This report is presented by Yupiktak Bista as a statement on subsistence issues in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Region.

Subsistence is often thought of as a certain kind of hunting and fishing where people go out not for the sport of it but to get something to eat. But subsistence is really much more. It is not an isolated thing that can be set out and looked at by itself. It is interwoven into every aspect of our lives.

Subsistence is directly related to and affected by everything that is happening within this region in the way of education, land use, economic development, wildlife management and other areas of public policy. Subsistence is really an entire way of life.

As changes and problems come to our subsistence way of living, they are dispersed through all areas of public planning, throughout the fabric of our lives and our region. So there is no one place that one can look and say, "Ah, this is where the problem lies. This is it. And here is a plan, a program to solve this problem."

Because this process of change in our subsistence way of life is everywhere, it sometimes seems to be nowhere at all. This report seeks to see where changes are taking place, what some of the problems are, what solutions there might be. To focus on the various aspects of subsistence and the public policy issues that relate to them, this report is presented in various areas of policy planning which are all important parts of a comprehensive planning process.

Within each chapter there is discussion of the problems and recommendations on specific public policy issues. The discussion and recommendations have been drawn from the comments, interviews, testimony, resolutions, and proposals of people living in the villages of this region. This report has been prepared by the Yupiktak Bista staff with the editing assistance of Art Davidson. Preparation and publication of this report have been supported by the State of Alaska, Department of Community and Regional Affairs and the Friends of the Earth Foundation.

Many people have made helpful comments and suggestions during the preparation and review of this report. Among those we wish to thank for their assistance are: The Village Council Presidents of this region, David Friday, Nelson Angapak, Susan Murphy, Peter Atchak, Andrew Chikoyak, Lewis Lively, Robert Schenkar, Harold Sparks, Roger Lang, John Shively, Esther Wunnicke, Dr. Lydia Selkregg, Dr. Charles Evans, Dr. Bradford Tuck, Dr. Victor Fischer, Jack Hessian, George Irvin, Richard Hensel, Cynthia Wentworth, Dr. Calvin Lensink, and Malcolm Roberts.

Harold Napoleon
Director, Yupiktak Bista
December, 1974

"Our area is not an economically developed area. We depend on the sea for our food and clothing. There is much sharing in the catches, as we realize the needs of our brothers and they realize our needs. It is not joyful to see our children and grandchildren hungry. . . If the law prohibits hunting of sea mammals at any time, the people will listen to the hunger of their families and hunt even against the law. . . Everyone of us is Eskimo around here. We all have to eat our own native food, and there is no question about it. We cannot possibly go without .... . Please try to fathom our great desire to survive in a way somewhat different from yours. and thus see why the hunters will continue to go out."
The elders of Nightmute, 1973

Manhattan Island is named for a tribe of Indians that once hunted and fished there. Across the continent one finds places like Sioux City, Oglala, Pueblo, Cheyenne and Seattle named for the Native Americans who were once there, living from the land. Their leaders once spoke, as the elders of the village of Nightmute on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta are speaking now, of the need to continue their ways of hunting and fishing. But one by one, each in their turn, Native American tribes and nations have lost their way of life.

Some tribes have been reduced to shattered remnants by open warfare of the U.S. Government. Others have been broken and scattered by the unofficial warfare of broken treaties. Some have been seduced away from the life of their people by well intended programs to "save the Indians." Today it is unthinkable that the Federal and State governments would have a policy to extinguish Native American cultures, yet this continues to be the effect of many educational, transportation, economic development, job training, land management, and fish and game policies and programs. One way or another, in every instance, the tie of Native American people to the land has been broken and their way of life destroyed.

Over long stretches of unrecorded time, Native Americans established balances with other life of the earth. They survived over the centuries by living in balance with the fish and birds and animals—in balance with the subsistence resources of the natural world. In no more than a fleeting moment in time, this balance has been torn apart wherever Europeans settled and civilized North America. When the balance, or circle of life as it has been called, is broken, birds and fish and animals begin disappearing from the land. When they are gone, so are the people who depended upon them.

When some resources are depleted. substitutes can be found. In an energy crisis the nation searches for alternative sources of energy. Modern man goes from wood to coal to oil to gas to shale to geothermal to nuclear power in order to keep the wheels of civilization turning. But the Yupik culture, like other Native American cultures, depends upon a subsistence resource base for which there are no alternatives. The relationships are really very simple. If the fish and seal and beaver and birds were to disappear, we could no longer hunt and fish. Our culture would die. Our way of life and our people would disappear.

All precedents predict this will happen to us. In fact, the State and Federal governments are actually, if unwittingly, planning for our cultural extermination by continuing to settle Alaska with the same basic attitudes, policies and practices with which the rest of North America was developed. As former Alaska Attorney General John Havelock acknowledged in 1974 "I think the beginning point of a discussion of (subsistence) is the recognition that whatever we have isn't working.... The inevitable conclusion of letting the status quo continue is the total depletion of the resources and the destruction of the subsistence economy. "2

The fate of the Yupik people and other Native groups in Alaska appears to be the same as the Sioux, Apache, Pima and other North American tribes. But we don't believe it has to be this way. The time has come when our culture has reached its critical turning point. Perhaps the course is set, but we want to believe we still have options for the way in which we survive in the future.

What possible options are there? As individuals and as a people we seem to have three basic choices, three directions in which to move:

1. We would return to our original ways. We would renounce the cash economy and with it the concepts of competition and property ownership. In short, we would turn completely from the modern world and subsist from the land by hunting and fishing.

2. We would move steadily away from our culture until we have completely adopted Western civilization. We would seek to be assimilated and become a regular part of a dominant culture. We would live by the rules of a cash economy. In short, we would cease to be Eskimos and become modern Americans.

3. We would develop a combination or balance of the two cultures. We would live partly by cash and partly by subsistence hunting and fishing. We would seek to find some workable mixing of the values and ways of relating in the Eskimo world with those of the Western world. To one degree or another, we would remain essentially Eskimos who have taken advantage of some of the better things of the modern world or we would become essentially modern men who have retained some traces of our Eskimo heritage.

"Each of us is caught, in his own way, between two worlds."

The first option of completely returning to the past is closed, at least for the foreseeable future. Our people have come to want and depend upon many modern things. We would not want to stop traveling by plane, motorboats, and snow-machines—these ways of traveling have become a part of our way of life. We would not trade our guns for harpoons. We would not want to live just as our ancestors did. Moreover, the conditions of the world today prohibit a complete return to the old ways.

The second option, leaving our culture in order to adopt the Western way of life, is hardly more desirable, but probably more possible than the first. Even though the trend is toward the dominant culture and some of our younger people are taking up the values and ways of the white culture, there are still many things distinctly Eskimo that we truly value. There are ways in which we live that we don't wish to change.

"The only time I really feel I am myself is when I am hunting. Every year I must return to the tundra if only a few days. I have to do this."

The third option, to find some meaningful combination of the two cultures, is the most realistic approach. It is, in fact, the transitional state we find ourselves in today. Each of us is caught in his own way between two worlds. And as each of us grows up we tend to turn more to one world or the other. But always our lives depend upon things in both worlds. The man who lives by hunting and fishing in the area of his village, nevertheless depends on some cash to buy ammunition, fishing gear, gas for his boat, some clothing, some furnishing for his house. On the other hand, people who have become most adapted to Western ways of living and who may be pursuing professional careers far from their village still need their ties to the land and the people. As one young person working away from his home in Chevak puts it, "The only time I really feel I am myself is when I am hunting. Every year I must return to the tundra if for only a few days. I have to do this."

It may seem obvious that our present way of life is a combination of two cultures. It may seem unnecessary to discuss the first two options—of returning to our original ways or becoming completely assimilated. However, virtually all planning and policy-making related to our region is done, knowingly or unknowingly, in the context of the first two extreme options.

When the future of our subsistence way of life is considered in terms of either hunting and fishing or the cash economy, planning and decision making is, naturally, done on the basis of Western civilization's cash economy. Since the thought of returning to ancestral ways and living 100 per cent from hunting and fishing is quickly discarded as impractical, it is assumed that we are in the process of acculturation which will eventually make us completely westernized. Today, public policy decisions are almost invariably made on the assumption that we are going to be drawn into the mainstream and one day—perhaps after a generation or so—become like everyone else. This assumption is made despite the fact that in the foreseeable future our region doesn't have the resources to support a strictly cash economy. And it is made despite the intention of most Yupik people to continue their hunting and fishing way of life.

Does a choice have to be made between the two cultures? Does it have to be one or the other? Does one way of life have to die, so that another can live?

Up the Yukon River from our region, Jimmy Huntington, an Athabascan Indian, State legislator and author of On the Edge of Nowhere, has put the problem and challenge clearly.

"Alaska is unique, here the subsistence and the cash economy are in open conflict with the unique subsistence values of the Indian, Eskimo and Aleut populations.

"Subsistence values are still vital to over 50,000 Alaskan Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts as they have been for countless thousands of years and as they will be for hundreds of years in the future. Unwise expansion of the western country denies these subsistence values. At the present rate, the Indian, Eskimo and Aleut culture soon will be destroyed.

"It must be stopped. Only in Alaska, in the North American history, does the opportunity exist to protect the basic human subsistence rights of all citizens.

"We believe that the Western and traditional Alaskan values can and must live side by side. But just as the Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts have no right to destroy the cultural values of the white man, neither do the white men have the right to destroy the cultural values and life style of the Indian, Eskimo and Aleut."²

"No one purposely, consciously intends to destroy our culture."

There should be room in Alaska for both Western and Native cultures to exist. And within a region such as the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta it should be possible for the values and ways of the two cultures to exist and interact. No one purposely, consciously intends to destroy our culture. Yet Western customs, Western laws, Western institutions—the entire system of Western civilization continues to erode our way of life.

It was a similar need to live the way they wanted to live that brought some of the first pilgrims to North America. The colonists founded the United States on the principle of a person's right to maintain his identity; his freedom of speech and religion; his life, liberty and pursuit of happiness—in his own ways.

Relating this principle to the subsistence way of life, Attorney Robert Goldberg once said:

"It seems to me that through the years, if the United States has stood for anything, it is the right of cultures to express themselves as they wish, absent some very compelling State interest to the contrary. My own view is that, far from being the great melting pot, The United States if anything, has allowed many diverse cultures to maintain their cultural identity.

"It seems to me that this is a right that is fundamental, so fundamental that it was one that was not enumerated in the Constitution but was reserved to the people.

If the Native culture is not to be consumed by the white culture that has become dominant in Alaska, some very fundamental changes in public policy and programs will have to be made.

Before any meaningful changes can be made, public policy makers must focus their attention on the foundation of our culture—subsistence hunting and fishing. The perpetuation of subsistence resources and activities must become a top priority of all Federal, State and local government planning relating to our region. Even though everyone may like the idea of subsistence hunting and fishing and the Yupik culture continuing, history shows us that it will be extremely difficult to bring about the necessary changes in time to protect our subsistence way of life.

The problems are numerous and complicated, but there is the basic ground work from which a workable set of policies and programs could be built. Building this structure requires close cooperation between the Federal and State governments and regional organizations. Although the Federal government has many conflicting interests, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act's committee report directs the Secretary of Interior to use whatever powers he has existing in order to protect the Natives in their present life style of subsistence hunting. This would seem to be a mandate and authorization for the Secretary of Interior to take whatever steps may be necessary to provide for the continuance of subsistence hunting and fishing.

Likewise, the Alaska State government which has many conflicting interests of its own, has a constitutional mandate to protect renewable resources such as subsistence resources and also establish preference among users of these resources.

"Far from being the great melting pot...the United States, if anything, has allowed many diverse cultures to maintain their cultural identity."

On the regional level, the village and regional corporations are owners of a very significant portion of the rural resources. In as much as these are organizations of local Native people, it could be expected that they will be able to play a very constructive role in planning and managing resources in ways which support our way of life. Likewise, the formation of local government, such as a borough, would involve local people in the planning decisions that affect their lives.

How do we use these tools of planning, development, fish and game laws, education, etc. to make certain that the hunters will always be able to hunt? How can options be kept open so people can choose between living the Yupik and Western ways of life? How can new ways of living be molded from both cultures? How can conflicts between natural resource development and renewable subsistence resources be minimized? How can a web of subsistence-oriented policies and programs be woven from cooperative efforts of the Native organizations, and local, State and Federal governments? How can policies in areas of land use planning, fish and game regulations, transportation, population planning, economic development, and education relate to the subsistence way of life?

To consider these questions requires reappraising all the policies and programs affecting people in our region. This is a process that takes some time, and it is taking place every day as people are questioning the rules, policies and programs that structure life on the Delta.

In this report we want to begin exploring the policies that are most directly related to subsistence living. We want to suggest some new approaches to subsistence issues. We see some things that must be done, some things that must be changed. Where we don't have answers and solutions, we at least want to raise the questions that must be asked.

"Subsistence is not only a cultural activity, the foundation of several of the Native groups in Alaska, without which their cultures would die. It is also the necessary economic base for their very existence."1
Owen Ivan, Bethel, 1973

Historical Perspective

When economic planners set about to tackle the problems of "poverty" in rural Alaska they usually seem unaware of the role that subsistence plays in the rural economy. With good intentions to relieve the poor of their problems, they often lose track of the fact that poverty has only recently been introduced to Native communities. Up until a hundred years ago people were living in a finely balanced economic relationship with the land.

For thousands of years people subsisted from the land and ocean along the west coast of Alaska. In many ways it was a hard life, but it had none of the frustrations and stigmas of poverty, for the people were not poor. Living from the land sustained life and evolved the Yupik culture, a culture in which wealth was the common wealth of the people as provided by the earth. Whether food was plentiful or scarce, it was shared among the people. This sharing created a bond between people that helped insure survival.

The Yupik language has words for being a poor hunter, for being hungry, sick or cold. But there were no words for being rich or poor in the modern sense. These concepts were introduced when white men first came to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in the 1830's and 1840's. With the first Russian traders came the idea of wealth and poverty.

These new people added to the process of living the purpose of accumulating. Whether one was accumulating furs, money, land or the souls of converts, lines were drawn between people on the basis of what they had accumulated. Those with more were wealthy, and those with less were poor. The wealthy were better off, and the poor had a problem. These new relationships were reinforced by the new economic system which began replacing food and furs with cash, cooperation with competition, sharing with accumulating either without regard or at the expense of others. The new system had new rules. Accumulating money, "owning" land and other property and knowing how to drive a good bargain were all important in the new system. Native people had to begin learning new ways.

The introduction of new values and concepts in our region has followed the pattern that spread wherever Europeans settled in North America. Searching for the roots of this process of change, D'Arcy McNickle, of the Flathead Tribe of the Pacific Northwest wrote in an article titled, Indian and European that:

"The men who came out of Europe into what they pleased to call the New World were men with a mission. Their mission might be secondary to their immediate needs of security, but it was never wholly absent and at times it was of dominating interest in the actions of individual settlers. The nature of the mission was variously phrased, but essentially it amounted to an unremitting effort to make Europeans out of the New World inhabitants, in social practices and in value concepts."

This impact came later to Alaska than elsewhere in North America. In fact, of all the regions within Alaaka the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta is the last to experience the impact of Western civilization. Even though village people in our region remain close to their original way of life, the forces of change are coming rapidly. And they can be devastating.

It is well known how the coming of white men brought diseases like measles and syphilis which killed thousands of our people and physically crippled many more for the rest of their lives. It is not so well known that the economic impact of Western civilization was every bit as devastating to the well being and spirit of the people as the physical illnesses were to their health. Perhaps it is more difficult to see the effects of the Western economic system because the causes are not infections like measles, but are the fundamental and often subtle differences between the Yupik and Western mind and ways of doing things.

"Poverty has only recently been introduced to Native communities."

These differences, these new ways and systems of doing things can be as disturbing to the life of a person or of a culture as the measles infection is to the life of a body. Fortunately a cure has been found for measles. A cure has not been found for our "poverty." Perhaps the difficulty is in how to approach the problem. The cure for measles involves a vaccination in which a little bit of the infection is introduced so the body can develop the strength to cope with it. For poverty, all the attempted cures have involved ever increased doses of the Western way of life in the hope that the new system will somehow successfully replace the old one. Instead of trying to replace the Yupik way of life, efforts should be directed toward joining the two cultures in meaningful ways.

During this time of great change we are in fact living a combination of two cultures, but at present it is a haphazard and not very satisfactory mixing of two ways of life. Economically, as well as in other ways, we are in an interim period in which, for want of a cure or solution for our "poverty", we are supported by welfare and food stamp programs. We are more or less kept alive while our "problems" are being studied.

"The Yupik language has no words for being rich or poor.

To begin looking for solutions we have to look at the process of change we are caught up in. We have to ask, Where are we? How did we get here?

It may be useful to look at how economist George Rogers has summarized the relationship between Alaska development and the Native Alaskan. He writes:

"Following the first contacts with Western civilization, most of the Native Alaskans were simply by-passed by the course of economic development…. In the process their aboriginal society and culture were destroyed and their numbers drastically cut down. During the American period the coastal Eskimos suffered death from starvation and strange diseases brought in by the whalers who virtually extinguished the walrus and whale resources upon which the Eskimos depended for survival. The Southwest Indians managed to keep the white invaders at arm's length because of their savage and warlike reputation, but their downfall came near the end of the nineteenth century when commercial fishermen and cannery men from California and the Northwest Coast invaded and overtook their fisheries. The turn of the Arctic and Interior Eskimo and Interior Indians came when Alaska shifted from its colonial to its military period. Finally all were embraced by the coming of the welfare state to Alaska in the 1930's when national programs designed to meet the needs of a twentieth century urban industrial society were uniformly applied to a people still far from that condition.

"The results of these contacts between Native Alaska and the mainstream of Alaska's economic development did bring some benefits and opportunities for participation, but on the whole the story was a contradictory one of unconscious or conscious cruelty and unavoidable or needless human misery. During the Colonial period the Natives were treated as part of the environment in which the exploitation was undertaken. If they could be turned to a use in serving the purpose of getting the resource out as easily and cheaply as possible, they might be enslaved as with the Aleuts, or recruited, as were the Southeast Indian fishermen and their women as a local workforce in the harvest and processing of marine resources. If not, they were ruthlessly pushed aside while their traditional resources were exploited to the point of extinction by seasonally imported work forces as was the case with the coastal Eskimo.

"The impact was, on the whole, destructive to traditional ways and to the Native people themselves, and their economic participation was marginal at best. Whether they participated or not, their very survival required adaptation of their traditional ways to the new conditions imposed by the altered environment."7

In recent years this cycle of exploitation has taken a new and unexpected turn. In some instances where the traditional resources have been exploited and the people left impoverished, the government has stepped in to "save" the people with massive welfare programs and injections of dollars. The purpose of such programs is to stimulate a local economy or restore the original resource base, but in reality it has been more like strapping bandages on a dying person.

"Like strapping bandages on a dying person

Bristol Bay is a good example of this process at work. Originally people subsisted from the land and sea; the tremendous salmon runs provided a reliable source of food. Commercial fishing began with an attitude of get what you can. It was only a matter of time before urban politicians and outside economic interests permitted the salmon runs to be exploited nearly to extinction.

The local people, Native and non-Native alike, were left impoverished. Then the government became concerned. Then fishery research was called for. Limited entry demanded. Then food stamps were passed out to people who used to fish.

Somehow or other Native people were expected to adapt their traditional ways to this Western economic system.

On the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta the changes people have undergone might be considered adaptation. And they have more or less survived. There are nearly 13,000 Native people living in the region, about half the number estimated to have lived here before the coming of white people. Life expectancy is a little more than half that of people living in the lower 48. The day to day health of people and the medical care they receive are among the poorest in the nation. The rate of alcoholism is one of the highest in the country. The average cash income of our people is less than $4,000 per family. But our region has one of the highest birth rates in the United States. Most of our children can speak their Native language, and the land can still provide us with most of our basic needs. The question at this time is: How do we move from survival to well-being?

Economic Evaluation of Subsistence Resources

Economic planners must begin looking at the economic values of subsistence living. This is not easily done. Since subsistence is an entire process of living it can not be readily assessed and analyzed by Western methods of cost-benefit and supply and demand analysis.

Dollar values can not be placed on subsistence resources as they can on board feet of timber or barrels of oil because the use of subsistence resources involves many things which can not be translated into cash.

However, if the people on the Delta did not obtain food from the land and waters, they would have to buy it somewhere. This would cost money which would have to come from somewhere. The amount of cash needed to replace subsistence foods has to be considered.

This problem of replacing subsistence foods with store bought food is not unique to our region. Speaking to the problems that a conversion to store food would create on a statewide basis, Roger Lang, President of the Alaska Federation of Natives, has said:

"If we buy the fact that subsistence living is an economic reality along with the traditional, cultural and social use of it, then we must treat it that way. Should you remove it, it's tantamount to removing banks from Anchorage, Safeway stores from Fairbanks. That's the simple fact.

"When you talk about that type of removal, when you talk about the significance of the dollar to replace it, I don't find those dollars anywhere in Alaska or the Federal government or in the region or village corporations. There is no immediate substitute to the consequence of removing subsistence living in any degree. There's not enough dollars."2

Obviously it is far beyond the capacity of the region's cash economy to replace this substitute food cost. Since the average per capita income in the region is less than $800, each person would have to earn three times as much money as they are now to pay for just their food. Over ten years about $300,000,000 would have to be spent on substitute foods. This is more than the entire region will receive as a result of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

More Than Cash

Calculating the amount of money needed to replace subsistence foods is useful in determining the amount of cash that would be needed by a family, village or region if subsistence foods are removed. But however large these cash equivalency values may be, they cannot adequately represent the real value of subsistence foods. In addition to cash replacement values, the following considerations must be made.

First, inflation affects commercial foods which must be purchased with cash. Each year the cost of commercial foods will rise and the amount of effort a village person will have to expend to obtain the needed cash is likely to increase.

Second, the importation of food into a rural area is subject to a variety of factors which can affect the availability and cost of commercial foods. Both shortages of 2 certain food products on the general market and regional transportation problems can cause high prices and unavailability of commercial food items.

Third, the quality of a subsistence diet is probably a great deal higher than the average diet of commercial food for people who have barely enough money to buy food from a store. Although there has not yet been a thorough study of the relative nutritional values of commercial and subsistence foods, there are apparently a number of nutritional advantages to subsistence foods. In a sense, all subsistence foods are "organically" produced; they contain none of the pesticides and chemical additives that most commercial foods contain. Also, virtually all subsistence foods have a high nutritional value, whereas many commercial foods may be tasty but are low in nutrition and some, such as sugar and soda pop, may have an overall harmful effect.

Fourth, fresh food that is not subsistence food can be very hard, if not impossible, to get, no matter what the cost. Village stores carry very little, if any fresh food, and even Bethel does not have a good selection of fresh food. Of course, people with freezers can store some fresh food— both subsistence and non-subsistence. But it is almost impossible to keep fresh produce for any length of time, even if one can pay the high cost of having it flown in. In winter even flying it in presents problems, because it often freezes and spoils during the transportation process.

Cynthia Wentworth has commented that:

"The economic value of subsistence food when there are no fresh-food alternatives is so high it cannot be quantified. In this economic sense, subsistence food cannot be replaced with dollars."8

Subsistence foods are simply preferred over commercial foods by many Native people. Even if a person has the money to buy from the store he may value the subsistence foods he has gotten from the land. With this consideration in mind, Dr. Bradford Tuck, an economist with the Federal-State Land Use Planning Commission has cautioned:

"It is important that the equating of dollar cost or dollar equivalent not be interpreted as representing equal value. For example, suppose that a pound of meat at the store costs the purchaser $2.00; then the dollar cost of moose would also be $2.00 per pound of meat. However, the value is the same only if the satisfaction from consuming the pound of store meat is the same as the satisfaction derived from consuming a pound of moose meat. If the moose meat is preferred over store meat, then the substitute value is underestimated by using only the dollar equivalent."8

"If this bill passes in its present form, I will become a criminal. My body is used to seal oil and must have seal oil. I will continue to buy seal oil no matter what."

For many people in our region there simply are no substitutes or replacements for the fish, seal, birds and other subsistence foods. Margaret Nick Cooke is an example of a person who still needs subsistence foods even though she is away from her village and could afford to buy from the store. She has testified that she is opposed to any legislation,

"...that would tell me and many others that we can no longer have seal meat and seal oil which I have been eating since I was my baby's age.. . Our immediate area does not have seals that is why we buy seal meat and seal oil from the coast. And believe me, my body must have seal oil. I eat it almost daily. It is necessary for us like you people have to have salad oil in your salad... I have never been in jail or arrested in my life, but if this bill passes in its present form—I will become a criminal. My body is used to seal oil and must have seal oil, I will continue to buy seal oil no matter what."5

Or as Guy Mann of Hooper Bay described his use of seal oil:

"We Eskimos use seal oil like this. In spring we hunt seals. Then skin dry up. When dry we put oil in seal skins. Then save it for winter. Then after season we fishing. The fish dry. Then smoked. After smoked we put dry fish into the seal skin with seal oil and we save it for winter. And all summer we not seal hunt. And in September we start seal hunt again. Then we seal hunt all winter because we Eskimo like to eat all kind of oil from ocean. Every time when we eat we take a seal oil. Please, please help us. We need help. We don't want to stop seal hunt. And when we eat something without seal oil, our stomachs kind of sick."5

Coordinating Subsistence and Economic Development

So it is that subsistence continues to be both economically necessary and culturally valuable. This implies that economic development projects that propose to create new jobs, more village cash flow or great regional wealth should be planned and coordinated with the existing subsistence economy and lifestyle of the people. The following are ways in which coordination between the subsistence economy and the cash economy can be approached.

1. One conflict between the cash and subsistence economy is that when a person is earning a paycheck he often does not have the opportunity to go hunting and fishing. Agencies and private enterprises in the region should try to arrange their work programs to allow people to take a leave of absence when they have to hunt and fish at certain times of the year. In some instances some days or weeks of leave might be necessary for a person to obtain the subsistence foods he needs for his family. In other instances, just adjusting the daily work hours of an employee might allow him or her to have time for subsistence activities in off hours.

"Agencies and private enterprises in the region should try to arrange their work programs to allow people to take a leave of absence when they have to hunt and fish at certain times of the year."

2. Since full-time jobs are scarce in villages, employers should explore the possibilities of splitting one full-time position among several people who would work at different times of the year. If it is a large project in a remote area, the work schedule might allow people to work two weeks on and two weeks off, thus providing work for two shifts of people.

3. All development within the region must be carefully considered from the position of how it might affect the fish and wildlife populations and habitat. Developments that reduce the subsistence resource base should be avoided or modified to minimize the adverse impacts.

4. To the extent possible a "self-sufficiency factor" should be considered in developments which affect the ways in which people live. If a person can do or provide something himself, he can be self-sufficient, independent from the need for more cash. The less self-sufficient he is, the more cash he needs, the more work he needs and the less time he has to do other things for himself. Whenever possible, planning for things such as housing and transportation should leave people with options to either pay cash or provide for themselves. For example, if a housing project puts houses in a village that must be heated with fuel oil, then the homeowner has no choice but to pay cash for fuel oil instead of still being able to gather firewood. Likewise, .if expansion or maintenance of a house requires bringing in expensive materials from the outside, it will be more difficult for a person to expand or repair his house than if he could do it with locally available materials.

Energy Use

"We need the assistance of others in the matter of energy, particularly in developing an independent research program that concentrates on the problems of rural Alaska."

David Friday, Chairman Nunam Kitlutsisti to the Federal Energy Administration, September 1974

Behind David Friday's call for assistance lies a problem that could by itself jeopardize subsistence and any other way of living in the villages. Energy problems that may cause inconvenience elsewhere in the United States can cause severe hardships in the rural areas of Alaska.

In the villages, people have come to depend upon modern forms of energy. But the village's energy is used sparingly and only for necessities such as oil to heat homes, electricity for light, and gas for snowmachines and outboard motors that are used to travel when people hunt and fish. As energy becomes harder to get, these people will face losing things that are basic and essential to living in the villages.

Energy problems have already been experienced in our region, as David Friday summarized for the Federal Energy Administration.

"In our region, the fifty-seven member villages have doubled their oil and gasoline consumption since 1969. Our people in the past normally relied on wood, peat, and local coal deposits for heating their sub-surface dwellings. Framed houses, poor insulation, large public buildings, and the internal combustion engine have turned our traditional subsistence villages dependent on local heating sources toward heating and electricity generated from oil.

" When the highly publicized oil shortage occurred in the nation, our villages had already lived with the situation. In 1973, 26 of our villages ran out of oil and gasoline before summer re-supply. In 1974, 34 villages suffered some form of rationing or complete exhaustion of their oils."

To begin minimizing the impact of energy use problems in the villages the following considerations are recommended:

1. Alternative forms of energy must be developed and made available in the villages. Funds should be invested in research and development of wind, solar and geothermal energy generating facilities that will work in villages.

2. A primary consideration in all new housing in the region should be conservation of energy used for heating.

3. The development of regional transportation should be done in ways that promote efficient use of energy.

4. If sources of energy such as oil and gas are located and produced in our region, consideration should be given to a plan of local utilization on a subsistence basis.

5. If fuel rationing becomes necessary, villages in remote areas should be given priority on the basis of necessity.

6. If higher fuel taxes are used to meet the nation's economic problems, such taxes should not apply to low income people who need reasonably priced fuel in order to subsist in the villages. Consideration should be given to providing gasoline, tax cuts for fuel used in subsistence activities, much the same way that farmers have been able to purchase fuel at reduced rates for their farm work.

"As energy prices rise, where will people get the extra money that will be needed? Will they be forced to leave the villages to look for better employment opportunities?"

Energy Development

The development of energy resources within the region could cause some extremely serious problems for subsistence resources. Development of oil and gas on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta can be expected from three directions:

1. The Federal Government which is advocating rapid development of Outer Continental Shelf resources to meet national energy demands.

2. The State of Alaska which continues to hold oil and gas lease sales in order to pay the increased costs of a developing state.

3. Calista which is seeking ways to develop its regional resources.

Severe impact on subsistence resources could easily come from each of these sources and taken together their combined impact could be disasterous. The most serious impact on the subsistence of life-style will result from:

1. Pollution and disruption of fish and wildlife habitat.

2. The influx of great numbers of people to the region.

3. The building of roads and service industries and pipelines.

4. Rapid growth of villages adjacent to development areas.

To protect subsistence values several considerations must be made by the State and Federal governments and Calista:

1. Development of oil and gas should be slowed down and paced over many, many years to minimize cultural and social impact.
2. The most protective environmental controls must be enforced.
3. Some critical habitat areas should be closed to oil and gas development.
4. Related development such as roads, service industries, refineries and pipelines should be minimized as much as possible.

Welfare

Do food stamps and welfare payments provide a substitute for subsistence activities?

Or can various forms of public assistance be a complimentary part of the subsistence way of living?

Such questions arise as various public assistance programs are used more extensively in our region. In recent years, three types of income assistance programs have been available to people in the villages: BIA welfare payments; food stamps; and State welfare payments which include Aid to the Blind, Old Age Assistance, Aid to the Disabled, and Aid to Dependent Children.

The extent to which these programs have been utilized has been summarized in a Department of Interior impact statement.

Judging from recent statistics (available only for the month of October 1972) about 35 percent of the households on the Delta currently receive welfare payments from the State of Alaska. The number of households receiving B.I.A. welfare payments ranged from 20 to 40 percent in recent years. Food stamp records, kept by month, show that an average of about 42 percent of the population was receiving food stamps in 1971, and about 31 percent in 1972. The extent to which these three types of income assistance each serves the same group is unknown. Average annual household income from State welfare payments, judging from October 1972, is about $2,500. Average annual income from food stamps in 1972 was about $1,800 per household, $324 per capita.

"Welfare payments should not be administered as general handouts that would encourage people to become dependent upon a government check and lose their sense of motivation."

The degree to which these programs are used reflects the extent of poverty conditions in the villages. And they illustrate how such assistance has become an important part of the basic livelihood of many families.

However, the flow of public assistance funds into villages does not begin to replace the need to use subsistence resources. It must be kept in mind that welfare payments in the villages buy only about two-thirds of what they would buy in Anchorage and other places where prices are substantially lower. Even if public assistance were doubled or tripled it would not meet all the basic needs now being met with subsistence activities, let alone replace the cultural values of subsistence living.

The funds from the various assistance programs are in most instances meeting real and acute needs. Without them, many people would be in distress—unable to survive solely from subsistence hunting and fishing and finding no opportunities for employment in the region.

Without exploring all the pros and cons of the various assistance programs, the following considerations might be helpful in coordinating these programs with the general subsistence patterns of this region.

1. Welfare programs should not be administered as general handouts that would encourage people to become dependent upon a government check and lose their sense of motivation. Assistance should be provided on the basis of real needs in instances where there are no other ways for people to meet their basic needs.
2. Since the traditional subsistence economy has been thrown into chaos since the coming of Western civilization, the State and Federal governments will have a continuing obligation to provide support until a viable synthesis of the subsistence and cash economies is achieved.
3. Public assistance programs should be used to assist people in becoming economically independent in both the cash and subsistence economies.
4. Support should be available when it is needed to provide such things as gasoline and ammunition that people need today to support themselves from the land.
5. Assistance should always be available for nutritional and health care needs.

"When I was growing up, we didn't know any white people, and all the food we had was from the land," recalls Alena Nikolas, thinking about the changes she has seen over the 90 some years she has lived. "We would go out in a canoe and go fishing and never waste any part of it. Everything we used for hunting and fishing was made by the people. The women would go berry picking with their back packs, and their buckets were made from bark. I was raised by my grandfather in the traditions of our cultural background. The land that our ancestors walked on, they were the first ones to walk on it. And they were the first ones who lived quietly.

"Now that we are beginning to hear about the land claims there is a lot of comments going on because we have a lot of questions. In my time there weren't such things as land claims or regulations, or land planning commissions. In my time people lived happily together. There were no problems such as we are putting up with now... People lived together and there weren't such things as planning things. Everybody planned together. Nobody would come around and say this is my land, that is your land. These lands were everybody's. People weren't coming in and saying you do this, you use the land for this, you use the river for this. These little lines and areas drawn up on the map by so and so—there weren't such things as those. People were happy then."1

During the time Alena Nikolas was growing up there was no need for land use planning to protect subsistence resources.

Before the Claims Act, before statehood and the coming of the first Russians, the people who were scattered over the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta followed a natural pattern of land use which did not require any land use planning to avoid problems. Rules, policies and regulations were not necessary because people knew how to work together and take care of the land. The only laws people had to observe were the laws of nature as the hunters followed the migrations of fish and game through changing weather and the passing of seasons.

"The geese and ducks, and salmon, and moose don't check the land office in Anchorage to see whose land they are on."

When the idea of land ownership was introduced the freedom of the Yupik people to use the land became threatened. Because people of Western civilization do not know how to naturally work together and take care of the land they have made many laws to govern what people can do and what they can't do. Imposing these laws and patterns of ownership on the people of the Delta has created great confusion and fear among the people. Many are afraid that they will no longer have the freedom to live from the land and take care of it as their ancestors once did. David Bayayak, Mayor of Togiak, speaks of this danger:

"I'm going to speak for the older generation way before this generation came along. The older generation had used the animal for surviving. They used the carcass for food and the skin for clothing. Anywhere they walked, they stepped on the land, they had respect for the land. They had great honor for the land. As far as we know, this generation has the same thought for the animals and they use it for subsistence... I can see people just like I am right now, young men ranging from age 20 to 35, who will still be hunting beaver unless the beaver pelt is restricted by the warden or the people in Congress, just like they have done to seal, the sea mammals. We use this meat for food. And I believe these things will be taken away from us as the pressure keeps on going high. The younger generation will have respect for the land anywhere they go, just like the older ones. They go up river where people have lived long ago and hunt. I believe if we quit eating this food, fresh food, like fish, moose meat, squirrel, I think this people— Yupiks—are going to get sick. And I believe it—And I see that Eskimo is not used to the way of living with book works and papers. And he can use, a Yupik can use from his place, can use that (land) to release himself from the pressure. I stress that if we're given this freedom to step on this land without any papers to sign... I believe that Congress will really care for us. This is a D2 (land set aside for a wildlife refuge), and by native instinct I think they will still want to walk on it just like the older generations did. And this is our home. I do not mean to be rude. This is our home. Now its like a house for us. My father was a man and there was this house of mine. Then a person from outside, unknown, comes here to my area and he comes in through the door and says ‘come into my house and says, hey man, you cannot do this and that.' And I wonder what this person's reaction would be. It just like that for the Yupik People in this area.

"I do not mean to be rude, (but) this is our home. (And yet) a person from outside, unknown, comes here to say, ‘Hey man, you cannot do this and that.'

"It's just like that to the older generation. It's just like a person coming in and telling us what to do and what not to do. I think it would be nice if we had maybe more years to have freedom to walk on the land, like freedom to walk without any restrictions for a period of time. If these needs are not met, I want to say first that the Yupik people are going to be controlled. They are gonna be controlled by this white man way. Second, our land's gonna be taken away. And last, then we will be like the white man. Our culture will be doomed . If we don't have freedom on this land, our wish and our hope will be in vain."1

Today the village person's ability to subsist from the land and thereby continue the way of life of his ancestors is subject to a complicated patchwork of ownership, laws, regulations and government jurisdiction. Both the Alaska Statehood Act and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act have established a pattern of land ownership in Alaska in which there are three main land owners and managers—the State of Alaska, the Federal government and the Native village and regional corporations. The ownership of the land has been broken into many small pieces that fit together something like a jigsaw puzzle.

"The land that our ancestors walked on, they were the first ones to walk on it. And they were the first ones who lived quietly."

But the land itself is not broken into pieces. And the villagers' use of the land cannot be broken into pieces if his way of life is to continue. The mountains and coast run through the different pieces of ownership. The rivers flow through the various pieces of the ownership puzzle. The fish and game migrate from one area to another. The geese and ducks, and salmon, and moose don't live by the boundaries. They don't check the land office in Anchorage to see whose land they are on. And as the fish and game move through the whole land, so the hunter must be able to move through the whole land if he is to survive.

Speaking to the problems created by boundaries being imposed upon people who have always lived without maps and boundary lines, Fred Notti, a Calista board member, posed these thoughts to the Federal-State Land Use Planning Commission in 1973.

"What are the potential effects of new ownership patterns on traditional land uses? How can land and resources be managed so that new ownership patterns accommodate traditional land uses?

"Like the Northern Eskimo, Athabaskan, and Tlingit, I believe that the Yupik will become boundary conscious. They never had to move for their food before; now an overpowering mass of humanity is closing in on them.

"Learning about boundaries and how to cope with them is going to be a difficult thing to teach and even more difficult to learn.

"When people begin posting signs—no hunting, no fishing, no trespassing, no wood cutting, etc. —and begin to find themselves inadvertently hauled before the bench to answer these charges, whom will the blame fall upon?"

Since the land has been broken into little pieces of ownership, it has become important for the different land owners to work together to protect the fish and game and provide the hunter the freedom he needs.

Today it is necessary to use the tools of land use planning. Villagers must testify to planning commissions and Congressional committees. Regional planners and legislators must enact new laws and utilize existing ones to protect land use values. The regional corporation, Calista uses information gathered from satellites in a computerized system of resource analysis in order to assess resource potentials.

But modern land use planning tools are only as useful as the way in which they are used. They can be used carelessly and result in the loss of land values and land use opportunities, as many areas in the United States have vividly illustrated. We need a land use planning process which is oriented to the particular values and needs of this region. This process must be used to re-establish the type of balance and opportunities with the land that existed in former times—before the problems created by drawing lines around pieces of land and calling some mine and others yours.

"The State must make all land use planning decisions with an eye to keeping the options open for the subsistence way of life."

William Tyson has spoken of the basic Yupik relationship to the land and among people which needs to be re-affirmed and re-instituted in the land use planning process:

"To my way of thinking, subsistence is pretty much living off the land as much as we can. That's about all I know because I don't know of any other way of making a living besides living off the land and working together with my neighbors, working side by side.

"To my way of thinking subsistence is living off the land... working together with my neighbors, working side by side."

"If we see somebody to help, we go down and help him. We work side by side and we don't have no conflict with other villages.

"There were some years where some uneasiness was going on, where somebody gets more than I got, I feel kind of cheated, but I just can't help it...

"Sometime back, at home, there was a lot of berries growing around the houses and there used to be some woman coming up and pick berries right outside of our house. My wife would open that door and say, ‘Hey, the coffee is good, won't you come in and have some coffee with me?' The woman who picked berries right outside of my house would come into my house and have coffee with my wife in the house. That was before we got cautious.

"Then, after we were told that we had to have a boundary around our property, then anybody comes and tells us, that one is trespassing and I can do as I please with him. Okay. I'm not helping him no more, just driving him away.

"That is not preserving the land the way it should be.

"The land will provide for us the amount we need. We don't have to bother the land. It's everything growing there as long as we leave it alone. There's a lot of fish in the lakes as long as we leave the other ones, just take enough for the amount that we need. The same way with the birds or anything. All we do is just take the amount we need and leave the rest of them there. Next year we'll have just that much.

"But, if we start fooling around with that, there is going to be something missing next year. A lot of that will be missing.

"That's about the only thing I can say how we live. Subsistence is working side by side and leave the land alone, leave it grow—just let it stay the way it wants to be. So we'll have everything that the land produced in every way."2

If subsistence is going to be able to continue as a way of life, a lot of people will have to be working side by side in managing the land. Villagers must be working side by side with other villages and their regional corporation. And the State and Federal governments will have to find new ways to work side by side with village people in what is now called the land use planning process.

"There's a lot of fish in the lakes as long as we just take enough for the amount that we need. The same way with the birds or anything."

Communication and the Involvement of People

"There was no word or any kind of warning. It seemed like this village was sleeping overnight—one night—and then they woke up next morning and they find out that the musk ox is available here on this island. And they had no idea who was doing it. And when this was realized, the Fish and Wildlife Service said they were doing it and that someday the musk ox are going to help us. And when this was said, it was out of reach of the Natives' minds. Because it was still the practice of not involving us... there was still neglect in it. It seemed like we do not exist. We have no rights.

"...It would be a great help if some of those heads-shot people would come around to see for themselves, to see what it is like to live out here, to see what it is like to carry out their orders."

An unidentified older man speaking to the Federal State Land Use Planning

Commission, Tununak, 1973

This man from Tununak had no college degrees and talked only in Yupik. But he spoke of what so many planners and developers seem to forget or not understand. All the people affected by a land decision should know what is happening, what decisions are being made. The people who live on the land must be involved in deciding what happens to it.

Communication is the first responsibility of land use planning. It is also the element that has been most often lacking in planning for land or anything else in our region.

In the past white men and their governments have never offered to involve the Yupik people in decisions concerning the land that has been theirs since time immemorial. When Russia claimed Alaska as its territory, the Yupik people were not involved. When Alaska became a state, the Yupik people were not involved. When large wildlife refuges were established on the Delta, the Yupik people were not involved. When fish and game regulations were formulated, the Yupik people were not involved. Even when the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was passed, the Yupik people were not involved; many villagers did not even know their land claims were being settled.

When the local village people have not been involved, many mistakes have been made that could have been avoided. And people on the Delta have naturally become suspicious and resentful of those who try to make decisions about the region from far away. As that man in Tununak put it:

"The first time when the land withdrawals were conducted by the Fish and Wildlife, the time when they were marking off land without consent of the people, without asking the people how the land was used within the area. When this was done it was a great mistake on the Fish and Wildlife side. Due to this mistake, there's gonna be a lot of difficulties in the way of fixing this and that so it will be agreeable... Fish and Wildlife neglected the mind of the people. And they put us to a point where we think that they thought there were no people existing in that area. Due to this mistake, a lot of minds are mad today, real mad, because someone tried to take the land that we have used and try to make it into other uses that we don't want. Due to that mistake, we are all working very hard on our part, and on your side. This is the result of that mistake, that so many meetings have to go on from time to time, and so many changes have to be made because of that first mistake."

"When Russia claimed Alaska as its territory, the Yupik people were not involved. When the United States bought Alaska, the Yupik people were not involved. When Alaska became a state, the Yupik people were not involved. When large wildlife refuges were established on the Delta, the Yupik people were not involved. When fish and game regulations were formulated, the Yupik people were not involved. Even when the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was passed, the Yupik people were not involved; many villagers did not even know their land claims were being settled."

To avoid unnecessary mistakes and resentments in land use planning decisions, government policy makers must make greater efforts to involve local people with these thoughts in mind.

1. Information about a land issue must be well prepared and communicated to the people so they will know the issues. In our region translation is usually necessary to insure that people understand. Information should be presented in the ways that will be most easily grasped by the people in the villages.

2. When important land decisions are to be made, extensive hearings should be held in the villages to receive the suggestions and feelings of the local people.

3. Recognizing the difficult communication and transportation situation in this region, agencies dealing with land and resource issues in our region must budget enough funds to get out into the villages to develop two way communication on the issues.

Management Agreement

To begin a process of communication between the people and the Fish and Wildlife Service which could lead to cooperative planning and management, Yupiktak Bista proposed a joint management agreement in 1973. For over a year it was discussed in the villages and in Washington, D.C. Some of the feelings of the village people were expressed by Bartholomew Agathluk speaking to representatives of the Land Use Planning Commission in Emmonak. He said:

"First of all, I'd like to thank the Commission for giving us a chance to express ourselves and say what our ideas are. Now, my concern is a National Wildlife Refuge. That will be my main topic. And under that would be a management agreement. In order for me to start off with my topic, I think I should give a little example. That way I think I will make myself understood and you will be able to understand what I have in mind to say... You know, in every home there's a management. Otherwise, if we don't have a management, there's going to be a conflict. Like, talking about management at home, I as a husband I like to manage everything in the house, you know. But then on the other hand, my wife would like to do some little managing also. So what we do, the only way we can solve the problem is have a management agreement within the house. Now supposing that my wife says she wants to let my little boy eat, you know, lots, and I say to my wife, no I don't like that, he eats too much, I think he's going to have you know, he'll grow chubby. So my wife and I would say, let's make a little compromise, management agreement. Let's say that, you know, we let him eat, you know, not too much and not too little. . . Since we're both managing the house, we would have to make some kind of a management agreement. Well, she would have to tell me her view and I would have to tell her my views, in order to avoid a conflict."

"Okay, now let's talk about this D2, the green stuff here (the land that is being considered for a wildlife refuge), Now, I think. I kind of like this National Wildlife System, for the simple fact that, you know, all of us would like to go out hunting. I like to go out hunting. Now let's take this portion (of the map) here. There is a green, green portion right in between Emmonak and the upriver... I know its mainly for fishing, in summertime for commercial (fishing) and also for the camps, summer camps. Now around this area is a hunting ground, like up the Andreafsky River. Most people go up the river and hunt around for moose, bear, or whatever's up there. I'd kind of like to see this green portion of the map become what is known as the National Wildlife Refuge, with the management agreement. Well supposing this portion is managed by Fish and Wildlife Service, and we don't have any part in it. I don't think we'll be able to hunt. You know, there is going to be conflict there. Well, supposing whoever's managing that refuge says that we cannot hunt or kill moose, but we want moose. Okay, there's going to have to be some kind of agreement there. Well, maybe they're right, maybe we're wrong. In order to find out what the problem is, we have to understand—in order to come to a final agreement. That's what I mean by management agreement, if. this area becomes a national wildlife refuge. And I'd like to see the Native people as part of the management agreement."1

"We think that they thought there were no people existing in that area."

And Axel Johnson, also of Emmonak, has spoken of the need for a management in relation to the lands which are in between village selections. He has said:

"We can select just so much land. But we may not be able to select all this land. And it's that land we cannot select that's within this area. We should tell them how we would like to see.., that handled. This is one big question in our minds. Mountain Village can go down just so far in their selection. And we can go up just so far (from Emmonak). We find that there is going to be a gap. And that is something that is bothering us.

"We would like that land turned over to refuge. But before we do that, we'd like to have some control and management. We'd like to be able to say something (about that land)."1

Even though in the beginning there was great bitterness between the people and the Fish and Wildlife Service, the great need for the people and their village and regional corporations to work with the Fish and Wildlife Service developed in the form of the cooperative management agreement. After long negotiations, the agreement was signed in April 1974 by the Association of Village Council Presidents, Calista Corporation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The agreement defines their mutual interests and responsibilities as follows:

COOPERATIVE MANAGEMENT AGREEMENT
between
ASSOCIATION OF VILLAGE COUNCIL PRESIDENTS
and
CALISTA CORPORATION
and
THE UNITED STATES FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE

THIS COOPERATIVE MANAGEMENT AGREEMENT, made and entered into this twenty-fourth day of April, 1974, by and between the Association of Village Council Presidents (AVCP), Calista Corporation (CALISTA), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Department of the Interior, WITNESSETH:

WHEREAS, AVCP, on behalf of regional Native villages, is vitally concerned with the conservation of fish and wildlife resources and maintenance of all other water and land resources essential to sustaining life and maintaining the culture of Native people.

WHEREAS, the USFWS, as authorized by Section 4 of the Act of October 15, 1966, 80 Stat. 669 (16 USC 668dd) is responsible for administration and management of fish and wildlife habitat, land, and other natural resources of the Clarence Rhode National Wildlife Range and the Cape Newenham, Nunivak, and Hazen Bay National Wildlife Refuges, which includes maintaining good habitat conditions for fish and wildlife and proper use of the land in concert with other recognized uses and users of the land.

WHEREAS, it is the mutual desire of AVCP, the Calista Corporation, and USFWS to recognize their responsibility for lands withdrawn from the range or refuges of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta under provisions of ANCSA and also to recognize their mutual concern but separate responsibilities for managing other regional resources in the best interests of the people of the Delta, State of Alaska, and the United States.

WHEREAS, it is understood by the parties hereto that Calista has conducted hearings preliminarily to drafting a first draft of rules and regulations that will ultimately govern the use and development of Native lands selected by village corporations within the above refuges.

THE USFWS AGREES:

1. To recognize Native people residing in or adjacent to the above refuges range as being dependent upon animal and plant resources and the need to give high priority to protecting subsistence needs essential to sustaining and maintaining the Native lifestyle and/or culture.
2. To consult with all Calista, AVCP and village corporations within the region on the formulation of any refuge regulation involving hunting, fishing, trapping, or any other public uses affecting Native people.
3. To recognize village corporations as being jointly responsible for managing habitat or lands selected and patented from the range or refuges in accordance with provisions of ANCSA.
4. To make or sanction no plant or animal introduction on refuge or range lands until there has been an investigation of its effect on other resources and a consideration of its desirability as a management measure.
5. To furnish AVCP and the Calista Corporation with copies of various reports, plans, correspondence, and material prepared by the USFWS pertinent to fish and wildlife management or refuges or the range and relating to this Agreement. These will include special reports, plans, and recommendations for any regulatory changes deemed necessary to protect fish and wildlife habitat.

AVCP AND CALISTA AGREE:

1. To establish an advisory council composed of village representatives that will be available to advise, make recommendations and review refuge management plans and proposed regulations governing uses and users of refuge and range lands.
2. To recognize the USFWS as the agency responsible for the management of all refuge and range lands of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
3. That with the approval of village corporations, the USFWS will be permitted access to Native lands for the purpose of making studies or investigations designed to improve fish and wildlife management programs on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
4. To keep the USFWS informed of plans for road construction, reindeer grazing, or other developmental activities affecting the region's fish and wildlife resources.
5. To cooperate with the USFWS in the development and implementation of conservation programs designed to benefit the regional fish and wildlife resources.

THE USFWS, CALISTA, AND AVCP AGREE:

1. That all questions pertaining to cooperative work of the three parties arising in the field will be first resolved by the Advisory Council and Refuge Manager-in-charge, and matters of disagreement that cannot be resolved at equivalent levels will be referred to the Alaska Area Director of the USFWS and Directors of AVCP and Calista for final decision.
2. To meet at least once annually or more often, if necessary, to discuss matters of mutual concern relating to subjects relevant to this management agreement.
3. To enter into supplemental agreements for the development of land-use plans and programs designed to improve the socio-economic status of and to benefit the people of the region and also to improve and develop the fish and wildlife resources of the region.
4. To take appropriate action in conformity with Federal and State laws which is necessary for the protection of the subsistence needs of the Native people. To consult with one another, to evaluate the supply of fish and animals and needs measured by (a) degree of dependence, (b) residency, and (c) means of taking.
5. In compliance with Equal Employment Opportunity laws and regulations, education-training programs leading to professional employment of Natives in the wildlife management field will be coordinated with appropriate agencies and implemented as soon as feasible.
6. That nothing in this Agreement shall make or obligate the USFWS, AVCP or Calista to expend any of their respective funds. USFWS shall not be obligated for future payment of money in excess of appropriations authorized by law.
7. That this Agreement shall become effective as soon as it is signed by parties hereto and shall continue in force for five years unless either party upon thirty (30) days notice indicates in writing the intention to terminate upon a date indicated.
8. That six (6) months prior to the termination date of this agreement, all parties will review its provisions so as to mutually develop, if desired, a new agreement with whatever modifications are agreed upon.
9. That amendments to this Agreement may be proposed by either party and shall become effective upon written approval of the other parties.
10. That each and every provision of this Agreement and subsidiary agreements developed under its guidelines is subject to the laws of the United States and the State of Alaska.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties hereto have executed this Agreement as of the date first written.

Association of Village Council Presidents United States Fish and Wildlife Service
By /s/ Edward Hoffman, Sr. By /s/ Gordon W. Watson
Director, AVCP Alaska Area Director, USFWS

Calista Corporation
By /s/ Raymond C. Christiansen
Its President

The cooperative management agreement is really only a beginning. It simply provides an opportunity for the government, the regional corporation and the village people to participate in the type of land use planning that has become necessary to protect the subsistence resources of the Yukon-Kuskokwin Delta.

As the region develops and the land ownership becomes more complicated with more State and private ownership, management agreements can provide a helpful context for planning. In some cases, a planning authority that would bind the various parties to certain land use agreements could be developed to accomplish the kind of coordinated planning that is becoming necessary.

Environmental Evaluation

Another land use planning tool available to the people through the Federal government is the Environmental Policy Act of 1969 which requires that before any developments are made on public lands a thorough evaluation must be made of all the possible side effects. Studies have to be made to determine if a proposed use of land would have any detrimental effects on the fish and game or on the economy and way of life of the people. For example, many oil companies have expressed interest in exploring for oil on the Delta. If they are to develop oil on Federal Wildlife Refuge lands the Federal government must prepare an environmental impact statement which clearly defines such things as how pollution might affect waterfowl, how increased numbers of people in the region would affect the villages, how the economy would be affected. With such information the people are in a better position to decide whether this kind of development is desired.

Although the Federal lands are protected by this law which enables the people to obtain knowledge of what they are getting into, neither of the other two major land owners—the State and the Native corporations—have such laws or policies to help protect the people.

The State of Alaska should enact a State Environmental Policy Act to avoid unexpected problems from development of State lands. Likewise, village and regional corporations should consider setting up a similar procedure of evaluating potential. They should have a way to require a developer—Native or non-Native—to investigate and clearly state all of the possible effects of the proposed development.

State Land Use Planning Responsibilities

The State of Alaska must assume its responsibility in the cooperative management of land to protect subsistence resources. Although the State has neither an environmental protection act or a wildlife refuge system to manage, the State is a major land owner with broad authority to manage and control the use of land in Alaska. However, this authority has never been used to protect subsistence resources because the State has yet to make a basic commitment to subsistence uses of the land.

Through the years, many legislators and administration officials have spoken of their great concern for protecting the subsistence hunting and fishing of the Native people. But nothing has ever come of it. A policy giving priority to subsistence uses has never been established. Laws establishing subsistence use areas have never been passed. And with all the funds that have been spent on analysis and development of other resources, the State has yet to make an effort to obtain basic subsistence-use information, except for ADF&G summer subsistence fish surveys.

State Senator John Sackett from the Tanana Chiefs Region has come up against this "outward support" for subsistence uses which seems to be a reluctance to take the necessary steps to really protect these activities. After trying for nearly two years to pass a bill that would have established subsistence use priority around villages he said he had heard all kinds of comments of concern about the subsistence problem "and that it was a priority need and they had the support of all the administration in this area. And I'd just like to say that's just a lot of lip service, and that's about it. I spent a year and a half fighting for a method by which to try and take care of this problem and little or no help ever came from the administration, in absolutely no direction whatsoever.. . If we assume that the person who has to live off the land must have the priority need, then the question becomes: How do we solve this problem of prioritizing. I hope people will think.. . about the possible structures in State law that are needed in order to one: give priority to subsistence uses, and two: protect the person once he has that priority."

The first step which the State must take is for the legislature to set out a policy and statutory guidelines that would direct various State Departments to protect subsistence uses. Once this basic commitment has been made, there are several land use approaches that State agencies could take in managing for subsistence uses.

1. Control of Access and Use of State Lands. The State of Alaska will own 103 million acres of land which it is now in the process of selecting. Much of this land has been used either directly for subsistence hunting and fishing or indirectly by providing habitat for fish and game populations. State land adjacent to villages or which is otherwise important for subsistence resources could be classified for the purpose of protecting fish and game habitat. Developments adverse to these subsistence resources could be discouraged. The sale or leasing of small recreational sites (such as the open to entry program) could be curtailed in areas where extra hunting and fishing would make it more difficult for the local people to subsist from the land. Recreational uses in conflict with subsistence uses could also be minimized by limiting use of motorized vehicles and airplanes, which are used primarily by the recreational hunters and fishermen.

"The sale or leasing of small recreational sites (such as the open to entry program) should be curtailed in areas where extra hunting and fishing would make it more difficult for the local people to subsist from the land."

2. The State's Zoning Powers for Private Land. The State and regional and municipal governments as well, can zone private lands to prevent any land uses that would disturb habitat through such things as pollution or disruption of a watershed.

3. The State's Role in Long Range Land Use Planning. The State will play a major role in the sweeping land use planning decisions that will set the patterns of development and population distribution through the State in the future. If the State is going to accept its responsibility to the subsistence users of the rural areas, it must make all land use planning decisions with an eye to keeping the options open for the subsistence way of life. These decisions will involve the placing of roads, the development of public transportation, the sale and leasing of State lands, cooperative management systems with Federal and private land managers.

4. A State Environmental Policy Act. As already discussed, the State should enact legislation similar to the National Environmental Policy Act which will assure a thorough appraisal of all developments and major actions relating to State lands.

5. Funding of State Agencies. State agencies which relate to subsistence land uses should receive adequate funding to handle their respective subsistence responsibilities. The Department of Community and Regional Affairs should have the resources to assist regions and villages in the process of planning for subsistence uses. The Department of Fish and Game should have the staff and program arrangements to work closely with the rural people in managing subsistence resources, to undertake subsistence related research, to assist in the reestablishment or introduction of subsistence fish and game populations.
   The Department of Highways should become a Department of Transportation with staff capability to evaluate and plan transportation in relation to subsistence resource use. The Department of Natural Resources should develop a subsistence program; perhaps a Subsistence Division should be established to work with the Division of Lands and Division of Parks and Recreation within the Department.

6. Subsistence Office. Within State government there should be one centralized office which focuses on subsistence resource planning. In addition to each Department carefully making subsistence considerations, there needs to be one office whose sole responsibility is subsistence planning. This responsibility might best be placed within the Department of Community & Regional Affairs or within the Division of Policy, Development and Planning in the Governor's office.

The Regional Corporation and Land Use Planning

Calista, the regional corporation for the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta must play an important and responsible role in land use planning. Calista, like other regional corporations has a financial responsibility to the people through investing of funds and the development of sub-surface resources like oil and gas. This responsibility to make money for the people is very important but a greater responsibility of the corporation is to be responsive to the true needs and wishes of the people.

To remain responsive to the real needs of the people, the regional corporation will have to develop and maintain very close cooperation and communication with the villages. The regional corporation's programs and policies must evolve directly from the goals and objectives of the villages. In relation to land use planning, these programs and policies must be considered in two areas: 1) the regional corporation's role in working with other land managers (i.e. Federal, State and regional governments and private land holders) in cooperative land use planning efforts, and 2) the creation of the regional corporation's own development projects.

An example of how the regional corporation can help involve the needs and interests of the villagers in the regional land use planning was Calista's testimony at the Land Use Planning Commission's D2 land hearing in Bethel, 1973. Speaking for Calista, Mary Gregory clearly set out the type of land use considerations which must be made to protect the subsistence way of life. She said:

"My name is Mary Gregory. I wish to present a statement on D-2 lands and land use planning in this region on behalf of Calista, a non-profit organization of the 52 associated villages of this region. The Native people of this region historically have depended on the utilization of fish, wildlife and plants. These resources are the basis of their economy.

" Although some persons are no longer completely dependent on such use of resources, the overwhelming majority of the Native people depend to a substantial degree on fishing, hunting, trapping and gathering of plant foods. This economy cannot be supported on the land patented to the villages. The continued use of public lands for such subsistence uses would be essential for the welfare of many persons and the viability of the Native culture. We will oppose wildlife refuges or any other classification of public lands in our region which does not recognize and protect the needs of the village people to use all of the land in the region for substantial, subsistence activities. We will support the creation of wildlife refuges on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Deltas and in the Togiak area if the legislation establishing these refuges there is the following: 1) A primary purpose of the refuge would be to provide for the continuance of the subsistence way of life of village people. 2) Subsistence resources on which the people depend will be protected from such things as oil and other pollution and adverse impact of too many visitors. 3) Subsistence activities would be authorized as the basis of the way of the Native people in this region. I will restate that—3) Subsistence activities will be authorized as the basis of the way of life of the Native people of this region. 4) The village people will be actively involved in the planning and management of any refuges created, provisions for their involvement would be included in the legislation creating the refuge. If the foregoing conditions for establishing new refuges can also be guaranteed for existing refuges within this region. We support inclusion into the wildlife refuge system of virtually all public lands in the region which is not selected by either villages or the regional corporations for the D-2 and other public lands in our region we ask the Land Use Planning Commission to support the following consideration. 1) The Land Use Planning Commission will assist and cooperate with the development of a regional land use planning effort. 2). The Federal-State Land Use Planning Commission will encourage the development of regional transportation systems, such as improved air service, hovercraft, and greater use of marine highways, which do not involve overland roads. 3) Extensive public easement between villages or running elsewhere through the region will not be created at this time."1

"We will oppose wildlife refuges or any other classification of public lands in our region which does not recognize and protect the needs of the village people."

In the future, subsistence resources may not appear to be as important as the value of other land uses when they are evaluated by Western methods of dollars and cents—cost and benefit analysis. The cost of replacing the subsistence foods lost as a result of another resource development may not be as great as the amount of cash generated by the development. Is the development then judged more valuable simply because it can be equated with more cash? Are there other values to be considered? If so, how should these considerations be made? Elaborating on these thoughts, Dr. Brad Tuck, economist, for the Federal-State Land Use Planning Commission has said:

"I think that an over reliance on subsistence activity in an economic context has fairly serious implications from a policy point of view, if in fact your interest is maintenance of the subsistence way of life. Now, that in turn suggests that subsistence activity needs to be considered in a much broader context than a purely economic one; it is a genuine social and cultural concern.... We can't solve subsistence questions in isolation. The resolution of the subsistence crisis has to take place in the context of development of an overall common philosophy for planning in Alaska... We need to establish fundamental policy parameters for planning that do answer questions such as: Do we have development in an economic sense as you commonly measure it? If so, what kind of development? Where should this development take place? How much of it do we want? To what extent do we have controls over the amount of development that takes place? ... What I am suggesting here is that we do need the development of an overall context of planning, one that treats the issue of subsistence as a major issue, and one that also considers non-subsistence uses."2

The greatest challenge facing the regional corporation is not how greatly financial assets can be increased. The real challenge is in developing its own method of considering questions of resource use so that the real needs of the village people will be served. Since the decisions will involve subtle and complex relationships between subsistence, cultural, and financial factors, the method or process of evaluating will have to relate to both Yupik and Western values. This task will be all the more difficult because people of the Delta are for the most part not familiar with the Western corporate system and methods of resource evaluation.

The complexities of the corporate financial world and resource planning have presented many problems to Native Americans. Most American Indian tribes remain in something of a trust status with the U.S. government. One exception has been the Menominee people, who like Alaska Natives received their land and financial settlement free and clear and took responsibility for the management of these resources. Because of striking similarities between the Menominees termination of tribal status and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, some lessons might be learned from the Menominee experience. The Native American Rights Fund has described the Menominee dilemma in an article titled "Making the White Man's Law Fit the Indian—the Menominee Restoration Act." When the Menominee Termination Act was signed into law on June 17, 1954.

"...the Menominee then were unexpectedly asked to pay the costs for a formidable array of studies, meetings and designs associated with the planning process. The actual (settlement) plan was such a complex and lengthy legal document that few Menominee, government officials, lawyers or experts associated with it comprehended it...

"The tribal assets were turned over to a new corporation, Menominee Enterprises Inc. (MEI), and suddenly Menominee survival was based on knowledge of a complicated, corporate style of living including: par value stocks, voting trusts, income bonds and shareholders rights...

"Subsistence activity needs to be considered in a much broader context than a purely economic one; it is a genuine social and cultural concern."

"The effects of termination and corporate-style management of Menominee assets pitted brother against brother and parents against their children. It increased the poverty of most individual Menominees, created political turmoil, and brought on economic chaos...

" MEI, as well as individual Menominees, were forced to sell corporate shares and land in order to pay county and State taxes. As a result, acres and acres of the heartland of the magnificent Menominee forest were sold to non-Indians and Menominee reservation lands fell into the hands of non-Indian developers who destroyed religious sites and the cultural character of the community.

" Interestingly enough, the corporate structure of MEI did not provide for control by the Menominee. Non-Indian businessmen and so-called experts were given control over the operation to insure its success. The result was collusion with non-Indian interests and the demise of the Menominee assets."

We will not face the taxation problems of the Menominees for some years, but our regional corporation is otherwise in virtually the same position as was the Menominee Enterprises Inc. In the end, the Menominee asked and were given restoration of their tribal status in order to prevent the complete loss of their land and financial assets and cultural identity. If Calista and the Yupik people are to fare any differently, we will have to find ways to

1. Have the people informed and involved in the decisions affecting our land, financial assets and culture;
2. Find ways to make the corporate system serve the values and needs of our culture;
3. Make certain the control of Calista always remains with the people in the villages. Only leaders with a deep sense of commitment of responsibility to the people should be elected to the Board of Directors.

The problems of resolving subsistence and cash resource development problems will be particularly difficult in our region because many of the people living the subsistence lifestyle are not well experienced in dealing with cash. From the family level to the regional corporation ways must be learned to deal with cash and to balance cash economic development with protection and use of subsistence resources. Both for individuals and the corporation there are difficulties in learning how to deal with the cash economy, as John Paul Jones has testified to the Land Use Planning Commission:

"We cannot just become businessmen overnight... you're just pushing us, pushing us."

"We cannot just become businessmen overnight and be a Ford company or GMC company. We can't do that. And you know it. But the way things are now, you're just pushing us, pushing us, pretty soon you take this land and you take that land over there too and say, okay, this is now Federal government land.. . I don't think you can take these people off the land. They have been eating the food off the land for many years now. You have your black fish. You have your tom cods. You have your moose. You have your seal. The land is rich. Gives you food, nourishment. Keeps you alive. Now, I think what you're trying to say is that you are hoping someday we get into your economy, you know, get with it in your economy and live your standards. Have steak on Sundays, every morning have eggs, juice, that is the thing that I feel is being imposed on the people. . . It's just destroying a person, I think. It's destroying our life style."1

If the regional corporation imposes too much of the cash economy too quickly, it runs the risk of destroying the life style of the people it is supposed to serve. The corporate structure and decision making process that were imposed upon us by the Native Claims Settlement Act and our financial and natural resources provide certain opportunities to benefit from the modern ways of life. But the risks of losing our own way of life while learning to deal with the corporate cash economy system are very real. These risks can be minimized in a number of ways.

1. The regional corporation should always make great efforts to communicate closely with the village people.

2. The regional corporation should not move to develop resources hastily. There is great danger of mistakes being made when developments and changes come too quickly.

3. The regional corporation should develop a process of environmental and cultural evaluation similar to the National Environmental Policy Act to help make certain that the bad effects of developments don't outweigh the beneficial effects.

4. The regional corporation should always be directly controlled by the village people, never by an elite removed from the people or by outside financial interests which probably won't care about the real needs and well being of the people.

"You are hoping someday we get into your economy...have steaks on Sundays... every morning have eggs and juice."

Villages and Land Use Planning

The villages have perhaps the most important role in the land use planning process. They are the closest organization to the land. So they should be most sensitive as to how the land can serve the people and how the land can be protected. Since village corporations own surface rights to land in their area, they will have the primary responsibility to manage the subsistence resources upon which the village people depend. The villages will have to resolve conflicts and problems of competing uses as they arise, between different people in the village, between different villages, and between the village and the regional corporation.

Stanley Waskog of Emmonak has described the type of cooperative spirit he would like to see continue throughout the villages:

(Interpreted by Mr. Martin Moore)

"He says that first of all, he's talking about the future young people of the State. And at this time that is his concern, not particularly himself. Because he's getting old now, he wants the younger generation of the State of Alaska in this area to be protected. He says that he'll probably not be able to hunt too much anymore, but his children, and his son's children will use that land.

" He'd like to now make a stand to protect those children—the future children of this area. He says that now the Federal government and State government are going to be talking about this land for a long time. It's no use stopping them now. We should proceed and help them progress provided we have a partial say-so in the control of that area.

" He says he's changed his residence at least three times in this time. The first one was in Quigmy, one of the old historical sites right about 15, 20 miles from here. He says when he lived there, the only type of income that he had was, that he knew, was subsistence living. He says particularly in wintertime, it's the only thing that really gives him nourishment and helps to bring him up was the black fish and the rabbits and the ptarmigan that were within that area. He says when he was young, when he was in Quigmy, in the summer time he used to catch fish and that's how he make his living in the summer time, and make dry fish and eat dry fish.

" He says as far as he could remember, none of the villages in that surrounding area had ever had any conflict over whose hunting rights and hunting grounds they were. All of the hunting grounds that he knew, were always shared by the nearby villages ever since he knew. Knowing that experience, he wants that experience to continue with the (cooperation) of the Department of Fish and Game in the management of that land. He says he moved, later on to Hamilton, and he made Hamilton his residence. And when he went to Hamilton he made new acquaintances, and knew surrounding villages that was Katlik and the other little surrounding villages that shared the same thing, they shared all the hunting places without ever arguing whose hunting rights those other places were. He says that he knew that these people were helping each other by cooperation.

"No one time has he ever seen a dispute between whose mink a mink is, and whose land otter a land otter is, or whose hunting ground that is."

"He strongly emphasized and wants the Commission to know that he wants full cooperation, a working relationship with the Eskimos of this area for the things that they need in management and in control of different types of species of hunting animals. He says that in his experience, he went up in the mountain hills to go hunting, and many times he met other people that were up from other villages that went up in that country to hunt. Furthermore, he went around the coast and yet met other people that went hunting in that area. And never once did he have an argument over whose hunting place it is or what he should get from that area. He says only if that kind of harmony and working relationship could be established within this new area, then he would agree to that matter.

" He says from Hamilton he moved to Emmonak and makes his residence here. He said when he moved here, he met many more people and covered much more land and he is among many other villages now. He says that he is able to travel with snow machine into places where he never traveled before. He's able to travel with a boat and meet many more people that he never met before.

" He's out traveling around Sheldon's Point, around Katlik, around Mountain Village area, and many areas that he didn't cover when he was in that first place. But he says, strangely that these Eskimos that were traveling to further places and cover more area, their working relationship seems to be in closer harmony than it has ever been before. He says that not one time has he ever seen a dispute between whose mink a mink is, and whose land otter a land otter is, or whose hunting ground that is. With that experience of three different villages, he says that if that could happen, then this is how the arrangements for that particular area should be incorporated into, or worked into, or managed into.

" He says that people now make use of the coast, they make use of the interior, they make use of the hills, and most of all of the people here in this region practically know each other. When he was young, they used to go by rowboats, dog team, but now even though they're mingling with many other people of the Eskimo area, they still find harmony and that's the way it should go".1

One way in which the villages have resolved to continue the open use of the land by village people is an agreement reached between the villages that all Native people in the region could have access to all of the village lands.

"Everyone at Nightmute and along the coast lives with the sea. This winter especially we are short on food. It is an unusually long winter: There is a shortage of food, and since we survive on seafoods we would like to ask if you would please consider our needs before passing the bill taking away our life survival.

If the bill prohibits hunting of sea mammals at any time the people will listen to the hunger of their families and hunt even against the bill. The whole Western Alaska coast-line will be violating the law and the jails will be constantly filled if the law is strongly enforced. The hunters go to the sea to take care of the subsistence needs of their families, and not for sports... We do not want our children to break any laws. We have always tried to follow all the laws of the government... But we will not sit around obeying a law when our families are starving."

Isidore Tulik, Nightmute, l9725

Management Conflicts and Needs for Subsistence Users

Fortunately for Isidore Tulik and every other Native person in the region, when Congress enacted this law it was modified to allow subsistence use of marine mammals. But his feelings are typical of the frustration felt by our people every time a law opposing or limiting subsistence hunting and fishing is proposed, enacted, or enforced.

To the village hunter and fisherman, fish and game regulations have been something handed down from people in Anchorage, Juneau and Washington D.C. who apparently know or care little about the subsistence needs of the village people. After the laws have been passed without the involvement of the village people, the enforcing agencies usually haven't even bothered to discuss the new regulations with the people. This lack of involvement and communication has left people with mixed feelings of fear, guilt and resentfulness. A woman from Emmonak has described the problem like this:

"At this time many of the Eskimo people don't have too much to eat at home.. . One of our biggest problems is understanding the law, the laws that are enforced by the Fish and Game Department. Many of the older people don't read or write. They don't know the regulations and rules and usually are too scared to even help themselves."

"I get a guilty feeling what works inside of me. So I feel limited to what I can get from the land. And every time I go out hunting, survival hunting, I have this guilty feeling that I am stealing behind somebody's back for the food I need for myself and my family in the village."

"While fish and game resources were once a crucial factor in the survival of all Alaskans, a growing population segment is becoming partially or totally independent of these resources. This change is the result of advanced food production technologies elsewhere, rapidly improving logistics, and a growing immigrant population whose demands mainly involve recreational and non-consumptive resource uses.

" Nevertheless, direct domestic utilization of fish and game is still vital to the maintenance of most rural Alaskans and is an essential supplement to the larders of some urban citizens. Beyond directly satisfying food requirements, home consumption of fish and game tends to preserve indigenous cultures and traditions and gives justification and gratification to a strong desire possessed by many to hunt and fish. The latter functions seem genuinely important to the physical and psychological well-being of a large number of Alaskans.

" The very rapid changes occurring in Alaska now give rise to grave concern that the accustomed contribution of fish and game to subsistence economies will be threatened: By reason of culture, location, economic situation or choice, large numbers of people will find it impossible to abandon or alter their way of life at a pace paralleling changes brought by new shifts in land status and ownership, non-renewable resource developments, road extensions, transportation improvements, and a phenomenal rate of population growth. In recognition of the above facts and of the responsibilities mandated to the board and the Commissioner, the following statements which express the views of these authorities are considered necessary and timely.

" The existing variety of cultures and life styles in Alaska are of great value and should be preserved. While limitations on the productivity of fish and game must discourage continued increases in the numbers of subsistence type resource users, domestic utilization is still of fundamental importance to many Alaskans, and accordingly it is assigned the highest priority among beneficial uses. Within legal and biological constraints, fish and game will be allocated to subsistence users on the basis of need. It is understood that the needs of individuals, families or groups will differ in type and degree and that subjective judgments will unavoidably be necessary in weighing actual need.

" Elements considered in establishing the level of need include culture, custom, economic status, alternative resources, location, and voluntary choice of life style. It is further understood that subsistence requirements will not make equal demands on all resources in all areas, and that recreation, commercial and, non-consumptive uses will continue to be permitted where and to the extent that they do not truly interfere with or jeopardize subsistence use.

" It is the expressed intent of the Board and the Commissioner to be guided by the above stated policies in fulfilling their duties of managing Alaska's fish and game in the face of drastic changes in land status, nonrenewable resource development, and economic and cultural changes."2

1. Local subsistence users would have the first priority. In other words, people living in a rural region who need subsistence foods would have the first priority use of fish and game resources in that region.
2. Commercial use of fish and wildlife resources would have second priority, and would, of course, be closely related to other uses.
3. Alaskan resident subsistence users would have the priority use of fish and game resources in a given region. This means that an urban subsistence user or a subsistence user from another rural region would follow the regional or local subsistence user in priority.
4. Sport use of fish and game by Alaska residents would follow subsistence users in priority.
5. Lowest priority would be given to out-of-state hunters and fishermen who want to use Alaska's fish and game resources for sport or commercial purposes.

1. Establish a Subsistence Division with the Department.
2. Shift some of its efforts in wildlife research and management from the big game animals to species of fish and game like the black fish which is not as glamorous as a mountain goat or grizzly bear but nevertheless more important to the rural subsistence user.
3. Seek new ways to involve rural subsistence users in the policy making and management process.
4. Develop educational materials and programs that will promote the wise use of fish and game for subsistence purposes.
5. Develop a program of replenishing depleted subsistence fish and game populations—this would include restocking salmon spawning streams, reintroducing beaver or rabbits in certain areas and similar efforts.
6. After careful consideration of possible adverse effects, introduce species such as caribou which have a great subsistence value.
7. Study proposed developments for their effects upon subsistence resources.

1. International Treaties must be made to prevent foreign fishing operations from depleting Alaskan fisheries.
2. Effective limited entry programs must be enforced to limit outside enterprises exploiting the fisheries in Alaskan waters.
3. The State must initiate substantial fishery research and rehabilitation programs.
4. The State must prohibit any activities that threaten to pollute spawning and rearing grounds of Alaskan fisheries.
5. If a fishery becomes so depleted that several limits must be set on the catch, subsistence fishing must have priority over sport and commercial fishing.

"Because the people directly concerned and involved and affected by the Sea Mammal Act were unable to come themselves and testify, I was sent here to testify in their behalf and give you their thoughts on the sea mammal legislation. Now there is no real problem as far as they are concerned with the Sea Mammal Act itself—there are several points they feel should be changed and I will get to that later in my testimony.

" I think before I go into that I'd like to talk a little bit about the use of the sea mammals by those villages on the coast and also those villages away from the coast. The primary mammal used by the people on our coast is the hair seal. The hair seal is used en toto, in other words, everything is used that is a part of the hair seal. The skin is used, the fat is used, the meat is used, the intestines are used—except for the bones which are inedible—those are not used. The fat is sent up the two rivers to those Eskimos further up the river and also carried to those villages in the interior further away from the coast—and also the villages on the coast. There is not that much walrus being caught on the coast of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. There are some taken at Nunivak Island and also on Nelson Island and further down toward the Kuskokwim, but very little walrus is caught on the Yukon Delta. Whenever walrus is caught, it is then used en toto.

" Walrus hides have never been used for dog food—that has always been consumed by the people that caught the walrus themselves. They don't eat the walrus hides the day they get it but they cook it and put it in barrels where it is stored for the rest of the year. The blubber they also use, along with the meat and the intestines and the fat. So you see, the walrus is used en toto.

" The Beluga, which is another mammal, is becoming rare in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. There was a time when there were a lot of Beluga going through our area, but not at this point. I think there's only one village that I know of this summer that has caught any Beluga—which is the white whale, they were plentiful at one time but now they are scarce; the reasons, I don't know.

"Now as far as the Sea Mammal Act is concerned, a regular family will average out about six hair seals each year—that's how much a family is going to use in a year—the meat they are going to dry or eat at that time. The fat they are going to store and the skins are going to be dried and used for mukluks, coats and whatever. However, the sea mammal legislation says that the people in the villages cannot sell unfinished skins.

" I think this was in part done to discourage the large taking of hair seal just to sell the skins but I think the opposite is true now. Say there is a village of 50 families and each of these families were to get six seals you'd have about 300 seal pelts in the village. Now in two years that would be 1,200 seal pelts in the village. Now it is true that the use of the pelts is not as widespread as it used to be, the people are not making their umiaks out of seal skins any more. They now have regular skiffs. They are not using seal skins to make their kayaks anymore. They're using canvas instead because it's a lot easier to work with.

" They are not able to manufacture a great number of seal skin products because they can't do that. Also, they can't get rid of these seal skins because they are not allowed to do so by the Act. Previously, in Kodiak, they did sell their raw skins to furriers in Seattle and other points. What they would like to see changed is that the take of the seals remain open as long as the family will use all the parts of that seal. In other words, if a family takes ten seals in one year it will take those seals with the knowledge that it is going to use those ten seals. But at the same time they should be able to make the best use of the pelts they are going to be getting from these seals. If it means making mukluks that's what they are going to do. But if it means selling them to furriers, that should also be open. Because if the people don't use these pelts they are going to waste in the village.

" This is their main point of objection. They are not saying the seals should be killed for the pelt, they are saying they should be allowed to take any number of seals they need and then make the best use of the pelts that they can.

" Also, as far as the State getting jurisdiction of the sea mammals, I don't know what the consensus is about the State taking over the control of the sea mammals, but for the most part I think that such a move would be beneficial not only to the people in the villages but also for the whole management of these species."6

"Well the statute specifically says, Mr. Napoleon,... in each case is not accomplished in a wasteful manner. We expect that the Natives under that exemption will first of all, utilize for subsistence or for the very narrow craft purposes any animals under the exemption. We expect them not to be wasteful. We operate under the assumption that when they are going to go in business that they will then be bound by the same rules everybody else is bound by. I don't consider that to be unfair."6

"As far as we know there has been no waste of the animals in the area that we come from. Maybe in the years when there was a bounty placed on the hair seal there might have been some waste because at this point they were actually encouraging people to go and kill a seal and they would pay $3 for fins. They automatically reversed from that stand to another stand which said you just couldn't do it unless you (avoided waste)—which is a reasonable change."

" ...Our people advocate the continued use of the seal for subsistence purposes. That is what they are mainly interested in. This is something I want to make clear that the majority of the people out there like sea mammal legislation because it does prohibit the wasteful use of seal. They don't like the selling of the seal skin—just to sell it to somebody else. They want to continue use of the sea mammal, and there is no waste on their part."6

"...Such a policy would be good if that species was in fact endangered. But then again keeping open the possibility—well I think its always open—the possibility that a hungry man will kill whatever he can get his hands on. As far as the sea otter and the polar bear are concerned, I think if they are endangered, they should be protected."6

1. It prohibits overexploitation and wasteful use of marine mammals by anyone, and in this way protects the subsistence resource.
2. It allows subsistence use by people who truly depend upon the use of marine mammals.

"As far as I can remember, my forefathers have lived off the land and they must live off the land now. In the springtime of the year we take goose eggs and duck eggs and geese. And all the year we do the same thing because we don't have money to buy white people's grub. We have to live off the land."
Joseph Albritez

1. State, Federal and international regulations and treaties are in conflict with traditional use of waterfowl.
2. The populations of birds themselves are becoming threatened by such things as increased hunting pressures outside Alaska, pollution and the loss of habitat.

Do Native people still need waterfowl?
Can existing rules and regulations permit subsistence use of waterfowl?
Is subsistence use of waterfowl compatible with sound waterfowl management?
How can conflicts between subsistence and sports use of waterfowl be resolved?

"A total of 170 species of birds have been observed on the Yukon Delta. Of these, 136 probably nest there, and many are common migrants. A few visitors from Asia have been recorded infrequently. Only 13 species are year-round residents. During migration, some birds from the Yukon Delta probably reach most provinces of Canada, every state in the United States, every state of Mexico, all countries in Central and South America, Antarctica, virtually all of the Pacific Islands, all Asian countries bordering the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand."

"Since the beginning of time, the Eskimos and Indians of the Far North have looked with longing anticipation to the return of spring, when great flocks of geese, ducks, and shorebirds return from their ancestral southern wintering grounds, build their nests on the tundra, and provide eggs and fresh meat for Natives. Winter diets of seal, whale, dried salmon and shee fish, with occasional caribou and moose meat for the lucky ones, are forgotten as fresh flesh and blood arrive once again. Although white-man's foods have replaced some of the ancient primitive diet, the return of migrant waterfowl is a gala occasion as long Arctic winters lose their grip on the Northland.

" Historically, the Alaska Native has been totally dependent upon the resources of the land for his livelihood and existence. Meat of various mammalian species taken on land or sea, or of birds, migratory and resident, or of fish, remains to this day the basic diet. Prior to the arrival of the white man, meat was consumed to the exclusion of all other food items except occasional native plants. The Eskimo food quest was thus centered wholly in the wildlife of the region. It is this, in its various manifestations, which underlies his adjustments in ecology and culture.

"Because food gathering is the foremost motivation, and mammals, birds and fish form the basic source of livelihood, the hunter is the leader of the community. A man's standing within his group or community is directly related to his success as a good food gatherer.

" In bird hunting, the Alaska Native tends to be selective. Fowl that form an important part of the Native diet are principally ducks and geese, and their capture becomes the chief preoccupation for that part of the year when they are abundant and available—principally during the spring nesting season and the later flightless molts.

" Prior to the introduction of firearms, waterfowl were harvested by primitive, ingenious means. Baleen nets were stretched in narrow passes or at headlands where birds flew low during migration. Bolas were thrown, nets were placed in lakes to enmesh diving ducks; spears and clubs were used on flightless, molting waterfowl; and snares were used for ptarmigan, owls and gulls.

" Women and children participated in harvesting this wealth from the tundra by gathering eggs. In some areas, sled dogs were turned loose to fend for themselves during the summer, subsisting mainly on flightless birds and eggs. Village location, in some cases, was dictated by the closeness to nesting concentrations or to lakes where large numbers of ducks or geese molted. Spring celebrations attracted several groups or villages together for drives on molting waterfowl where hundreds and even thousands of birds could be obtained easily. Colonial nesting sea birds were hunted for meat, eggs and skins.

"Traditionally, Eskimos move their villages to 'spring-camp' by dog team in early spring—locations where migratory waterfowl are easily taken and fishing through the ice and after breakup is good. The first ducks are eaten with gusto— usually raw—for, in some areas, this is the first fresh meat consumed since the previous fall. Fish, dried or fresh, has been the mainstay dish during the long winter months.

"Besides providing meat for food and skins for clothing, Waterfowl have always been deeply involved in Native folklore and mythology. Bird beaks, bones and feathers adorn ceremonial dress and masks, and the lore of birds is prominent in stories of Eskimo ancestors. The computation of time is on a lunar basis consisting of 13 months. The Eskimo word for May is 'Tonmeretutkeraat' meaning 'Geese Come' for August 'Ecerreat' meaning 'Ducks Lack Feathers.'

" King remarks that the prohibition against the Natives taking waterfowl in spring and summer months is to an Eskimo youngster more tragic than telling white kids in the States that they must stop hunting colored eggs at Eastertime, or forego Christmas trees during Yule celebrations.

" Hunting methods have changed with the passage of time and the introduction of white man's culture. Bolas, spears and baleen webs have been replaced by high-powered shotguns and nylon nets. In most areas, dog teams have given way to mechanical marsh buggies, snow machines, fast-shallow draft boats with high-powered outboards, and even airplanes on skis and floats. Yet, these modern devices require hard cash—a commodity in very short supply among Native hunters — so traditional practices persist over most areas of the Eskimo country. The Native dependence on fish and game remains the same in the smaller, remote villages.

" During recent years, important changes have gradually occurred. Official Federal and State agencies have increased their observations of the extent and importance of Alaskan waterfowl breeding grounds. Aerial transect surveys of the principal concentrations were initiated in 1957, ten years later than those established for the Prairie Provinces of Canada, for for the Dakotas, Minnesota and other important more southernly nesting grounds. These observations revealed the great importance of Alaska as a nursery ground for many species important to other State and Canadian sportsmen.

" Management of the total continental population, and some species in particular has become increasingly significant as drainage of pot holes and marshes in Canada and the northern States has proceeded unabated, as hunting demands have intensified and as periodic drouths have exerted greater pressure on the nesting marshes that have so far escaped the plow, the ditcher, the new highways, and other inroads of an expanding economy.

"Furthermore, the legitimate demands of the Eskimos are changing. Around some towns and villages having a good economic base, such as Barrow, Fairbanks, Anchorage and to a lesser degree, Bethel, there is much less need for Natives to hunt for food than in the hinterlands.

" Central to the current problem is the Migratory Birds Treaty, negotiated with Great Britain, pertaining to Canada, in December 1916. A similar treaty between the United States and the United Mexican States was negotiated in March 1937. Thus, Federal responsibilities have long given protection and management to migratory birds over the entire North American Continent, from the Caribbean Sea to the Arctic Ocean.

" Both treaties provide for closed seasons and prohibit sale and traffic in wild birds. Of particular importance to the Alaska problem, they

1. Limit the season for hunting in the Treaty with Great Britain to three and one-half months.
2. Establish firm closed seasons between March 10 and September 1, in both treaties.
3. The Treaty with Great Britain provides that Eskimo and Indians may take at any season auks, auklets; guillemots, murres and puffins and their eggs for food and their skins for clothing, but prohibits sale. Indians are permitted to take scoters at any time for food.

"The legislative history of waterfowl management in Alaska is discussed in detail elsewhere in this report, but a brief resume here will demonstrate the legal inconsistencies and contradictions which are, in large part, responsible for the present conflict.

"Chronologically:

1. The first effective Federal law was enacted in 1902, largely to halt commerce in wild game. It specified that game could be killed for food at any time by Eskimos, Indians, miners, explorers or travelers when in need of food. Significantly, the great Alaska gold rush occurred in 1898.

2. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1916 with Great Britain, contains no special provision for Native take except as specified above; i.e.— murres, puffins, etc., and seasons other than March 10 to September 1, and for Indians, scoters at any time.
3. The Federal Alaska Game Law of 1925 made provision for Indians, Eskimos, prospectors or travelers to take animals or birds when there was "absolute need of food and other food is not available." It was under this authority that the Secretary, through the Alaska Game Commission, took care of the Native problem.
4. The Alaska Statehood Act of 1958 repealed all Federal authority in the waterfowl field except research, administration of refuges, and enforcement of the Migratory Bird Treaty provisions.
   
   " The State Fish and Game Code, adopted following Statehood, permits the taking of game except migratory birds (italics supplied) during any season in case of dire emergency. It provides that the taking of migratory birds shall be in accordance with the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act and Federal regulations.
   
   " The new Alaska Constitution provides that 'All persons are equal and entitled to equal rights, opportunities and protection under the law,' and that; 'all persons have corresponding obligations to the people of the State."
5. Federal authority in Alaska since Statehood is limited to the provisions of the Treaty which outlaw all hunting between March 10 and September 1, each year, and to a season which cannot exceed three and one half months. Thus, legally the situation is now in worse shape than it has ever been in the entire history of Alaska.
   
   " The gradual changes in conditions which had occurred during the past decade, the new knowledge of the importance of Alaska breeding grounds to the Continental population of waterfowl, the improvement in Native living conditions around such towns as Bethel, Barrow, Anchorage and Fairbanks, and the changed legal requirements brought about by Statehood and the Alaska Game Code—all pointed to a need for stricter enforcement of the Treaty provisions.
   
   " With these things in mind, the Bureau in May 1960, issued an enforcement guideline that considered the varying degrees of progress, cultural changes and dependence on waterfowl for food among the Native peoples of the State. No heavy-handed enforcement effort was contemplated, but rather an attempt was to be made to gradually increase the emphasis on protection as required by the Treaty.
   
   " Educational effort was to be stressed to encourage awareness of the conservation needs as a necessary step to compliance. Meetings were held in all of the major Native villages of the State during the next 12 months, 57 in number....
   
   " Enforcement in the spring of 1961 following the series of meetings met organized resistance in the "progressive" areas. Bureau personnel at. . . (Bethel) were fired upon—something that no law enforcement officer can take lightly. At Barrow, after such an incident and arrests of three violators were made, another 138 Eskimos deliberately turned themselves in with one eider duck each in their possession. At a subsequent meeting 300 Barrow Natives signed a petition asking President Kennedy to issue emergency regulations permitting them to hunt migratory waterfowl for food at any time of the year, and if enforcement against them to prevent this was to take place thereafter, to seek a change in the convention."

JOE FRIDAY: (Mr. Romer's interpretation)—"Out at Chevak where he came from, they don't have any money or any way of earning money. They have to live off the land, so it doesn't matter whether the season is closed or open, they still have to live off the land. If you don't think it's hard to live off the land, why don't you guys leave your money behind and go out there and see if you can live off the land?"3

JOSHUA PHILLIP: (Mr. Romer's interpretation)—"He says in the spring of the year when they go out to their hunting ground they are short of food and when the geese come they have to kill the geese in order to live until they start catching muskrats and other animals they can eat.., they just kill enough geese for their own use in the spring of the year."3

MAXIE ALSTIK: (Mr. Romer's interpretation)—"When the Natives go hunting in the fall they live off the land. In the spring of the year when they run short of grub or food, they go out there and kill anything so their kids won't go hungry, He says if you people came here to make a refuge or try to take the land away from these people—it's like taking food away from their children. It is like taking food away from somebody that is going to eat."3

MR. MICHAEL: "I have a personal distrust of the Fish and Wildlife Service. I don't want any promises made to me or to my people unless I can see them in the game book. We have a game book, but I distrust the Fish and Wildlife agents on the reason that we are promised right tonight at this meeting that come what may, next year whoever take eggs, you go to jail, and I have to survive on that. My kids and I have to survive on that. I'm speaking for myself and countless other men, all people. We don't want to break the law. We don't want to make so many laws here that we can break them so easily that we can get in jail. No, we don't want that, but the people here during the springtime have a very tough type of life."3

"Judging from the comments made by some non-Natives, there is a feeling that because Eskimos and Indians now hunt birds with shotguns rather than with nets and snares, because their fish hooks are of steel rather than bone and wood, and because they hunt whales with explosive devices instead of harpoons with bone heads, that hunting and fishing are noncommercial pursuits or sport rather than subsistence activities upon which the Natives depend in order to secure raw materials for their food and clothing. Although modern technology has indeed improved the efficiency of the Native fisherman and hunter, this technology has not necessarily made him less dependent on wild game and fish.

" In all of the Eskimo and Athabascan villages visited by members of the Task Force, comment was made to the effect that the season on migratory birds should be open during the spring.

"Early in 1961, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service turned its attention to stricter enforcement of the Treaty, arresting some Natives for illegal possession of ducks and geese. The result was near panic in several villages. In May of 1961, Governor Egan directed a letter to the Secretary of the Interior, pointing out that the relatively few Alaskan Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts were not a threat to the preservation of migratory birds. He emphasized that the slaughter of birds by sportsmen far south of Alaska breeding grounds had resulted in the original treaty, the enforcement of which would threaten the very existence of Natives in some of the villages...

" After receiving this letter (Governor Egan's) and studying the matter further, the Department of the Interior abandoned its program of aggressive enforcement against Native subsistence hunters."

" However.., many Eskimos stated that simply winking at law violations is not the way to solve the problem, for this, in essence, makes the Natives and the Fish and Wildlife Service parties to violation of an international agreement."

"Task Force Recommendations

" No. 2 The urgent need for a reexamination of the terms of the 1916 Migratory Bird Treaty to determine whether relief for the Alaska Natives can be obtained administratively, or whether the Department of the Interior should seek to have the treaty amended."

1. An administrative finding by the Secretary that Alaska Native populations north of the Alaska Range are in dire need of migratory waterfowl for food for their survival and well-being except near centers of population and industry.
2. Areas where such need does not exist could be delineated, subject to change from time to time as conditions warrant. Such areas would be designated within a predetermined radius near such settlements as Bethel, Nome, Barrow and Fairbanks.
3. Restrictions against the taking of endangered species or those in short supply would be promulgated in addition to the area restrictions. This would take care of such species as the Whitefronted geese, presently reaching a critical stage.
4. Elsewhere, the old Regulation 8 of the Alaska Game Law would be reinstated providing, "Eskimos, Indians, and those of mixed blood who have not adopted a civilized mode of living, explorers, prospectors or travelers, may take migratory birds at any time for food when in absolute need of food and other food is not available, but shall not ship or sell any animal or part thereof so taken.

1. Traditional uses of migratory waterfowl should be permitted when there is a legitimate subsistence need.
2. Neither subsistence or sport hunting of migratory waterfowl should be permitted to deplete the populations of birds.

"We have taken what has basically been an activity which has survived for thousands of years and burdened it with all the best devices that the Anglo-American system of jurisprudence and common law can impose, and that is to say, the lawyers are at it again.

"If you look at this kind of framework of regulation involving an activity so clearly vital to such a large group of people, you see that we are placing a real layer of legal activity, definitional activity, and administrative activity on top of a human activity. Subsistence hunting and fishing, which is a rather simple activity perhaps simply cannot support this legal definition and administrative burden.

" I can foresee, if we elect some sort of process of this type of definition, of this type of management scheme, great investments made by all parties concerned. In technical expertise, in legal expertise, I can see arguments before commissions, I can see very high costs in monitoring, and I can see somewhere along the way losing a sense of what this is all about and what we were trying to do as we approached this whole question of subsistence use.

" ... I think it is important to recognize that a case can be made, notwithstanding the language of the Native Claims Act, that a strong case, I believe, can be made to constitutionally support subsistence hunting.

" At the very least, it seems to me, if this is the only alternative that is open to a person to meet his daily needs of protein, to support him physically, then there can be no question that he is entitled constitutionally...

" ...If subsistence means more than merely everyday providing all the basic protein of food sources for people, it may also still be protected. Subsistence is a means of cultural expression, as we have heard it described and we all recognize. This is also still constitutionally protected."

1. The Fish and Wildlife Service should seek new ways to involve Native people in the policy making of the wildlife refuges. The village people could begin assuming the responsibility of making certain the waterfowl populations were not overhunted. Such involvement of village people in waterfowl management could develop from the Joint Management Agreement (discussed in detail in the Land Use Planning Chapter). A management contract with villages or a regional organization such as Nunam Kitlutsisti, (The Protectors of the Land) might be developed to assure that migratory waterfowl are taken only in cases of true need and that the productivity of the waterfowl populations is never eroded by subsistence hunting. An example of the caution village people could contribute to waterfowl management is an incident in the spring of 1974 in which one village contacted Nunam Kitlutsisti with a complaint that Native people from Bethel who were wealthy enough to fly out to goose hunt obviously didn't have to in order to live and should not be allowed to if such hunting might deplete the number of birds.
2. The Fish and Wildlife Service should make every effort possible to recruit, train and employ local people for refuge research and operations. There are many people in the villages who are capable and well-qualified in ways other than college degrees to handle wildlife refuge responsibilities.
3. The Fish and Wildlife Service must continually monitor the various waterfowl populations so that if a certain population begins to decline this problem can be caught and remedied in time.
4. If the population of certain waterfowl species begins to decline, the Fish and Wildlife Service should carefully examine the effects of sports hunting outside Alaska on this population. If the hunting for sport rather than subsistence is contributing to the decline of a certain population of waterfowl, this sports hunting should be restricted.
5. Care should be taken by the State and Federal governments not to permit activities and developments along the migratory pathways which would endanger the waterfowl populations. Such activities would include hydroelectric projects that might eliminate habitat and off shore oil production and transportation that could create damaging pollution.
6. In places where additional critical habitat is needed to protect the waterfowl along the migratory routes the Federal government should move to purchase the needed habitat for inclusion within the Refuge system.
7. Educational programs should be initiated to develop a better understanding of the relationship between Native people and waterfowl. Film, video tape, and printed material could be utilized to show how Native subsistence use of waterfowl is compatible with wildlife refuge objectives in protecting waterfowl population and habitat. Educational and informational presentations could also help communicate wildlife management objectives and policies in the villages.
8. Educational programs should be developed for use in villages to communicate some of the wildlife conservation practices that have become necessary in modern times. Village people have a great concern that the land and wildlife populations always be productive. To protect this productivity they must be aware of modern conservation practices that can be used to avoid modern environmental problems.

1. The State of Alaska should fund a study and a film as communication tools to define and relate both the importance of walrus and whales to Alaskans and the need for international protection.
2. The Alaska State Legislature could resolve to promote such treaties.
3. The Alaskan congressional delegation should pursue the formulation of such treaties with Congress and the State Department.
4. The State of Alaska should consider economic sanctions against any country which commercially exploits marine mammals that are important for Native subsistence use.

1. Alaska should work toward careful regulation of oil and gas exploration, development and transportation in both the Canadian and Russian Arctic.
2. A process of carefully monitoring chronic oceanic pollution should be established for all waters off the coast of Alaska.
3. The State of Alaska and the Federal government should join with other circumpolar and North Pacific nations in cooperative research and regulatory efforts that will eliminate pollution of the seas.

1. International treaties must be vigorously pursued with countries such as Japan, North and South Korea and Russia which place excessive demands on these fisheries.

2. To encourage needed treaties and agreements and to otherwise halt the over-exploitation of these fisheries, the State of Alaska and the Federal government should employ economic sanctions against countries that are depleting these fisheries. Since Alaska is seen as a source of raw materials such as wood, oil, and hard rock minerals by Japan and other countries, the availability of these natural resources might be restricted when nations allow their fishing industries to exploit the seas. Alaska is in a good position to wield economic power much as Arab countries are wielding the economic power of their oil exports.
3. Individuals and private enterprises should explore the effectiveness of boycotting imports and exports to and from nations which exploit the fisheries. For example, since the Japanese fishing industry is apparently responsible for much of the over-harvesting of North Pacific fisheries, Native regional corporations and fishing enterprises should consider refusing to do business of any sort with Japan until that country adopts responsible fishery policies. If only one or two enterprises refused to sell raw products to Japan, this type of effort would not succeed. However, a well organized effort that prohibited the exportation of oil, wood products and fish to Japan until responsible policies were adopted might well succeed.
4. Foreign contributions to fishery research and rehabilitation programs. Countries which utilize high seas fisheries should invest in the sound management and development of the fisheries. This might be accomplished through the United Nations or by independent arrangements.

1. The Association of Village Council Presidents has formed Nunam Kitlutsisti (The Protectors of the Land) to anticipate and avoid environmental and other subsistence related problems in our region. Through his village every Native person in our region is a member of Nunam Kitlutsisti which is directly governed by a board chosen from among the village council presidents and which has a working staff. The organization serves as a local check and balance for any new developments in the region.
2. Calista Corporation has initiated a Department of Renewable Resources which will assist the Regional Corporation in its responsibilities in protecting and enhancing the subsistence resource base.
3. A local Advisory board has been established by the Village Council Presidents to work with the Fish and Wildlife Service in protecting the regional environment and subsistence way of life.
4. Local people need to become more involved in the policy formulation of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
5. Village magistrates and law enforcement officials might play a meaningful role in the management of fish and wildlife resources and the enforcement of any laws which protect the environment.
6. The secondary and higher education systems should provide ample opportunities for young people in the region to develop skills and professions that are needed to manage subsistence resources. Such professions include wildlife biology, wildlife management, geography and economics.

"My grandfather used to say before the white man came, the game was plentiful.... . The more white man come, the more people, the more population we have, the less game we gonna have here. And we'll be just like the lower United States... Actually, about 50 to 30 years from now, nobody is going to hunt no games around here, I don't think... Alaska will be so populated there will be no more place to hunt. If we don't preserve things, like if we don't stop the white man coming into our lands. I don't know, if this certain village here will make a law, but if we are together as a region. Not just Togiak. Let's see, Togiak, Dillingham, Goodnews, Bethel, or all over Alaska. If we stick together. Make a law to stay out of certain area. That's it. No white man can get in there. That's Eskimo land. If we keep that way, I think we preserve the land, we preserve the vegetation, preserve the game itself."

Peter Abraham, Togiak, 19742

"The problem as I see it, quite frankly, boils down simply to one thing—Alaska's problem currently is that we have too many people. Alaska is really over populated at this stage in time from these crucial standpoints. From the economic point of view we have the highest (I believe) unemployment rate in the nation. Obviously there are too many people impacting the fish and game resources of the State to sustain currently the subsistence needs of the people in the State, as well as an ever increasing sport hunting and fishing industry... What do we do about it?.. . If we go ahead with the normal industrialization development procedures along the lines that other states have progressed we're going to substantially increase the population in Alaska. Without a question, the guy who is caught in the crunch is going to be the true subsistence user."2

"...that the ability of the land to produce fish and game is very limited. When the sun shines on Alaska it allows all of the biological processes of life to go on, and it's that kind of limitation of sunlight, as you know around here, that set some severe upper ceilings as to how many meals we can get out of the country. It's very hard to estimate what this number of meals might be, but if you think back a couple of hundred years, there was a group of people around who had some chance to reach an equilibrium with the long term ability of the land to produce meals, and there were probably something like seventy to seventy-five thousand people here, Alaskan Natives. Most of them lived along the coast.., and it was this very reliable resource from the sea, and swimming upstream plus the supplementary resources that could be garnered from the countryside that allowed people to survive. My point is then that total biological productivity in Alaska for whoever wants to take advantage of it, for whatever beneficial purpose it's used, is limited.. . There are very few things we can do economically to increase that basic ceiling that nature has put on this hungry country of ours...."2

"From a very practical standpoint, the land entitlement of the Yupik under the Claims Act will be only a fraction of the lands that were available to them for subsistence before non-Native encroachment. No matter how much preference is given in law, the subsistence base necessary to sustain the Yupik population of that early period simply will not be available. Restraint of population growth among the rural residents of an area is an essential element of maintaining the subsistence life style."

"What I'm suggesting is that there is a population potential that will far exceed the ability of the land to support Native populations or whatever population might want to depend on the land... I would like to summarize the (subsistence) problem this way. An Eskimo from Bethel and an Eskimo from Point Barrow started off to find the last moose in the Innoko National Wildlife Refuge. They get there and find a hunter from Fairbanks looking at a pile of smelly moose, with the antlers on the way to Dallas, and that, I believe, is the dimension of the problem as I see it."2

1. On the village level, people should consider whether they want their villages to grow a great deal or remain pretty much the same size. Most villages are not faced with the prospect of any substantial growth at this time. However, as the region is developed there may be population booms in or near some villages. For example, if oil exploration or development is to take place around a village, it will no doubt attract many new people to the village. This could change the character and way of life in the village considerably. When faced with the prospect of growth, a village should carefully consider just how much growth it wants.
2. On the regional level, our village council presidents in coordination with Calista might decide how much larger they want the region's population to grow, how many more people from the outside they want to move to the area. If they want to limit the number of people coming into the area or at least have this number grow slowly, then development policies should take this into account.

1. First, both the State Legislature and Administration could recognize and keep in mind that the purpose of the State's policies should really be to provide for the well-being of Alaskans and the unique ways of living in Alaska rather than to build Alaska's industries, cities, and institutions just for the sake of growth and greatness; in other words, plan for Alaskans rather than for the people that might be attracted to Alaska in the future.
2. Secondly, evaluate economic development in relation to its real benefit to Alaskans rather than just in terms of gross revenues and percents of growth which often don't reflect the actual effects of development on Alaskans and which tend to promote the attraction of more industries and people to Alaska. The State economic goal should not be growth of the economy but developing a sustaining economy for Alaskans.
3. The State should begin immediately to develop population goals and objectives for Alaska. What are optimum population levels for Alaska, for various regions, for the different seasonal periods? How can optimum population levels be maintained or achieved? What are the costs and benefits of various population levels? How can state and local government plan for population problems on a continuing basis?
4. A fourth area of consideration the State should make is to examine ways in which the adverse impacts of the existing and future population levels in Alaska can be minimized. Such consideration would address questions of availability of fish and game, recreation, transportation, health, education and welfare obligations.
5. Finally, until the State's population objectives are clearly defined and until effective methods for maintaining optimum levels and minimizing their adverse impacts have been developed, the State should discourage all population growth—both the settlement of new people in Alaska and the increase in numbers of visitors. This implies that until the necessary population planning has been completed the State should discourage tourism and the attraction of new industries and developments in Alaska.

"The cultural thing is what I am talking about. How do you incorporate the Native philosophy into your rules and regulations? How do you preserve a lifestyle? How do you keep from destroying a culture? This is really, to me, where its at ..."2
Cliff Black, 1974

1. Village councils and village corporations should develop their own methods for analyzing the cultural effects of any action they take or allow to be taken in their village. This should involve finding out as much as possible about a new activity or development in the village, and communicating to all the people the various costs and benefits of the proposed change. For example, if a village is considering a proposal to develop a tourist facility, it should not only be determined how much money might be generated, but also what problems might arise from having great numbers of strange, outside visitors in the village. If a village can set up a thorough process of screening all new developments it stands a better chance of avoiding undesirable changes.
2. Regional government such as a first class or home rule borough, can play an important role in planning for the needs of local people. There is no reason why the region-wide planning department of a borough can't review all regional programs from the point of view of cultural impact. Once the cultural impact of an issue is defined, the regional government may either rule on a proposed activity or development or refer the issue to the people for a vote.
3. To coordinate all State programs within a region and make them responsive to the process of cultural change, substate planning districts could be established. In our area a substate planning district might follow the boundaries of the Calista Corporation. Within this area, State programs such as highways, education, resource development and welfare would be channeled through a regional planning board. This planning board would be in a better position than some planners in Anchorage or Juneau to evaluate the cultural costs and benefits of a given program. The framework for creating substate planning districts is in legislation pending before the Alaska State Legislature.
4. The programs of Federal agencies could be made more responsive to cultural planning in a region such as ours if the State of Alaska would utilize the substate planning district mechanism that the Federal Office of Management and Budget has already established. Instead of Federal programs, such as education and transportation, reaching the local level via central State offices, these programs would go directly to a regional planning district board which would presumably be in much closer touch with the village people than a distant State or Federal office.
5. Both Calista and Yupiktak Bista should, as other regional profit and nonprofit corporations might do, establish routine procedures for determining the possible cultural effects of all their programs. In many cases the cultural impact of a proposed development or project may be slight. In other instances there may be extremely difficult conflicts between the potential benefits of a proposed development and the undesirable cultural change it might bring about. It will not often be possible to have the best of both worlds. Decisions will have to be made, and they had best be made on the basis of accurate analysis of all the costs and benefits involved.

1. Description of the proposed program or development.
2. Where and when would the program or development be introduced?
3. What people would be affected by it?
4. What are the anticipated cultural effects?
5. What are the benefits? How does it serve the people?
6. What alternatives are there for introducing the project or development in another way in which some of the benefits would be achieved and some of the adverse cultural effects eliminated?
7. What happens if the proposed program or development is rejected?
8. Will the adverse effects be temporary or lasting?

1. Testimony, D-2 Land Hearings, Federal-State Land Use Planning Commission, 1973.
2. Federal-State Land Use Planning Com mission, Subsistence Conference, 1974.
3. Testimony, Public Hearing on the Kusko kwim Withdrawal Area, Bureau of Land Management, Bethel, Alaska, March 1, 1956.
4. Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, A Proposal, Draft Environmental Impact Statement, September, 1973, U.S. De partment of the Interior.
5. Testimony, Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, U.S. Senate Hearings, 1972.
6. Testimony, Oversight of the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, Hearing before the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, U.S. House of Representatives, August, 1973.
7. Alaskan Development, George Rogers.
8. Interview by Yupiktak Bista.
9. Education in the North, Edited by Frank Darnell, University of Alaska, 1972.

Bibliography

• Northern Natives, Migratory Birds and International Treaties (The Day Report, Alaska Waterfowl Controversy), A report to the Director of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife by Albert M. Day, 1969.
• Waterfowl in the Economy of Eskimos, David Klein, University of Alaska.
• Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, A Proposal, Draft Environmental Impact Statement, Alaska Planning Group, U.S. Department of Interior.
• Education in the North, Edited by Frank Darnell, University of Alaska, 1972.
• Indian and European: Indian-White Rela tions from Discovery to 1887, D'Arcy McNickle, The Annals of the American Academy.
• Hunters of the Northern Ice, Richard Nelson.
• On the Edge of Nowhere, Jimmy Huntington.
• Eskimo Hunting of Bowhead Whales, Art Davidson, RuralCap.
• Song of the North Wind, Paul A. Johnsgard.