of paperwork to fill out if they want to shoot a deer for a potluck or to pick up eagle feathers, and it almost isn't worth it. He indicated he used to trade fish eggs on kelp for hooligan with Canada, but now he has to buy it. Number 445 TOM SKEEK, JR., testified via teleconference from Kake. He said he has been listening to the testimony regarding the tribal and customary uses of streams and land. He informed the committee that earlier in the spring, he and his son were cited for snagging a steelhead out of a stream. They ended up in court for three months over one fish, and they didn't even get to take it home. They lost the case and ended up paying a fine. Mr. Skeek said he lives a subsistence lifestyle starting with clams, then seaweed, then to herring eggs. From herring eggs to they go to sockeyes, then to dog salmon and pink salmon. He said this goes on year-round and not just during the spring and summer. One season feeds the other season. He said he is unemployed and the situation he was brought under in the spring set him back more than he was in the past. It was also very time-consuming. Mr. Skeek said he would like to see the government focus on tribal and customary uses, and he noted that the tools are very important. Number 474 MIKE A. JACKSON testified via teleconference from Kake. He informed the committee members he is a trust officer for the organized village of Kake and the IRA. Part of his job is to look at customary and traditional gathering and the effects of resource extraction on the customary and traditional users in Kake. Mr. Jackson said Mr. Skeek spoke of a problem that the people in rural areas have with regard to the regulations pertaining to the Department of Fish and Game. Sometimes they don't come to Kake, and when they do see them, it is when the troopers are hiding behind a bush to try to entrap people who are practicing their customary and traditional gathering. He said, "Since the state is having this kind of hearing, maybe from what I heard all morning and part of this afternoon is that some of you that do not know your local people that are here in the community of the great state of Alaska, maybe you'll start understanding that there are tribes in the state. We are completely different from European dwellers that go down to your local Fred Meyer or your Safeway store to gather your food. And we don't sport fish in any way or sport hunt in any way, to put a trophy on our wall or to try to enjoy what the bounty of Alaska is. You'll never see a trophy on the rural or tribal member's wall. You might see a picture of a catch that we have distributed among our family and our elders, we share it with them, but you'll never see a trophy on the wall of rural people." MR. JACKSON referred to testimony from a Ketchikan testifier that stressed properly managed fish and game will not have the issue of subsistence, unless there are some underlying issues such as the Venetie or Katie John cases that are going before the Supreme Court. He said he agrees with Mr. Borbridge's testimony in its entirety. Mr. Jackson said he would also like to adopt Helen Drury's testimony about the impacts of Western civilization on the communities and traditional villages in Southeast Alaska. MR. JACKSON said, "All the Native people that you heard probably in the Bethel area -- because I know there even exists more of a subsistence way of lifestyle or customary/traditional way than most people do it here in the state. And our ancestors have taught us that we are part of the land. We are not separate from it like some scientists would like to convey upon - some the studies that they do of us or the resources here in the state of Alaska. So, whatever affects our resources like the habitat affects us directly like the exportation and the parts of the U.S. Forest Service on public lands -- the habitat for our deer and how it affects the salmon." MR. JACKSON said he believes the issue of co-management, such as the sea otters, whales, walrus or the different types of seals, are great examples of how co-management can work by involving the rural villages and the Alaska aboriginal Natives. MR. JACKSON referred to "what you people call `equal treatment for all state residents'" and testimony that day. He indicated there are taxes on the sales of accessories such as guns, ammunition, fuel, rods, reels, and so forth, which go to the Department of Fish and Game. He stated, "And if you look at it, all that tax goes to the Division of Sport Fish and game, and nothing goes to the Division of Subsistence. Is that equal treatment or is some other issue at hand in that regard of the use of that kind of resources, especially on these tight budgets that we're having handed down to us? And I question: Is that equal treatment?" MR. JACKSON continued, "Now there is another issue here, the debate of customary/traditional use of fish and game fauna, and that is usually referred to as subsistence. The Natives in studies that have shown - I think Mr. Demmert has in Ketchikan there - that we only take about 1 to 2 percent of the resources, where 95 percent of the resource of salmon have been granted to limited entry, or IFQs that have been granted for the halibut fishery, or the limited entry crab fishery, or the limited entry on herring fishing. The possible annihilation of the basic use of the food chain, especially on herring, affects all the users of the ocean, land, sea and air - especially the whales and especially the state of Alaska, especially the people around Sitka and Craig and Klawock that have the last existing great runs of aboriginal herring runs. And also not to miss the limited entry of sable fish here in the Chatham Strait fishery. Is that legal or equal treatment?" MR. JACKSON continued, "Now, how does the state and federal government give priorities to larger towns here in the communities of Southeast Alaska of hydroelectric power, that gives them cheaper power to create jobs and process resources to the finished export product, whereas the communities have to beg for electrical subsidies from the state that will be disappearing within a year or two? Where does the resources come from? It comes from the rural areas that are affected by these resource extractions and so are the most affected by it. So, what is there? Where is the equal treatment? So, that answers my question on equal treatment. And is there the state government and equal treatment -- does it sound familiar to the old phrase of the term `forked tongue' that Hollywood likes to promote?" MR. JACKSON continued, "Now, if the state government does not recognize tribes as the federal government does, is there any question who Alaska aboriginal Natives would prefer to manage the fish and game? Because we've worked very well underneath the federal fish and wildlife to create a co-management for those marine mammals, as I stated, and it works great. The federal Advisory Subsistence Board and how it comes up with positive input from the aboriginal Native people and the excellent results of management of the different resources - that works great." MR. JACKSON referred to there being someone who referenced Alaska Native Land Claims lands that were big enough for people to subsist on, and he said they did not just subsist on their 23,040 acres of Kake tribal land. They subsist pretty much all over Admiralty Island, Kuiu Island, Kupreanoff Island and the mainland. He said that 23,040 acres really does not compare to where they usually do their customary/traditional gathering. They still barter and trade seaweed, dry fish, deer, seal grease and other things. Mr. Jackson said the state would like to turn them into criminals when they like to share those things with other people because they do not meet the Food and Drug Administration processes. The Native processes of the raw goods have been practiced for thousands of years, and it never killed one of them. MR. JACKSON stated that they are prosecuted by the state troopers, who hide behind stumps to entrap people that are fishing their customary/traditional use in the streams around Kake. Subsistence is their spiritual, cultural and socioeconomic use of the resources around them. It is a respect for all those resources. He thanked Representatives Nicholia and Joule for keeping a balance of the rural aspect of the hearing. Number 576 SAMUEL JACKSON testified via teleconference from Kake. He noted he is the president of the organized village of Kake which is a federally recognized tribe and consists of over 600 members. Mr. Jackson said he grew up in Kake and has lived there all of his life. He comes from a subsistence background that has been passed on to him from neighbors and relatives, some of whom are no longer with us and can't speak on their own behalf. Mr. Jackson said they don't like to use the word "subsistence," but that is what has been given to them; therefore, they use that word. MR. JACKSON said the basis of subsistence cannot depend on the economics of a person. It needs to based on their inherent right to the resources that they have hunted and gathered throughout their lives and the last 10,000 years that their people have been on the land. The customary and traditional usage also allows them to have cultural and spiritual ties to the land. That is also one aspect that is very important to them. The resources are harvested yearly and they start at the beginning of the year and harvest continually until they bring in the last clams before New Years. He said, "We harvest those resources not individually, but we harvest them also to give to others who cannot, because of their conditions - economics - go out and harvest them themselves." MR. JACKSON referred to a constitutional amendment to the state constitution and said they feel a rural preference should remain. They do not support any amendments to ANILCA. He referred to the federal management takeover of October 1, and he said they have worked with the federal government on co-management of certain resources such as the sea otters and seals. That has worked for the people. They do support co-management of those resources because they want a voice when it comes to making management decisions of things they have harvested for thousands of years. Subsistence resources used by the rural residents of the state amount to no more than 1 percent.... TAPE 97-62, SIDE B Number 001 MR. JACKSON thanked the committee for listening to him. Number 017 JOSEPHINE PAUL testified via teleconference from Kake. She informed the committee members she has been in Kake for 76 years and lives on subsistence. She indicated she has grandchildren. Ms. Paul said if the government makes laws against gathering subsistence food, she'll still go out and get her food. Ms. Paul referred to the food that people brought up from "down South" and said she can't eat it, can't tolerate it and can't live on it. She said the issue of subsistence has been around for many years and it makes her mad just to hear the word. Subsistence is their livelihood, and that is what most of their children were raised on. She indicated it is hard to live on Social Security, and the government always wants to stop giving her the money they're currently giving her, they're always threatening to take money away from them. She asked that they just be able to live their lives in peace. Ms. Paul mentioned that her father told her brother, when he was a child, that you don't kill what you're not going to eat. One day her brother shot a sea gull with a slingshot. Her father made her bother skin and eat the sea gull. Ms. Paul said she hears where people go out and shoot deer and other animals and leave them. She said she is sure it isn't her people because they use the whole deer, including the head, as they make head cheese with it. She indicated she hates always being threatened regarding subsistence food. Ms. Paul thanked the committee for listening to her. Number 116 KATHY HAWK was next to testify via teleconference from Kake. She said she is a concerned Native parent and is also a former subsistence surveyor for the village of Kake. Ms. Hawk stated, "I think that using word `subsistence' has removed an emotional responsibility on you, because every time we use the word `subsistence,' it removes the thought that this is our traditional culture that we live by. It's foods that help us to not only survive by, but it helps us to understand who we are when we use these Native-culture foods." MS. HAWK continued, "I think that if we remove the term `subsistence' and go with `tribal/cultural Native foods,' it helps you to have an emotional responsibility that you are not going to remove our culture from us totally. As a Native parent, I have to be concerned that my children are going to be limited in the future, not only my children now, but my grandchildren. I have to be concerned that the community here -- the subsistence that you're taking away from us our cultural foods - is going to be dissipated throughout the generations. And I think that as a responsible parent I need to speak up and say, `I am concerned.' Whether I have a point of view that would be usable for you to help you to understand our concerns as Native people or not, I still have to speak up and say, `I'm still here, I still matter because I'm going to speak up.'" MS. HAWK referred to being the a former subsistence surveyor in her community and said she had the opportunity to survey 75 different households. When she was conducting the survey, a lot of the people were afraid to tell her how much they had taken of the cultural foods that they use, only because they were afraid they were going to get in trouble for what they had taken. Ms. Hawk explained to them that the information they gave her was highly confidential and that the Department of Fish and Game wasn't going to use the information she gathered against the people. MS. HAWK said when she finally convinced many of the people that the information wasn't going to be used against them, a lot of them said they had taken two or three more fish than they should have because they put up a little more for funerals, potlucks and for people who aren't able to come to the village when the gathering takes place and they want to share with them. There wasn't an abuse of the cultural foods that are gathered. She said she didn't see anyone who went out of their way to exploit the cultural foods that are gathered. Ms. Hawk referred to the whole issue of subsistence and suggested that members keep in mind that it is the way they live and the way they are. It is more than important to them that their children know that when they put this food in their bodies. It is who they are. It's the way they were raised, and it's the way they hope their grandchildren are raised. Number 191 DENNIS WATSON, Mayor, City of Craig, testified via teleconference from Craig. He informed the committee members there was a Craig City Council meeting the previous night regarding subsistence. The council has always been of the mind that the ability to hunt, fish, collect berries and other things should be protected. He said they have always been a supporter of subsistence, but they have watched in recent years as this issue has grown more political and emotional, and felt that people are losing sight of what this was all about in the beginning. There is more of a political agenda behind it now. MR. WATSON said the council believes that subsistence is a good thing, but they do not believe that encroachment of the federal government and state regulation is a good thing. They would like to see the issue resolved where the ability to hunt, fish and collect berries, et cetera, should be protected in some way. Also, the rights of the rest of the people in Alaska should be looked out for. He said they hope some sort of middle ground is found, so that we can get back to taking care of the other problems we have around the state, which seem to be compounding as we speak. Mr. Watson said he is hoping that we can eventually resolve this issue, at least to the satisfaction of most people. He thanked the committee for letting him speak. Number 225 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said he thinks even people who might normally be termed on the extreme pro-equal rights aspects of the issue do want the availability of subsistence foods and other resources to be made available and very strongly do not want the federal government encroached into the management or multiple management schemes, particularly with our salmon and other migratory herds and stocks. He said he totally agrees with Mr. Watson in that we have to solve this as soon as possible and it is holding us away from really resolving what our real future is. He stated he would hope Mr. Watson, the city council and other people have had a chance to look over the proposal from the Governor's task force. At least it is a bold effort to try to document some of salient points - the three separate fixes, the interconnecting networking between one and the other, and the ultimate reliant on the public vote or the public say as to whether or not they can accept one or more of these elements. He asked Mr. Watson if his people has had an opportunity to review the current draft of the Governor's task force recommendations. Number 257 MR. WATSON indicated they have received copies of the recommendations. He referred to those recommendations, plus some of the stances taken on both extreme sides of this issue, and said he believes they can find good and fault in all of them. He said he does hope that this does go to a vote of the people. Regardless of the outcome of that, he believes our federal delegation has made it fairly clear that they need this signal to decide where they're going to go. Mr. Watson said he believes the state needs it. There has been an awful lot of rhetoric on all sides of this and he thinks the question needs to be put on the ballot. He indicated he does find a lot of good things in some of the proposals. Mr. Watson said having been involved in this issue for so long, maybe he is cynical, and he is sorry to say that. He said he hopes that the people who are working on the issue won't get cynical. Mr. Watson urged the issue be put in front of the people. Number 278 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN said, "We're embroiled in this concern about 1 or 2 percent of the total resource - we've heard various numbers, and yet far far more of that goes through limited entry or the permitting process to fisher people outside who are nonresidents. Now we've already checked into the problem of restraint of trade if we try and limit the harvesting to just in-state residents, but if something like that -- since this is so emotional and since the federal government has gotten so heavily involved in this, if there were some way to eat into that nonresident take, which would certainly provide far more than whatever, even in times of shortage for the subsistence issue, do you think that there could be a possible enlistment of the Native culture to help in this pursuit? Number 296 MR. WATSON indicated that is a complicated question. He said having been a commercial fisher for 25 years, he knows quite a bit about this. He said he has often wondered that if there was a way, in some way without being unfair to people that were already vested into limited entry, that if as they get out, that there may be some way that the state could recoup the ability to use that resource and maybe spread it out a little bit more within the state. Mr. Watson said it is very hypothetical, and he doesn't know how to go about doing it without having all kinds of constitutional red flags. He stated he would certainly like to look at some kind of proposal that had something like that on it. We do watch an awful lot of the resources go outside Alaska. There is an awful lot of people who really aren't concerned with our state or what happens here who are getting some of the larger benefits of our resources. He said they would have so see something on paper to see if it actually possible. Number 316 MR. AMBROSE asked Mr. Watson if he had the chance to listen to all the testimony that was given earlier in the day. MR. WATSON said he didn't have that chance to listen to all of it. MR. AMBROSE said he understands that the Craig city council did discuss the issue the previous evening. MR. WATSON said they actually had Dave Johnson from the Forest Service in attendance. He noted Mr. Johnson is a part of the federal Subsistence Board. Mr. Johnson explained where things are at and how the Forest Service feels about some of the things going on right now. MR. AMBROSE said the reason he asked is it seems to him that the first consensus that needs to be reached in this dialogue as a state is a definition of "subsistence." He noted during lunch, he found out that there are three different ideas at the table. If we don't define what it is we're talking about, he doesn't know how a solution can be reached. He asked Mr. Watson whether at the meeting there were different understandings regarding the meaning of subsistence. Number 340 MR. WATSON said that is an issue that has come up more than once. He stated that he doesn't have a good answer for the question. He referred to a number of years ago when the issue of rural preference was on the ballot; he'd supported the concept. He said it is his feeling that what we were after then in no way matches up to some people's perception of what we're after now, or what the definition of "subsistence" now is. Mr. Watson stated he believes it has become more political. Self-governments, sovereignty and other things have spread their way into this issue, and he doesn't believe they belong there. This is an issue of the people, and he wishes the politics could be kept out of it. There is no simple definition of "subsistence." He has heard several definitions and agrees with very few of them. Number 415 REPRESENTATIVE BEVERLY MASEK indicated she was on-line and would like to ask Mr. Watson a few questions. She stated, "I got elected in 1994, and I introduced several resolutions since then. And hearing what you had to say about Congress waiting for the state to decide, well, I put together HJR 33 in `94." She said in 1996 she'd reintroduced a different type of resolution, HJR 21, which is currently in the House Rules Committee. REPRESENTATIVE MASEK referred to the problems the state is encountering and said the federal government is saying the state has to take a stand. She referred to her resolution and the different proposals that Senator Murkowski and Congressman Young put together, and she said the state can't act single-handedly. Part of her resolution says it is important to note that if Congress acts favorably on HJR 21, the major issue of a rural preference will remain in federal statutes, but in return, we have to have state management. REPRESENTATIVE MASEK said in trying to come up with a reasonable agreement on the terms of "rural and customary/traditional," it would bring the state back to defining those definitions. There also would be some other changes in that if the federal government can come in on public lands, what are "public lands?" She asked whether they could exclude state and private lands and waters and prohibit the preemption of state management in our fish and wildlife on state and private waters and the repeal of the federal court oversight provision of state subsistence management programs, and get rid of the commercial sale of subsistence-taken resources. She said those are just some of the minor changes we'd like to see, but as Co-Chairman Hudson said, they want to hear from the people. REPRESENTATIVE MASEK said the state and federal governments have to work together. She referred to the Governor's proposal and said there are so many things in there that will not give true state management back to our state. It will create dual management over our fish and wildlife, with the feds and the state clashing. She said she doesn't know whether the state will be working with the federal government on regulations and who will have the final say. Currently, at the federal level, there is really no concrete set of statutes and rules; they make them up as they go along. Representative Masek asked Mr. Watson whether he had any comments or whether he'd had a chance to see HJR 21. Number 431 MR. WATSON said he appreciates Representative Masek's efforts to keep this issue alive. He said there are some things he would like to see in the state's hands. Mr. Watson said he wishes there was more well-rounded support for getting more control back into the state's hands. He noted he is opposed to co-management and can see nothing but a big dog fight. Mr. Watson indicated he did find some fault in the Governor's recommendations. He said, "If some of the legislation that you're working on, you know, if you could get more well-rounded support and get people that really want to get the state back involved in it and figure that it is not a danger to them, I am fully in support of that." Number 438 REPRESENTATIVE MASEK indicated that is the intent. The state should have (indisc.) authority over it. We have to be able to have that provision if there is going to be a constitutional amendment to the Alaska Constitution. MR. WATSON said there are many things that need to be included if we consider a constitutional amendment. He explained, "One of them is that the feds are out first, that they have to walk away because I always have this gut feeling that when they get a hold of something, they never let go. And they've got to let go before we do something that we potentially can't get out of. Number 450 REPRESENTATIVE MASEK said people have to compromise, and it seems to her that both sides are not really willing to do a lot. She said HJR 21 would require somewhere along the line to have a constitutional amendment only if the provisions were changed in ANILCA that would give the state back true management of our fish and wildlife. MR. WATSON said that is the course he would like to see. How we will find a middle ground is a good question. REPRESENTATIVE MASEK said when ANILCA was introduced, debated and passed in the late 1970s and early 1980s, that is where the problem really started. Anytime you want to start working on something, you've got to go back to where it started and work towards a solution. Currently, our Congressional delegation is starting to talk about it and bring forward different proposals, but it doesn't go far enough as far as our state is concerned. Number 459 PATRICK MILLS was next to testify via teleconference from Hoonah. He informed the committee members he has been a full-time subsistence user all of his life, except for 1966 through 1968 when he was in the U.S. Army. He said he doesn't think ANILCA should be amended unless they include giving Glacier Bay back to the Hoonah people. Mr. Mills said they want Glacier Bay back, as it is their home country. He stated that his father was born at Dundas Bay, which is a part of Glacier Bay. His mother was born at Excursion Inlet, which is also a part of Glacier Bay. He said their culture has been handed down for generations. MR. MILLS pointed out that when his people moved from Glacier Bay, there were no trees in Hoonah. He said he wants to go back to Glacier Bay because there are no trees in Hoonah. The deer hunting and rain forests are being decimated. Mr. Mills said he doesn't feel comfortable about amending ANILCA for a rural preference because of the fault of ANCSA. It was ANCSA that took away their hunting and fishing rights. He said they did not authorize a bill of sale for their tribal rights; Congress did. He stated that 226 tribes divided by 500 million amounts to almost nothing. Divide that by 30 or 40 years and it is even less. Mr. Mills said the Native people weren't paying attention when ANCSA happened. They are paying attention because ANILCA is being amended. On one hand, ANCSA took away their hunting and fishing rights. On the other hand, ANILCA gave it back: customary/traditional. MR. MILLS stated that they favor federal management because the state has harsh, barbed wire-like enforcement over the gathering for subsistence. He said, "We cannot afford to put any more Native people in jail. The non-Native people can fit in the Native people's way of life. Unfortunately, our Native people cannot fit in the urban way of life, as you can tell by the amount of Native prisoners in the state of Alaska's jails. I hear people say things like there is no exclusive user group. Limited entry is an exclusive user group, whether you like it or not. We can even buy it, for crying out loud; that's if you have the money. Our Native people in the villages have no money. We don't even have land to sit on to call our own. It's been given to the state-chartered corporations, and when these state-charted corporations say, `no, I'm (indisc.) subsistence hunting in January on our land,' there is no hunting, and that's the way it's been for a long time." MR. MILLS said because of bills like Representative Masek's bill, it causes the Native people to mistrust the state. He noted that they don't think Representative Masek's is representative of all the people. He said, "For you to totally attack our Native people with a bill, just totally do away - do away - do away with ANILCA, this is a Congressional law such as ANCSA. I would say if you're going to amend something, amend ANCSA. We did not get our full monetary value from the price they set on our hunting, fishing and game." MR. MILLS said for many years they have gathered subsistence food for their traditional/customary uses and potlatches. Even though the city of Hoonah had an anti-potlatch ordinance until 1974, they carried on their traditions and culture. He informed the committee they pass on their Tlingit names through their families. Mr. Mills said he doesn't like to take welfare checks from the government, but that is what the state has reduced them to. He referred to a sockeye river at Excursion Inlet and said it is overrun by cannery workers when they have time off. People from all over Southeast go there because there are only one or two designated areas for them to gather sockeye. For a long time, they have gathered subsistence food because they don't have any jobs. MR. MILLS said some people think the subsistence way of life is easy, but it isn't. You have to catch it, take it home, cut it up, clean it, put it in jars, et cetera. Mr. Mills said they barter their labor for hooligan oil in Klukwan. He urged that ANCSA be amended to give them back their 50 percent of the salmon, fish and game. If ANCSA were to be amended, he would guarantee that 50 percent of the fishing permits would remain in Alaska. MR. MILLS discussed the importance of subsistence gathering in the villages, as there aren't jobs. He stated that they want tribal representation from the local areas and a say-so in what happens to their traditional and customary usage. MR. MILLS referred to Glacier Bay and said it comprises over half of the Hoonah area in subsistence. When ANILCA came along and guaranteed subsistence, Glacier Bay was taken away in the same breath. He said what the state represents sometimes is not very good, as we end up with special interest groups such as the Haines Borough. Mr. Mills said Excursion is his traditional and customary usage area, but the Haines Borough doesn't know that. He informed committee members about the subsistence foods he eats. TAPE 97-63, SIDE A Number 020 MR. MILLS referred to the Treaty of Cession and explained that it says, "The uncivilized tribes will be subject to laws of that country." People then turned around and said that we didn't have tribes in Alaska. We had uncivilized tribes. Mr. Mills said the truth is that there were absolutely no civilized tribes in the entire Americas; they were all the same - uncivilized. He said, "When the time came for us to go to ANCSA and ANILCA, we were not represented as a tribe. We feel a little bit - little bit breathable now that the President had granted us tribal status. We feel that we could breathe and we're not so suffocated anymore. Yes, I am denied Glacier Bay - my Hoonah people - but we still would rather have federal management because we feel that this federal management will talk to us. The state of Alaska will not talk to us. They'll send us a bill like Beverly's." Mr. Mills discussed his family history relating to his brothers' military service. He thanked the committee members for allowing him to testify. MR. MILLS referred to people of Alaska talking about equal rights and said they're protected by the state and federal constitutions. Federal guarantees for Natives are almost nonexistent and even less with the state. He thanked the committee for listening to him. Number 162 OWEN JAMES testified via teleconference from Hoonah. Mr. James informed the committee members he is originally from Kake and moved to Hoonah 19 years ago. He explained he saw a gentleman get busted by the Department of Fish and Game for trying to keep his family fed, as he had no food in his house. Mr. James said he felt bad for this man because he went out and got some halibut. He wanted to get some rice and other food for his home and didn't have the money. Somebody offered to give him money for some of the halibut; so, he gave them some halibut and he received money to buy some rice and a few other things. This man got busted for it and received five years of probation. He wasn't allowed to hunt and fish and couldn't own any weapons. He also wasn't allowed to be a crew member on seining or halibut boats. Mr. James said he was glad he was there, as he helped the man out with food for his family. MR. JAMES said he was raised to help people that are having problems. He was also raised to treat the elders with respect. Whenever people are hungry for food, he would go get it for them: deer, seal, clams, cockles. He said to go out and do that now, he has to fill out a lot paperwork. Mr. James said many of the elders want two or three deer, and if he goes and gets them, he is in a bind for his family. The game warden is always on him as he goes out and hunts for the elders. He continued to explain a situation where somebody went to hunt for an uncle and got in trouble for not filling out the paperwork. He thanked the committee members for allowing him to testify. Number 253 GEORGE PAUL testified via teleconference from Sitka. He said there are two questions he can't find the answers to. Mr. Paul said, "The fact that when we're talking about the federal law coming in, I don't have a document that lists the federal laws that are going to take effect on October 2. And also, I haven't seen a map outline that shows which areas will be affected and how they will be affected. As far as the task force findings, there are a couple of positive things I found in it. The definition I believe is very positive because it puts in black and white, or in this case white and brown, exactly what the definitions are for `priority and customary tradition' and `customary and trade.' That part I like. I like the idea about the regional committees to sit and determine year to year, and seasonal, and what fish, and what exactly we're talking about will be. The things I don't agree with are the guarantee where it says `reasonable,' because I currently serve on the Sitka Tribe of Alaska, and a lot of our tribal citizens have come in - what has been alluded to throughout the day because they become criminals going out and trying to catch their fish. But what our legal staff has stated to them is, well, in the areas where the law is -- when you go to a specific law, it says `may' or `may not,' and it doesn't state emphatically that you have the right or you will. So, when the state offers us a reasonable opportunity, then it isn't giving us the guarantee that the federal law does." MR. PAUL said he can't support the task force findings. He referred to the paragraph where it says Native sovereignty and said nowhere does the document imply that it gives Native tribes sovereignty or recognizes Native tribes. He stated, "Personally, I feel that the `back door rider,' so to speak, into this -- because they say they're offering us something, but in essence we're doing ourselves more harm. The other thing I disagree with in this document is the paragraph where it says `subsistence cannot be a legal defense.' I think that is another rider that is trying to be snuck in there." MR. PAUL said he hears the state saying that ANCSA, in 1971, gave Natives their final right. He said his personal opinion on ANCSA is that it was a bill of genocide because it provided for a termination date. In 1972, it was good for him because he got a dividend check, but it was bad for the baby that was born at Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital because that person wasn't allowed to be a member of the corporation. He said there are a lot of bad (indisc.) about ANCSA too. Each legislator is elected on one person, one vote, and ANCSA offers bribes for voting. There are so many things in ANCSA that goes against the Constitution of the United States. As a veteran, he disagrees with that type of governmental policy. MR. PAUL said, "So, I guess in conclusion, the federal government recognizes that each of you should have the right to go out and trophy hunt. Each of you has the right to go out and play with your fish - catch it and release it. But at times when the resources and the food isn't there, then they respect and they realize that we, as Indian and Native people, need that for our food; so, at those times, then, it demands that trophy hunting and going out and playing with your fish -- and that has to stop because we need it as our food source. And that will be my last point is the motivation; I think each of us should ask the motivation of why we are fighting. Are we fighting for this right to go out as a recreation? Or are we fighting for this right to put food on our table?" Number 330 MATTHEW J. FRED, SR., Head Cultural Leader of Admiralty Island, Angoon, testified via teleconference from Angoon. He said he would like to start off by saying, "How long have we administered our subsistence resources?" He said artifacts have been found verifying that they have been doing this for 10,000 years. A fishing trap stake was found in Angoon which dates back 3,500 years. Subsistence is their inherent right. He explained that oral history tells that it was during the preparation for the great flood, during Noah's time, that they took food preservation seriously because of the hardship they endured during the ice age when they had to march over the glaciers. He said they have survived both eras. MR. FRED said the whole animal is used when taking any species of animal for subsistence purposes. Nothing is wasted. He stated the urban communities are the only ones that benefited by logging. The rural communities suffered because clear-cutting destroyed their subsistence resources, habitat. Mr. Fred explained fish traps are the reason why we now have hatcheries that produce poor salmon. The poor salmon cannot be preserved or even salted; it will not hold. Herring is gone from Favorite Bay because the Department of Fish and Game gave the "go" sign to harvest herring. The boats went there and fished out all the herring. Mr. Fred said their winter stocks have been completely destroyed. MR. FRED said that from the time of creation, they have taken care of their subsistence resources. In traditional dances, they do a "House of salmon migration" dance which goes back to the book of Genesis in the Holy Bible. Mr. Fred explained that Angoon has never been defeated nor conquered, and they are a sovereign nation. He said ANILCA should be left alone. The fact that Favorite Bay doesn't have any more winter stocks shows the kind of management that they have had with the state. Number 400 BILL AUGER came before the committee to give his testimony. He informed the committee that he has read the Governor's proposal. It seems that everybody thinks they're going to lose a lot, and everything that they're afraid of losing is in the Governor's proposal. He indicated that he feels that Alaska would be much better off with the state running our fish and game. He said he doesn't see how anybody would want the federal government to come in and run our resources. Mr. Auger said he there are a few things in the Governor's plan that needs strong definitions, such as barter and trade. He referred to the plan and said if he were a subsistence user, he would be concerned that they don't seem to hold you in a region. Unless there is a real decline in the resource, a subsistence user in Southeast can go to the Yukon- Kuskokwim delta and subsistence hunt or fish unless there is a decline in the resource; then they start eliminating users by area, region, dependents, et cetera. He said maybe that should be addressed and defined. CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said that is a good point and it is important that we define to make certain that we are not constantly referring back to the court to define on our behalf. Number 456 TERESA GARLAND, Executive Director, Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce, came forward to testify. She noted she is representing the Ketchikan business community and the Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce. She said the Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce would like to commend the efforts of the legislature, Governor's office and Alaska's Congressional delegation for taking the initiative to address everyone and for allowing Alaskans to speak on this issue. The Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce in no way supports federal intervention and management of our fishery resources. The history in management of Alaska fisheries shows that there is a detrimental string of mismanagement actions which almost fully devastated the fishery resource in Southeast Alaska. MS. GARLAND said she would like to present four key points. The commercial and sport fishing industry represents a very significant component in Ketchikan. She said they figure it is about 20 percent of the basic industry jobs, with an estimated annual payroll of $22.5 million. Ms. Garland said they feel the state of Alaska is really better situated and qualified to manage and regulate the state Department of Fish and Game. The chamber supports the Alaska Congressional delegation, the legislature and the Governor in taking immediate and positive action to prevent and reverse the federal takeover of fish and game management in the state and return it to effective management. The Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce encourages all Alaskans to work together as a unified group to accomplish the common goal of preventing the federal takeover and intervention of fisheries management and returning all game management to the state of Alaska. Number 486 ROBERTA SHIELDS was next to testify before the committee. She stated she is opposed to any changes in the state constitution giving rural and Native carte blanche priority over hunting and fishing rights. Ms. Shields stated she feels Title VIII of ANILCA violates our state constitution and the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. She said ANILCA must be changed to protect the rights and freedoms of all Alaskans. Ms. Shields said it seems to her it is deceptive and hypocritical for certain people in the rural areas to claim customary and traditional use when in fact they do not live at all by the standards of their heritage. These people are obviously dependent on their nonrural neighbors and cousins for nearly 100 percent of their tools, supplies and equipment - that is clothing, motorized conveyances, fuel and electronic communication. Ms. Shields said she has lived subsistence as she has lived in the bush, her family are farmers and ranchers. She has always had wild wheat, game and berries to put on the table. She stated she feels the rural bush dwellers are in need of the manufactured goods of a civilized society as much as the urban dwellers have need of and share the love of the land. Government has created an artificial division between the urban and rural dwellers of our state. Maybe it is easier for the government to manage people than to manage their game. She said she certainly doesn't want the federal government managing and she doesn't want the state to change the Alaska Constitution to comply with these federal mandates. Number 511 REPRESENTATIVE NICHOLIA asked Ms. Shields where in the bush she has lived. MS. SHIELDS stated she has lived in Hyder, and out of Kodiak at St. Peters and St. George. REPRESENTATIVE NICHOLIA asked how long she lived in the bush. MS. SHIELDS indicated she lived in Hyder for over ten years and she worked out of Kodiak about six months. REPRESENTATIVE NICHOLIA asked how long she lived in St. George. MS. SHIELDS responded she worked off and on at construction sites for about two years. She indicated she now resides in Ketchikan. REPRESENTATIVE NICHOLIA indicated she would ask a hypothetical question. She said, "Say that you're a fisherman and you fish to put fish on your table for your family to feed on. It's something that you practiced for a long time and if you don't have it, you crave for it. Now say there is a shortage of that fish that you depend on every season, whenever it's available. And there is a shortage and then you get an influx of people from say Anchorage coming down here to fish that same fishery. In times of shortage, would you appreciate those people coming in when you're trying to get that fish yourself?" MS. SHIELDS responded, "Are there times of shortage? That's my big question." REPRESENTATIVE NICHOLIA explained she is just asking a hypothetical question. MS. SHIELDS said, "Well I'll give you a hypothetical answer. When it happens -- like I said, my family farmed and ranched and we always set aside for the -- whenever you're fruit trees were bearing, for instance, you canned up extra for the years that they weren't bearing. The frost might kill the fruit three years in a row, but you had enough canned up and ready to cover for those shortages. People have to plan ahead. If they don't, they're non compos mentis." Number 538 EDWARD GAMBLE, SR., testified via teleconference from Angoon. He informed the committee members he was born and raised in Angoon. Mr. Gamble said from the date of birth until he reached high school age he was raised traditionally in the form of gathering the resources and living from those things. There were several events that occurred with the governments up until this point. One was the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act which brought into being the word "subsistence." That word had no definition and it only applied to whatever they might be doing. Nobody cared about the customary and traditional aspect of that. Mr. Gamble said ANILCA was adopted to amend ANCSA so that the concerns of those people that do customary and traditional use could be addressed and heard. He said subsistence was never defined by the state of Alaska even though they were charged with the regulation of that very activity. The state also did not come up with a regulation that addressed the federal government's concern. Mr. Gamble said you have to remember where statehood came from, statehood came from the federal government who allowed it to happen. There was also the event where there was federally recognized Indian tribes. Mr. Gamble stated the tribal government in Angoon, which is the Angoon Community Association, was ratified November 15, 1939. He asked the committee to look at the date of statehood and asked which one came first. Mr. Gamble explained one of their bylaws, which was approved by the federal government, is to be concerned of the resources of their people around their area. Mr. Gamble stated that ANCSA did not address those regulations that were approved by the federal government. The ANCSA made profit-making corporations and they were given a small amount of land, smaller amount of land than traditional usage of areas. There was a report, which he believed was a Smith and Haas (ph) that defined the areas of the usage of the Native people from Angoon. The 23,040 is just a small dot that were used by the people of Angoon. Mr. Gamble said the reason customary and traditional was used, didn't have anything to do with culture. He said, "In the community where you do the things, you use the resources of those things around you. Others have used that also in our community. In my lifetime, I've seen nonNatives practice that activity." MR. GAMBLE referred to why they want to amend ANILCA and said they want to amend it on the account of rural preference. Rural preference has been practiced by the state of Alaska ever since it's conception. Mr. Gamble said, "How may representatives does this community have in the state legislature? We have a portion of one person. We don't have one person representing us, we have a portion. So, there has always been a distinction between the small community versus the large community. While I was serving as mayor, there was a 10 percent cut on the revenue sharing from the state of Alaska. At that time I was asked what did I think of the revenue cut. The one that they had from Anchorage was about 20 times more than what I got as a community here in Angoon. I told that out of $30,000, that we received 10 percent of that is $3,000. I told them that didn't make much of a dent of how we operate our small little community." Mr. Gamble said their court records show how many people were dragged into court and their cases were kicked out because the state didn't have the right to regulate subsistence. He referred to the last two times the state was granted an extended time to comply with what ANILCA is telling them to do and they failed both times. MR. GAMBLE said he doesn't think the communities are asking for preferential treatment. He said maybe they should take the rural preference and turn it around so that all the regulations that govern the lifestyles of the people of the small communities be drafted in the communities. He suggested maybe the hearings should be held in the communities. TAPE 97-63, SIDE B Number 001 MR. GAMBLE urged the committee to leave ANILCA alone. He said it is not a federal takeover. It is just that state government has lost the right to regulate subsistence and the federal government has taken that right back. He said he thinks the tribes will have the opportunity to participate in co-management with the federal government. Mr. Gamble thanked the committee for letting him testify. Number 033 ALAN ZUBOFF testified via teleconference from Angoon. He said he has lived in Angoon all of his life with the exception of a few years while he was in the military. He informed the committee that while he lived with his grandparents, they put up dry fish, herring roe and cockels. He now teaches his children and grandchildren where to get the fish, how much to take and how to put it up. Mr. Zuboff said he is careful as to how much he takes. The Tlingits have always been good at subsistence on Admiralty Island. Mr. Zuboff talked of how worried the Tlingits are about subsistence for their grandchildren. He said what they are really talking about is eminent domain. MR. ZUBOFF said, "The smokehouse issue here has become something that -- well, it should not really be an issue at all. It should be a given thing because eminent domain, we've been here, like my grandfather said and my father-in-law, for many years. We've enjoyed this fact. It's no theory. Nobody's guessed at it. We've been here and we've been doing it and we're going to do it for the rest of our lives. If somebody is going to say that we can't, then they have another thought coming to them in thinking about it because we're going to continue doing it." MR. ZUBOFF referred to the U.S. Constitution and said it was written with the laws of the Iroquois. A lot of Native people in America enjoy that fact. Mr. Zuboff indicated he agrees with the federal government regarding fish and game management. Number 120 MARLENE ZUBOFF, Executive Director, Angoon Community Association, testified via teleconference from Angoon. She stated she is testifying on behalf of the Angoon Community Association and on behalf of herself and a full Alaskan Native Tlingit. Ms. Zuboff said, "I want to tell you that from time in memorial, our people have enjoyed the resources of our land. I have been among my elders from a child, have learned from them oral history, legends, songs, dances, how to preserve food, how to be natural managers of the land, how to teach my children to be natural managers of the land so that we can live off these resources from time to come. And at a time in my life, I have very much concern in hearing how commercial fishermen, sports fishermen, that have the majority of the resources with which to make an economic living on, come and attack the few percent that my Native people rely on not just for their subsistence, but for our spiritual aspect of our life - for our cultural aspect of our life. It is tied to us as one, it is not just to help us to survive. We are one with the land. We have to depend on this land for our very livelihood. The economy here is bad, in the villages. That is why you hear the tone change when it comes to the rural communities. If you are going to take away the few percent that we have to rely on -- right now you're looking at welfare reform, and the rural communities, welfare reform will not help. You will stop their food stamps and ask them to work 80 hours before they can get some more food stamps for them to rely on the milk byproducts that we have now become accustomed to in the Western civilization." MS. ZUBOFF described how she learned from her mother and grandmother how to preserve food and this has been a family affair. She now teaches her children. Ms. Zuboff noted she hates to say the word "teach" because it is a family affair and they do the gathering together. Ms. Zuboff stated she has a 8-year old son, a 25-year old son and a 27-year old daughter. From the time her children were small, it is in the records of the U.S. Forest Service that as a young adult she has always taken part in testifying in respect to logging in the Tlingit subsistence way of life areas. Ms. Zuboff explained the elders have said that from time in memorial, their people have been on the land. There are stories that go back to several ices ages and the flood. She said she heard a grandfather who said, "There will come a time when the color of your skin, that they will no longer say you are Native and they will not accept it." They also said, "There will come a time when you have to take a card out of you pocket to say you are Native." She stated that time has come. MS. ZUBOFF explained the Native people in her community have to rely off the land, not just for food. The food they get from the land provides them with all the nutritional value that they need when times are hard and the planes can't make it into Angoon. She said she has been taught to preserve fish with the bones in it because cooking the fish with the bones gives them the calcium that their bodies need for strong teeth and bones. MS. ZUBOFF said she hears commercial fishermen complaining about the small percentage of food that people of rural communities rely on for traditional and customary use of the land. She noted they like "traditional and customary use of the land" and not "subsistence use of the land." She said she was in Juneau when Alaska became a state in 1959. Ms. Zuboff said she was in Angoon in 1976 and has seen their subsistence at Favorite Bay almost totally wiped out of its herring. To this date, she has not seen the herring replenished to the capacity that it once had. She said they no longer use herring because of they way it has been completely wiped out. MS. ZUBOFF said, "I have seen with the federal that they have protected up to the 200 mile limit and also on the high sea. Our people is not afraid of the federal coming in. I have seen from the time I've been a young person growing up where our language was taken from us by the state of Alaska through the school system. I have seen that happen also through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I have not seen that replaced. We not only look at extinguishment of our resources, but of our Native tongue as well. Something needs to happen for the aborigines of this land. We are the indigenous people of Alaska. We have been here from time in memorial. And as stated earlier, they have proven that we have been here for 10,000 years. They have found evidence - a fish weir 3,000 years old. We have seen what has happened in respect to our traditional and customary use of the land. I do not want to see the time where they're going to start monitoring us on the very gumboots that we take from the land. As natural managers of the land, I teach my children not to take every gumboot they come across. I teach them to leave the smaller ones there so that we can be able to rely on it the next season. And as natural managers of the land, I do the same thing when it comes to my customary and traditional use of fish. My children learn how to do this, how to smoke the fish, how to put it up, how to put it away for the winter, how to share it with families and friends." MS. ZUBOFF said she hopes the committee has heard her well and noted she doesn't wish to offend anyone. She said subsistence is their inherent right and she asked for help in protecting it. Ms. Zuboff said the commercial fishermen will have fish for as long as there is fish for commercial use. Their rights are being protected by special interest groups. She said the legislators need to hear the Native people as well and to be there for them. If the legislature is going to take this away from them, provide the means to bring in the economy that would provide them jobs to rely on the Caucasian way of life. She thanked the committee for listening to her. Number 281 LEE PUTMAN, Ketchikan Sports and Wildlife Club, came forward to give his testimony. He noted the membership of his organization consists of personal use hunters and fishermen who rely on the resources to feed their families too. They have a long history of harvesting game and putting it up for the winter too. Mr. Putman said his organization doesn't feel subsistence users should be punished for harvesting the resources and they don't feel they should be denied access to the resources they feel they need to survive. Mr. Putman noted they have jobs, but they also eat deer, fish and berries. He said unconstitutional federal law shouldn't force us to change our state constitution. Number 300 KAY ANDREW came before the committee members to present her testimony. She stated she is a lifelong Ketchikan resident. Ms. Andrew said, "As an American and an Alaskan, I am being told or asked by the Governor of this state and the Congressional delegation that I have to give up my right to fish and game to some rural person or group. This appalls me. I don't think it's right, I don't think it's fair and I don't think it needs to be done. We have enough resources in this state that every person in this state should be able to get subsistence. And I don't understand why the state of Alaska doesn't say to the federal government, `Why do you have a problem with every person in this state having subsistence?' To my knowledge, there is no reason why we can't all have subsistence, so why are we fighting about this in the first place? This is not acceptable to me or my family. My family has lived off of land and hard work and sweat for generations, maybe not in Alaska, but somewhere they did. What is the difference between my family and a rural family. None that I know of. For my whole life, my parents taught me to hunt and to fish and to preserve food and to eat it." MS. ANDREW indicated that she was taught that she never kill anything that she couldn't eat and she never wasted anything that she took to eat. She said she is being asked to give up this right because of a zip code. She was on the Regional Council for the state of Alaska when these rural preferences came forth. Ms. Andrew indicated she spent a lot of time debating this issue. She pointed out that every place in Southeast Alaska except Juneau and Ketchikan got rural status. Ketchikan lost out for 4,200 people. Sitka got it. Sitka has an airport, Ketchikan has an airport. Sitka has a pulp mill, Ketchikan has a pulp mill. Ms. Andrew said Sitka had everything Ketchikan had except 4,200 more people. That is how they chose rural status in Ketchikan, Alaska. She said this isn't right. MS. ANDREW said the Native (indisc.) in Anchorage presented seven or eight points of view and she believes number seven said, "Subsistence is a basic human right." She said it is a basic human right. So, does that make her unhuman as an urban resident? Ms. Andrew said the bottom line is money and that is what this whole issue is about. It is the money that can be made off of subsistence. If we eliminate the sales, we eliminate the problem. If we are faced to change our constitution, the federal government and the state, in her view, will be responsible for creating apartheid. To her, apartheid means institutional racism and bigotry. We will be supporting two classes of people in this state. Ms. Andrew indicated the federal government took Alaska's fisheries management units and turned them into their management units. There is no place in this state for urban people to go to hunt and fish. MS. ANDREW stated that you cannot expect Alaskans to support something they don't understand or know what the end result is going to be. We need to know exactly what it is we're giving it up and we need to know if all of us are giving it up or just part of us. Ms. Andrew said Alaskans trusted our Congressional delegation when ANCSA was passed and were told this would settle the dispute. Then ANILCA, Title VIII, was passed. It was passed against a strong constitution that was written when Alaska became a state and was ratified by Congress. They knew when they developed Title VIII, it was outside of our constitution and the only way we could come into compliance with that was to change our constitution. She asked if there is any other state that has ever been asked to change their constitution to come in compliance with a federal law. Ms. Andrew said she believes Alaska should take the federal government to court as they don't have a right to develop Title VIII outside of our constitution. She asked the committee members to not forget to include the urban users in the solution. Our rural brothers and sisters are getting very heavy to carry and pay for, we need to have some input in on this too. Just because people live in a city doesn't mean everybody has a high paying job. Ms. Andrew referred to testifiers saying they teach their children and grandchildren traditions and said she would also like the privilege. She stated she doesn't believe that people in Alaska have a right to anything because of where they live, their race, their heritage or anything else. This is modern times, what happened 10,000 or 10 million years ago really doesn't have anything to do with what is happening today. We all have a right to live in this state. MS. ANDREW asked about the urban Native people such as the Ketchikan Native people. It is her understanding that they aren't eligible for subsistence. She said she then heard an answer that said, "Well maybe they are eligible for subsistence under another tier or whatever it might be." She asked if the urban people, that live in Ketchikan, that aren't Native heritage, are going to be the only ones left out of this. Ms. Andrew said she also heard Representative Nicholia talk about times of shortage. She said it has been her understanding that there is no such thing. Ms. Andrew read the seven points of subsistence and cited several court cases. MS. ANDREW said a testifier from Kake indicated limited entry/individual fishing quotas is one of the problems. Nobody has said anything about the community development quotas (CDQs) which were given to the Northern coastal villages. Ms. Andrew said, "As far as I understood when I was on the Board of Fish, how the coastal villages have some money to come into their communities to develop their communities and their economics. I also several times today have heard people refer to having their food taken away. I have seen nothing in any document that the state or anyone else has produced, trying to follow this situation, say that anyone was taking food away from anyone. I don't think that again there is any person in this state that wants to take food away from anyone. And again, I'm going to ask in closing that why can't we all have subsistence? Is there a problem with our resources? Do we have a shortage? Why aren't we just fighting for all of us to have this?" MS. ANDREW said, "I heard a conversation in the Anchorage airport a couple of weeks ago when I was up there for a meeting. And I was sitting there and there were three gentlemen sitting down - and, in fact, one of them was from Kake, down a couple of chairs down from me - and they were talking about subsistence and how they had been gathering subsistence and hunting. And the gentleman from Kake asked one of the other gentlemen, `Well, you know, where are you going?' He said, `Well I'm going home.' And he said, `Oh you're going back to Golovin?' He said, `No, I live in Arizona. I just came up here to get my subsistence.' Now this man can have subsistence and live in Arizona, but a lifelong Ketchikan person can live in Ketchikan year-round and can't have. There is something wrong with our system. We need to work together. We need to fix it and we need to all have equal right (indisc.). Thank you." Number 462 REPRESENTATIVE NICHOLIA said the way the law functions in this state is that in her district, for moose hunting, they are under general regulations both on federal and state land. Everyone in this state has access to the moose. The only time on federal lands when the law kicks in is when they have a shortage. There hasn't been a problem like that. However, there has been a shortage of caribou on one of highways in Alaska, so they reverted to the Tier 1, Tier 2 process. The people that completed the applications and were qualified were able to hunt the caribou. Ms. Andrew had stated that there are no other states that have this. Representative Nicholia said that is true because Alaska is unique and is one of the few states that still has their fish and game resources. Number 484 MS. ANDREW said the Tier 1 and Tier 2 system is probably like the elk lottery in Ketchikan. They have a lottery because there aren't enough elk to provide for everyone. Number 490 BEN HASTINGS, Ketchikan Sports and Wildlife Club, came forward to give his testimony. He informed the committee members he was born in the Territory of Alaska 46 years ago in Ketchikan. He is involved in an organization called Care and he is also on the board of directors of the Ketchikan Sports and Wildlife Club. Mr. Hastings read his statement: "I'd like to share with you my concerns about the subsistence dilemma that we've been involved in for years. The proposal to change our constitution to grant a priority to rural people for the taking of fish and game is unacceptable to the people of Ketchikan, Alaska. Why are we even considering changing our constitution? I'll bet it has something to do with Title VIII of ANILCA, a federal law passed in 1980. I ask myself how can we allow the federal government to pass any thing that violates our constitution. Then to add insult to injury, the Governor has suggested to change our constitution to come in compliance with federal law. Doesn't our constitution mean anything? Our constitution that went into effect in 1959 means a great deal to me. It guarantees me the same rights to our fish and game as it does to other Alaskans, whether they live in Ketchikan, Saxman, Anchorage or Santa Clause in the North Pole. Under the common use clause, I am very proud of people like Beverly Masek which stated, `When I was elected to office, I took an oath to protect and defend our constitution.' God bless Beverly Masek. "The right thing to do is to amend Title VIII of ANILCA. We were given an example of federal management earlier this year and a decision by the federal Subsistence Council. They wanted to eliminate people from Ketchikan to be able to harvest deer on Prince of Whales Island. That decision was made without the input of state or federal biologists. It was based on greed, not need. I was involved in collecting the support of 700 local voters to overturn that decision. If we allow the federal government to take control of both fish and game, I feel we will be faced with similar treatment yearly, only on a much bigger scale. "There are three law suits in which I've been interested in and I just spoke with Mr. Popely earlier this afternoon to make sure I had my facts straight. The Bobby case - the Bobby case allowed subsistence priorities at all time and it is not triggered by a shortage. The Katie John case allows subsistence-qualified people to shut down commercial, personal use and sport down steam. The Peratrovich case - the Peratrovich case allows for barter and trade. The figure was $45,000 divided three ways. They took herring eggs on Prince of Whales Island. Now let's put those cases together. Let's say subsistence is in effect at all times - the Bobby case. Now let's say if I move from Ketchikan to Prince of Whales Island, I do own property there, do I need a limited entry permit to fish? I don't think so. I think I can take sockeye for subsistence because now I'm subsistence qualified. But because I have a problem with greed, under the Katie John case I can shut down the commercial fishery until I get mine. When I catch our fish for subsistence, I can sell those fish - the Peratrovich case. "These are some of the concerns of the local people of Ketchikan as well as the Ketchikan Gateway Borough and the city of Ketchikan. Those two bodies have passed individual resolutions, unanimously. And I'll present those two resolutions to you at this time. I have a solution. Let's treat everybody equally. Ted, Frank and Don must do the job that they were hired to do. We have got to amend Title VIII of ANILCA. I have also stated my interests to this body before and I'll do it again today. If there is anything at all that I can do to help to try to come up with a solution to this dilemma, please don't hesitate to ask. You might have to get me out of the shipyard on the Taku, but I'll be happy to help in any way I can. Thank you." Number 550 PATRICIA PHILLIPS testified via teleconference from Pelican. She indicated she has sent the committee members a letter dated July 20, 1997. Ms. Phillips noted she is a member of the Southeast Regional Federal Subsistence Advisory Council that was appointed by Secretary Bruce Babbit, but she is speaking on behalf of herself. Ms. Phillips explained she and her husband are commercial fisher people and have lived in Pelican for 24 years. Her children's grandparents are born and raised Native and nonNative Alaskans. The terms and definitions are clearly defined in ANILCA. She said ANILCA, Section 801, "The Congress finds and declares that - (1) the continuation of the opportunity for subsistence uses by rural residents of Alaska, including Natives and non-Natives, on the public lands and by Alaska Natives on Native lands is essential to Native physical, economic, traditional, and cultural existence and to non-Native physical, economic, traditional and social existence." MS. PHILLIPS referred to Pelican and said the economy is based on the seasonal production of the fishing industry and more recently, tourism based services. In the off season, the economy slows to a halt and most people living in Pelican live off summer earnings, deer meat, fish and other locally gathered subsistence foods. MS. PHILLIPS referred to the Tongass Land Management Plan (TLMP) and read: "A significant possibility of a significant restriction of subsistence use by increasing competition for some subsistence resources by nonrural as well as rural residents. This is most likely to occur on Chichagof, Baranof and/or Prince of Whales Islands where competition for deer and some other land mammals is already heavy and habitat capability has been reduced as a result of timber harvest." MS. PHILLIPS said resources dwindle and diminish and competition from other user groups increases, the political process will limit subsistence rights. The decisions and regulations that she helped formulate involved state, federal, managers and staff, and Native input. She said Pelican is affected by increased competition because of the number of sport hunters, charter hunters from Juneau, and hunting lodges opening in the area. A boat from Sitka with eight hunters bagged 40 deer per trip and made two trips last season near the Pelican area. Sport hunters from Juneau fly out and ferry back with deer. Ms. Phillips said the local hunter must travel and more frequently to meet their needs. Protective measures need to be in place that reduce subsistence impacts. Pelican is a subsistence qualifying community and has a traditional dependence on subsistence resources. Ms. Phillips stated a problem of duel management is the confusion of conflicting regulations. There should be a system in place for joint regulations to form with input from federal, state and Native involvement, in other words, co-management. MS. PHILLIPS said the decisions and regulations she helped formulate involve state, federal mangers and staff and Native input, each with information pertinent to the issues involved. The federal Subsistence Board currently is responsive to villages' subsistence needs. Under the past state system of management the subsistence users had little or no representation. It is why the subsistence user prefers federal subsistence management. The reality of audiological and cultural differences of subsistence users and sports users is inherent. Some user groups do not comprehend local, customary and traditional values. The Native cultural identity possess a unique past of which we are actively trying to carry into the future. Ms. Phillips stated the recognition of subsistence harvest has created resentment and resistances to the priority established and strengthened by federal subsistence management. The formulating of federal subsistence management regulation has empowered and recognized subsistence users and their harvest methods. If the state should succeed in the takeover of subsistence management, the regulations should contain the regulations established under federal subsistence management. She thanked the committee for listening to her testimony. Number 515 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON explained the evening agenda. TAPE 97-64, SIDE A Number 001 REPRESENTATIVE JOULE indicated he wouldn't be attending via teleconference later in the evening. CO-CHAIRMAN and called for a dinner break at 4:45 p.m. He called the House Resources Committee meeting back to order at 6:20 p.m. Members present were Representatives Green, Dyson and Hudson. Representative Williams arrived at 6:40 p.m. Co-Chairman Hudson announced Representative Nicholia wouldn't be in attendance as she had to catch an airplane. Number 031 JOHN PECKHAM, Board Member, Southeast Alaska Seiners Association, came before the committee to testify. He said he purse seines for salmon for most of his living. Mr. Peckham stated his organization supports, in general, the Governor's task force recommendations. He believes it is a relatively practical and reasonable way to keep the federal government from running our fisheries. MR. PECKHAM referred to the subsistence issue and said it has been one of the top priorities of his organization for many years even though subsistence fishing has had little impact, so far, on their fishery. It is a priority because it has a large potential for drastically curtailing the fishy. The problem isn't the number of fish that might be taken. The problem is that most subsistence fish are taken in-river or near terminal areas and, in many cases, managers don't have a clear idea how many fish are going to end up in the rivers when fisheries start. Mr. Peckham said if the managers were told to manage to absolutely assure that there are going to be enough fish available, over and above escapement, to assure subsistence then many of the seine fisheries could not take place. He said his organization has three principles in mind that they would like to see. The first is they would like to restrict subsistence use to those communities that really need it so that the number of subsistence users is small and would reduce the potential for conflict. Mr. Peckham said they would like to see the restriction of any sales of subsistence fish so that an economic vested interest isn't created that would be fighting for increased allocations. Mr. Peckham said, "And we wanted to have subsistence implemented with some reasonable flexibility. For example, if one sockeye system that is used for subsistence is weak in one year, rather than looking at further curtailing for fisheries which might already be curtailed for conservation, that if there is a nearby system with salmon that has surplus, the subsistence users could be directed to that system." He indicated they don't want the federal government to run Alaska's fisheries. If the federal government takes over, we will have very little chance to effect public policy on decisions regarding our fisheries. Mr. Peckham informed the committee members that the way he reads the regulations, the decision makers won't be allowed to balance economic or social needs in their decisions. All that they would be able to look at is conservation and subsistence needs. He said his organization sees a great potential for major impacts to the seine fishery. Mr. Peckham said his organization doesn't see a better solution right now than the one the task force is proposing. He said the Southeast Alaska Seiners Association will be submitting specific comments regarding the recommendations. Number 108 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON asked Mr. Peckham what percentage of the Southeast Alaska Seiners Association are residents. MR. PECKHAM responded that approximately 56 percent of purse seiners on Southeast Alaska are nonresidents. He said he believes it is the highest percentage of any of the gear groups in Alaska. Number 118 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN said, "When you were talking about if a certain area were low and maybe an adjacent or similar nearby area could have an excess that you could make that -- have some flexibility. We're you thinking about a discrete stock management in that or would this -- just trying to figure where we might go if something like that (indisc.)." MR. PECKHAM responded, "Well I'm not sure of the connections. It's just simply if a system needs to be implemented in a practical and reasonable way so that if we end up with a lot of subsistence classified streams, and that could happen - there are a lot of subsistence users, and it was the obligation of those making the decisions to make sure that if that stream had been used for subsistence that the manager of the fishery is required to make sure that stream has fished every year over and above escapement. That would create a situation which we call `weak stock management,' because every system doesn't have a surplus every year even though the basic health of the resources might be healthy." Number 147 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN said he thinks he is following what Mr. Peckham is saying. He said, "If stream A was perhaps low on reds, and you said well we're not going to impact that because steam B is in abundance and so, therefore, we'll just continue to go ahead and fish. While it might be -- the rest of the stock may be up on stream A, were you thinking of just total catch the discrete stock management or was that nuance that we'd have to look at later. The concept is that you wouldn't want flexibility and we'll work the details later." MR. PECKHAM responded, "Details later?" REPRESENTATIVE GREEN said, "Well, I guess I'm not asking the question properly, but there is an anadromous stream that has three or four or five types of salmon coming in. Are we going to manage for any one of those? Are we going to look at the total return?" MR. PECKHAM said management is complex because often there is more than one salmon species going up and individual river. He said, "Actually I wasn't thinking that. I was thinking of the fact that there are, for instance, in Southeast we have many streams, very few big river systems. And the managers manage the fisheries to try to get an overall good escapement in all systems, not to get good escapement in every system which is an impossible task." Number 174 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said what he thinks Mr. Peckham is referring to is management for an overall good escapement for the conservation of the stream. If we have subsistence, we would add that in again so that there would be the overall best help for all users as opposed to discrete stock as it tends to be terminal fisheries. From a commercial point of view, it doesn't put the best product out into the market. Number 184 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN said he is concerned with the Cook Inlet area. "If a certain stock was low and yet there was another stream that wasn't impacted, with what I understood your position to be is that a preference wouldn't impact the low stocks because the total drainage area or the larger area might have a sufficient number of whatever it might be that was (indisc.) on this one stream. But the impact that we've seen, for example, in the Susitna drainage area there is a certain type of fish that's low there that might, I think what you were saying, continue to be impacted because it could be made -- I mean the total area could be made up out of the stream and yet that doesn't help this Susitna drainage." Number 201 MR. PECKHAM said that is fundamentally one of the difficulties of managing our fisheries. He said, "There is a various amount of management measures management can make to try pull it -- to get fish in the steams. So, rather than go the entire nine yards totally shutting down a fishery, if there is a way to subscribe to allow subsistence users to still get their subsistence fish and allow some fishing to go on other stocks which incidentally catches fish going to that stream -- than that's what I'm trying to get at." Number 215 MR. WESTLUND came forward and said he thinks Mr. Peckham is trying to tell the committee is that if stock A is low in the creek and there is another creek over in another area or drainage, and is not traditionally a subsistence creek, you go from A to B instead of shutting the commercial fisherman or the sport user down. There is still subsistence fish to be taken. He asked Mr. Peckham if that is correct. Number 229 CHRIS JOHNSON, Gillnetter, was next to come before the committee. He stated he agrees with everything Mr. Peckham said. He said he believes subsistence has its place and the state has done a tremendous job in managing the resource. Mr. Johnson informed the committee members he has a lot of Native and rural friends and they never have had any problems getting the amount of salmon that they need to use for subsistence. Mr. Johnson said the state implemented a system where you get limited entry. He said he bought his permit and boat and has about $200,000 into it. His feeling is that permits would devaluate quite a bit and if the federal government takes over. It wouldn't help matters at all as he is sure the fisherman would be cut back in many areas. MR. JOHNSON said he thinks there are a lot of other alternatives. Historically, when the federal government did manage Alaskan waters, it was a disaster similar to what is happening in Washington State. Mr. Johnson indicated that if the federal government takes over management, it will be a devastating impact on his personal situation and probably everybody's. He referred to over escapement and said if they did away with commercial fishing, which could very easily happen, there would be over escapement in all the streams which is worse than under escapement. Commercial fishing has its spot in conservation management. Mr. Johnson said he thinks the state is doing a very good job and he'd hate to see anything change. Number 264 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said an Eskimo elder who spoke at the hearing in Bethel and said that when you don't hunt a species, it becomes extinct. Hunting and harvesting is part of the cycle and the key is the management of it so that you have the healthy conservation. Number 274 MR. JOHNSON said there are a lot of different things that could be done. For example, a commercial fisherman could go out and fish and bring in a certain amount of fish, if that area was depleted, from other areas and then give that fish to subsistence users if it ever came to that. He said he is sure commercial fishermen would be willing to do something like that. There are a lot of alternatives. The state has done a tremendous job, and he would like to see it kept that way. Number 289 ED MARKSHEFFEL came before the committee to testify. He stated he has lived in Ketchikan for about 41 years. Mr. Marksheffel referred to subsistence permits and said, "If you didn't use it, you don't lose it." He informed the committee that he uses the fishery permits. If you have never used a subsistence fishing permit, you aren't losing it. He referred to limited entry and said he would like to see a limited entry on subsistence permits for those who have had them, grandfather in the past permit holders. The Department of Fish and Game has records of who has had these permits. He said limited entry of subsistence permits couldn't be sold like the commercial limited entry licenses and should only be passed down to the residents of Alaska in the immediate family. Mr. Marksheffel suggested dropping the rural reference altogether. He said all of Alaska is rural, maybe not Anchorage, but all of Alaska is rural when you get right down to it. The population of the whole state is less than a suburb of Los Angeles. Mr. Marksheffel thanked the committee for listening. Number 311 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON indicated that Mr. Marksheffel has made an interesting suggestion about limited entry. MR. MARKSHEFFEL said you wouldn't be excluding anyone because the people who had have the permits would still have the permits. CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON indicated essentially the targeted stock would be fish and not game, but it may even work well for game. Number 331 RICHARD JACKSON came before the committee to testify. He said he was formally the subsistence chairman for the Ketchikan Indian Corporation and has been involved with the U.S. Forest Service doing environmental impact statements. He said he a nonrural person. He worked with Saxman when they had the issue of their rural status a number of years ago and was successful in retaining the rural status. Mr. Jackson referred to the problem the state is facing and said ANILCA was established in 1980. He said "It does pertain to rural people because it would be unconstitutional based upon race. But along with that issue, and I think it comes up in this case, the issue of the Native community. That is true, there are 220 tribes or more in Alaska. There are also other rural areas that are non-Native by nature and in ANILCA it is usually traditional and customary uses of subsistence. And if you look at Native management you look at subsistence more than just getting food. It's a cultural existence in the South. I've watched the issue in this area as it pertains to management and the regional advisory council, the Forest Service particularly on the Prince of Whales issue. I do agree with the hunters in Ketchikan who were correct in the lobbying to get their right to hunt on Prince of Whales and that ruling by the advisory council was overturned. I guess what I'm trying to say that (indisc.) has in the language that excluding that doesn't allow for the aboriginal rights as we do it. It was addressed in the Congress report by the Senate at that time and that became an issue later on as what transpired. Their intent was to (indisc.) subsistence uses and they come down to do that. It does have nonrural language in it which excludes about five or six major towns in Alaska and they're not happy with it. But if you want to ask me as a Native subsistence chairman in an area which does not subsist in terms of rural, we have to go to a personal use. I agree with ANILCA and I agree with that language in there. I think that Alaska is out of compliance and that we will have to go into the legislative session to get into compliance. Now whether they are successful in that is up to the state. I'm not talking just about the legislature, but the members of this state includes a number of user groups, not only subsistence users. We're talking about the population, the seiners, the trollers, gillnetters and additional users are the (indisc.) groups, Native subsistence users, rural subsistence users, major fishery groups. It's just going to take a lot of work, but for us, the Native people, I think we've been backed into a situation where we have to have inclusion for a traditional/customary use and that does satisfy our needs in ANILCA, although it doesn't address major towns that have Native communities." MR. JACKSON informed the committee members he is from Ketchikan and his family is the Tongass tribe. They were in Ketchikan before it was settled. He noted "Ketchikan" means "under the wings of eagle." They shared their land with the Cape Fox people. He said they have been pretty much culturally decimated because there is not cultural base as far as the land. Mr. Jackson said he thinks that ANILCA satisfies the rural land nonrural position of people in Alaska and the state must get into compliance with ANILCA. He said that we don't have very much time to come into compliance. Number 402 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN indicated the committee is truly trying to get input regarding the issue. He said the committee has heard that the subsistence issue among the Native culture is not just for food, but it is also a heritage type of a thing as it part of the culture as well. He said there was an earlier suggestion in that depending on how things shake out, the commercial fishermen could make up a deficit, if there was such a thing as a deficit on the subsistence issue. Representative Green asked, "Would the Native culture would work with that kind of a concept or do you need to catch you own game - fish and game?" MR. JACKSON responded it is a spiritual relationship with the land and it is an undefined element. For the Natives, it is going out and (indisc.) -- hunter going out and getting his deer. It is something that you can't really express, except that it is spiritually part of the community. It is a network of the community to share the wealth of the land. Without that, they (indisc.) part of their culture. Number 421 MR. AMBROSE referred to the state management of fish and game and asked Mr. Jackson why the subsistence need is not met with the personal use provisions. He said Mr. Jackson mentioned that as a urban resident, he uses personal use. He asked why that can't be done statewide. MR. JACKSON informed the committee that personal use has quota on it that doesn't satisfy family need. When you look at personal use for subsistence you can't allow a member of another community to subsist for their elders and those that are handicapped are (indisc.). Personal use doesn't satisfy the internal network that families work together. He said he believes it would be more difficult for those communities to do that under those terms. Number 436 MR. AMBROSE asked if the state regulations on personal use couldn't be rewritten to more adequately the needs Mr. Jackson is talking about. He questioned why there should be two tiers of management. Mr. Ambrose asked why we don't address it on a state level, call it whatever you want to call it, personal use or subsistence, as long as you have access to the resource. MR. JACKSON said, "I don't see it as too systematic (indisc.) that the state gets in compliance with ANILCA. That will be (indisc.) the federal government will allow the state manage subsistence or manage it under ANILCA. I don't see - envision a two management systems although it is been mentioned as far as a cooperative effort between the state and the Native community. But I see with state management, which would have input from the advisory councils from Native communities. That's what I think." Number 446 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON read from Article VIII, Section 15 of the Alaska Constitution, "No Exclusive Right of Fishery. ...does not restrict the power of the state to limited entry into any fishery for purposes of resource conservation, to prevent economic distress among fishermen and those dependent upon them for a livelihood and to promote aquaculture..." He said Mr. Jackson and his family is from Ketchikan and under the rural designation, he would not be eligible for subsistence. There are many Native people, by birth, who believe that they should have the right to take subsistence even though they live in urban areas and they would be precluded by the rural designation. Co-Chairman Hudson said Mr. Ambrose brought up the idea of personal use which could be personal use subsistence, but it would have a broader context that would guarantee or assure, to the greatest extent possible, that people in those areas of the state of Alaska, where they have a natural dependence or extraordinary dependence upon the taking of the resources for subsistence purposes would have them. He asked if there is some way that we could get off of being stuck on what the feds have written. He said, "I have a feeling what we're trying to do is we're dancing all over the head of this pin trying to figure out how we can comply with the federal law, and at the same time, we're nervous as we can be because we don't believe that -- or we're concerned that there may not be sufficient votes to change the constitution." He said he is looking at the constitution to see if there is tie-in to it as it currently exists. We already have common use. We have Section 15, No Exclusive Right of Fishery. We also have Section 17, Uniform Application. All three of those probably could work into personal use of subsistence or whatever you want to call it. It would guarantee rural, but it might also cover some of Mr. Jackson's brothers and sisters who live in Ketchikan and some people in Juneau who are precluded from taking subsistence. Number 480 MR. JACKSON said that is some language that can be looked at as far as making an inclusion for those who are not eligible for (indisc.) status for subsistence. He said that would be something to look at. He said he would hope that the negotiating team that was proposed by (indisc.) and look at one of those avenues for including them. Number 490 MR. MARKSHEFFEL referred to his earlier comments and stated he did use his personal use permit. He said he didn't relate the fact that it is on the same form as subsistence and it could be all one. Number 496 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said up in Bethel the committee heard the concerns the people had over the paperwork and all the steps they had to go through. He noted they were people who had subsistence rights under current law and under the proposed federal law. They felt each and every time it was somebody from Juneau or Washington, D.C., that was telling them how they were supposed to harvest and when. He indicated the paperwork was cumbersome. In any final arrangement, we ought to look seriously at how manageable the opportunity is once we get the fine pattern down, whether it be subsistence, personal use, a combination of both or a permitting system. It ought to make it as easy as possible, subject to the management of the resources for the people who are using it. Number 518 JANICE JACKSON came before the committee members to testify. She said as a subsistence user, she is in attendance to defend that right for her family. She said it important to them, not only as a lifestyle as a means of getting food, but also culturally because they are so connected to the land. It is hard to explain, but it is something that is passed on from family to family and they will continue to do it no matter who manages the issue of subsistence. Ms. Jackson said there are enough resources for all of us. We need to look at some way to manage it besides changing ANILCA. She noted she doesn't know what the solution is. Ms. Jackson informed the committee members that earlier in the day she spoke to other subsistence users and they weren't really aware of the hearing. We need to reach them in other ways to get their view points. She stated she doesn't think it is right for government to pit one group of people against another, subsistence users versus urban users. It would be nice to keep the control in Alaska and for people to have more of a say so in the management of our resources. Number 547 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said co-management has been discussed where you would have more local involvement or input into the process. He referred to commercial fisheries and said there are advisory committees, the Board of Fisheries and the Board of Game. Co- Chairman Hudson referred to the rural preference, which is currently in ANILCA, and said it does go beyond what Ms. Jackson would consider to be the cultural aspects of it. It also takes care of subsistence uses for non-Natives who live in rural Alaska. In some respects, that gap between the half a dozen different races has been bridged by providing a rural preference for subsistence purposes. He said it doesn't seem to him like we're denying Native Alaskans in rural Alaska, for example, their rights to take, to use and to feel the cultural, the spiritual and those kinds of things. At the same time, it didn't deny, doesn't deny and won't deny if we leave it as it is in ANILCA those who are non-Natives who will also be eligible for essentially an equal taking. He said he has got to believe that there is a way in which we can permit and establish the law on an overall basis so as to guarantee Ms. Jackson the right to maintain that special essence of her lifestyle and, at the same time, not deny others in similar situations which is a provision of the constitution as well. MS. JACKSON noted she would like to be involved on a continual basis on some kind of a board or committee. Number 571 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN said Ms. Jackson and several other people have testified that under no circumstance do they want ANILCA changed. He asked if that is because they probably want the protection afforded to ANILCA for an assurance of a subsistence right. If a compromise could be worked out so that there is that assurance, since ANILCA refers to rural, but if there was some other way to assure this and the word "rural" wasn't used, would she still insist on not changing ANILCA or that it would have to be a constitutional change. He asked if the focus is to try and be sure that is going to be subsistence rights or that they want the protection afforded by ANILCA. Number 579 MS. JACKSON said when you get into trying to change one word or another, it gets real sticky. She referred to the word subsistence and said a lot of people are opposed to it. She said she would like to speak to the committee on a continuing basis. It's nice to be heard in trying to solve this dilemma. Number 584 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN indicated he is just trying to figure out how deep-seated the non-willingness to change ANILCA is. MS. JACKSON said she doesn't believe it is a solution, but she would have to look at other solutions first to see which is the worst of the two. That's the hard part. Number 588 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON asked if there was anyone in attendance who wishes to testify or if there is anyone who already testified who wishes to add additional testimony. Number 595 MR. HASTINGS, who testified before the committee earlier, said one thing that disturbs him is the fact that for some reason we can't solve this dilemma. He said there are people who would like to be part of this solution and urged the committee or the Governor to call. Number 604 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON announced the committee would take a ten minute break at 7:10 p.m. TAPE 97-64, SIDE B Number 001 The House Resources Committee meeting was called back to order at 7:25 p.m. CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON informed the committee members that there are several people who would like to testify via teleconference. Number 018 LONNIE ANDERSON, Mayor, City of Kake, testified via teleconference from Kake. He said, "I'd like to speak in a traditional and customary use of resources there and just drop that other word entirely. I think that's a misnomer. But when ANILCA passed, villages did not give up the right to use traditional and customary resources for their existence. And by that, I would like to explain that we don't, in our villages, have traditional and customary use of supermarkets - things of that sort. We had to live off the land basically for our primary needs. The personal use aspect, I can put that as the second use of the natural resources after the traditional and customary use by rural residents has been fulfilled. Many of us are fishermen and things of that sort and we take food home in a personal use manner. That could be fulfilled. And I'd like to say just a little bit about if we are forced to go to a constitutional amendment and as a minority, the groups of our villages would -- any amendment that would favor traditional and customary use would more than likely fail. And the other item that I would like to mention is that when we use our resources, it's used to the fullest. A lot of times, especially our elderly people, they still live in the old traditional customary way and the new regulations that we impose on our people who may not understand the 21st century, they feel like they're intimidated. And we need to make some kind of amendment that our elders, not only our elders but the people who have to go to the supermarket up in some bays and get their fish and things of that sort, do not feel that intimidation. And I guess I would like to thank you Bill - Representative Hudson to bring this forum to before the committee that listen to quite a few excellent testimonies. And it's no easy solution there." Number 138 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON referred to Mr. Anderson saying resources are used to the fullest extent and that perhaps elders and others, who perhaps are not accustomed to supermarkets, et cetera, feel intimidation. He asked Mr. Anderson if he knows of anything that would minimize or eliminate that feeling of intimidation. Number 140 MR. ANDERSON said when they would go out to get sockeyes, they get a slip of paper saying they are allowed 20 fish for household use. Mr. Anderson indicated some people may need more. Their areas of resources is about two and a half hours by speed boat which is an expensive venture. You have to also take the weather into consideration. He said, "If I needed 100 that would do me -- you know what we call fresh pack, strips, smoke the fish, preserve it in the traditional and customary way, it would save a lot of expense on a lot of our - not only Kake people but other people in the Panhandle here, if we could say -- I'm (indisc.) from a traditional manner we know about how many fish that you use during the year. And if they could put that on the application or ticket or whatever we use, and they could go and feel that if they could get their 100 and not be looked at -- (indisc.) if we go over and we happen to think well nobody is around, I'll get my 100, then you have an anxiety problem and we shouldn't have to have anxiety problems in harvesting our foods." Number 175 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said he thinks he agrees because he doubts seriously that we're talking about any major impact on the resources. MR. ANDERSON said if they were allowed to get what they need on the first trip, it would save the people having to run back and forth for five trips. He said from there, you could go into a personal use category. Mr. Anderson indicated that he thinks the problem is that when we came up with the word "subsistence," people said, "I have to use it or I'm going to lose it." If they could stick to their traditional foods, a lot of the fighting would probably go away. He said, "Back in 1978 or 1979, we were going to change our subsistence (indisc.) way and we just -- that word `subsistence' crept into our vocabulary and everybody felt that was the end of all of our fisheries, but if you look at it our fish - fisheries is just as strong now as it was - or even stronger than before. So, if -- it's just a schematic deal that I feel that if we could work through, everybody wouldn't be obligated to go and use subsistence. I know I've talked to a lot of people, they feel that if `I don't use it - use subsistence and get my name on that permit,' and when the feds take over or the state and my name is not there, I won't be able to go out and get a personal use type fishing thing." Number 207 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said, "In all of our hearings so far the people that have testified, many people - Native peoples particularly who have relied upon what we now call `subsistence' and they say `We don't know where that word came from, we never called it subsistence' and you just put it in the right words, `it was our traditional and customary taking of food and game and other renewable resources.' You know maybe we have attached too much significance to the name and not enough to the user friendly management of the resources for the different types of purposes. So, that's something that we'll take a look at and we'll suggest to look at it because, in some respects, it may be just a matter of regulation changes. Certainly -- you know it's really easy for the fisheries people to say you can only take 25 and that's not adequate, and it certainly wouldn't be harmful if you were able to take a 100, for example, in some instances, as long it's used for other than resale or commercial value." Number 207 THOMAS SKEEK, JR., Ninth Grade Student, testified via teleconference from Kake. He informed the committee is speaking on behalf of his family. Mr. Skeek told the committee members that in May, 1997, he was cited for illegally snagging an undersized steelhead out of the same fishing stream that his father has taken him to since he was five years of age. He stated he feels he should be able to fish in the same way as his father and grandfather did as it is tradition. The first catch would have gone to his grandmother because that is also tradition and they give their first catch away for good luck. Mr. Skeek said he did not like how the Department of Fish and Game treated him and his father as they have fished that same way for years. Number 230 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON asked Mr. Skeek if he received a fine. Number 231 MR. SKEEK responded he received a $300 fine with $200 suspended, and probation for one year. Number 234 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON asked him if the fine was for an illegal sized fish. Number 240 MR. SKEEK indicated it was also illegally caught - snagged. CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON asked Mr. Skeek how he was treated. MR. SKEEK said he wouldn't say he was treated harsh, but the way he thinks of it is they should be able to fish they way they want to so they can catch their crop for the winter. He stated subsistence should be different than personal use. Number 256 KATHY HANSEN, Executive Director, United Southeast Alaska Gillnetters Association, testified via teleconference from Juneau. She informed the committee members that her organization has not actually had time to meet as many members are still fishing, but she said she does have some comments. Ms. Hansen indicated they do not want the federal government to take over the fisheries as they believe it will cause kayos and ultimately the only thing that will get hurt is the resource. She referred to when the federal and state governments work together, unfortunately the right hand never seems to know what the left hand is doing. When the resource is damaged for one year, unfortunately it goes on for several cycles. She stated her organization feels very strongly about prohibiting the sale of subsistence caught fish on the commercial market. They would also like to see that the subsistence priority is triggered in times of shortage and that it not be a priority all the time. Ms. Hansen said, "I think right now we already manage to see that there is fish and other resources for the subsistence use and I think that would still happen anyways. I think the more drastic guarantees of fish being there for them need to come in times of shortage." MS. HANSEN said she would like to see a definition of "subsistence" as everybody has a different thought of what subsistence is. She indicated that maybe one of the ways to help solve this issue is to figure out what we're talking about. She thanked the committee for the opportunity to speak. Number 286 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON informed Ms. Hansen that the committee would appreciate written testimony from her organization when they do meet. MS. HANSEN indicated she would forward written testimony to the committee. Number 319 MR. PAUL who testified earlier from Sitka indicated he had more comments. He said, "What I'm wanting to expand on is a question that I think came from Mr. Dyson from Eagle River. He asked Helen Drury if there were any species that she can identify that are gone. The reason that I said `strongly support the federal taking it over,' you know the troops aren't going to come marching in on October 2. But an example of what state management has done for the tribe here in Sitka, this past year the sac roe fishery -- there was strong faction in the tribe that want the tribal and ANB/ANS to pursue getting a moratorium or shut the sac roe fishery down because the herring egg is a major part of our diet. Now the tribe -- this last year the state brought in the Board of Fish and we had hearings here in Sitka at our Centennial Hall and they told us that was a major victory getting the Board of Fish to come to Sitka to meet with us. And then we submitted a proposal for a ten year moratorium and a proposal for increase the threshold and the threshold for taking poundage of that sac roe herring roe was twice what we had submitted. And we were told that was a major victory too because the Board of Fish gave us a higher poundage and threshold than we had originally asked for. But then a week after all these victories that we were told we were given, the sac roe fishery occurred and the headlines in the newspaper is the individual that the Board of Fish and the fishery came up with the highest ever fishing poundage of sac roe that has ever happened. So, on one hand we're saying that we're cutting back the amount that can be allowed to be taken, and then a week later the department of the state or the board or the fish and game comes in and allows a record catch for that. Now this last year -- usually this is time of year when you go to a official Native function - a dinner at ANB/ANS, a SEARHC Board meeting or anything, one of the major things you're going to have on the table is going to be herring eggs and this last spring haven't seen that much of it. You know so that is an example of why I feel that maybe we're better off with the federal government in there. That's all I have. Thank you for allowing me to add that." Number 365 MR. COOSE, who testified earlier, came before the committee to ask a question. He asked if the committee has access to the testimony he gave to the Governor's task force concerning the item by item things on the Governor's proposal. He asked if he needs to resubmit it to the committee. CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON urged him to give it to the committee as they are a separate body. Number 372 MR. SKEEK, who testified earlier from Kake, said he believes sports fishing laws should be different from subsistence laws. He fishes for food he will eat. Mr. Skeek said he does not catch, kill and throw away the fish. This saves him a lot of money during the wintertime and summertime. Number 302 PETER AMUNDSON came before the committee members to testify. He explained he is a third generation Alaskan. Mr. Amundson said, "I've grown up with Bill Williams. We started in the third grade together in Ketchikan. We fought real hard even in 1945 to statehood to get along with each other within our own community. I wish the federal government would fight as hard for our individual rights as we have fought to save it. There shouldn't be any discrimination over the animals, and maybe we should think about categorizing and putting human resource at the head of this list. If we're going to go against the Marine Mammal Act to make special circumstances for regions of the state that goes against our own constitution, statewide, why should the federal government think of any difference to go against us all on subsistence? If we're going to divide our resources equally amongst the people, whether we're Native, non-Native -- I don't like the word non- Native because I am a native Alaskan, but I consider myself a White native, not a non-Native. `Non' means you don't exist. I exist. Me and Bill have fought for the same rights in the same community. We can remember times when we couldn't shop in the same stores in Ketchikan and when we couldn't sit in loges in the theater together. We've overcome this within ourselves. The federal government didn't help us a bit. This thing has got -- every time they bring on a new act or a new statute, it's always the people are getting divided. We're not coming together over this resource management thing. It's becoming a division, it's pushing us back into a situation that we've never been in before. I've had a lot of bad feelings. I went through these university books, the statutes that are written by people that haven't even been to Alaska and they're trying to control our lives. The university came out with this Alaska Review Magazine about 20 years too late. The federal government does it to us every time. They push us into circumstances that we've never been into and they try to make a new statute out of what they've done. Take the people in Metlakatla over there. They want to do a special thing with them so they put them out of business. They take American Can Company and turn it over to Ball Jar and Ball Jar comes in and these people are out their cannery. They come in and strip all the canning equipment out of it. This is government move, this isn't people movement, this is government movement. I don't think the people in Alaska, the work force, can support government in the direction that they want to move in. I think government is getting bigger than the work force can support and they're looking for alternatives to get out of it. I don't know what else I can say. The resources aren't being divided equally in the state and I think Sealaska set a bad precedence in taking their profit and dividing it up amongst the regional corporations when they knew there are corporations out there that can't pay back or that can't get this evolving in the same direction that they got the monies going out to it. I think we're all equal to federal aid if it's available, but where does this federal aid keep coming from? If they can't balance the budget and the state can't balance the budget and they're trying to drive a wedge in between us, where is the money going to come to compensate for it? Thank you." Number 441 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON said he believes everyone has testified. He urged that people who were unable to testify to submit written testimony to his office. He said he would remind everyone that there will be additional legislative hearings regarding subsistence on September 24th in Fairbanks, September 25th in the Mat-Su, September 26th in Kenai and September 27th in Anchorage. He noted the public can get the meet times by contacting their local legislative office or the Ketchikan legislative information office. He thanked everybody for their testimony and said he thinks it will be helpful in solving this problem. He noted what probably worries him more than anything else is management by multiple layers. ADJOURNMENT Number 496 CO-CHAIRMAN HUDSON adjourned the House Resources Committee meeting at 8:00 p.m.