Alaska Subsistence A National Park Service Management History

A. Status of the NPS Subsistence Program, 1990-1991

As noted in Chapter 6, a major action of the various NPS subsistence resource commissions during the late 1980s had been the submission of hunting plan recommendations. These recommendations had been submitted, for the most part, in 1986 and 1987, and representatives of the Interior Secretary had responded to those submissions between March and May 1988. Inasmuch as these submissions had comprised the first official exchange between the SRCs and the Interior Secretary's office, it is perhaps unsurprising that the Secretary accepted some recommendations, rejected others, and modified still others. The Secretary's office, it appears in retrospect, applied a strict-constructionist approach in its interpretation of the subsistence regulations.

In general, the submission-and-response process was valuable in an educational sense, because it clarified specifics of regulations whose interpretations had not previously been meted out. In many instances, SRCs tacitly accepted the Interior Secretary's opinions. But regarding a number of issues, SRC members patently disagreed with the Secretary's rulings and vowed to re-submit either the same or similar recommendations all over again. Such was the state of affairs during the waning months of the 1980s.

Little change was in evidence during the first year or two of the 1990s. SRC activity, on the whole, seemed sluggish (see Appendix 5); during 1990, four of the state's seven SRCs did not meet, and one other SRC, from Aniakchak National Monument, met but was unable to muster a quorum. (The Denali SRC, normally active, stayed dormant that year; chair Florence Collins opted out of a proposed October 1990 Commission meeting in order "to keep the Park Service from spending money for a meeting we felt could accomplish little.") [1] The following year, activity picked up considerably—five of the seven SRCs were able to hold a legally-constituted meeting—but between January 1990 and the fall of 1991, few official expressions of opinion emerged from the various SRC meetings. During this period, most of the SRCs mulled over recommendations that the Interior Secretary had rejected back in 1988. [2]

Alaska's NPS superintendents, gathered for a 1991 conference. They included (left to right): Ernest Suazo (BELA), Karen Wade (WRST), Andy Hutchison (LACL), Roger Siglin (GAAR), Alan Eliason (KATM), Ralph Tingey (NWAK), Russ Berry (DENA), Marv Jensen (GLBA), Don Chase (YUCH), Anne Castellina (KEFJ), Clay Alderson (KLGO), and Mickie Hellickson (SITK). NPS (AKSO)

The only official SRC recommendation that found its way to the Interior Secretary's desk during 1990 or 1991 was a proposal that had been finalized years earlier. This proposal, a combined recommendation of the Cape Krusenstern and Kobuk Valley SRCs to combine resident-zone communities within the boundaries of the NANA Regional Corporation, had been readied for submission to the Interior Secretary back in 1986; but for reasons that were discussed in Chapter 6, the proposal had gone into bureaucratic limbo. It resurfaced because of a chance question posed by Walter Sampson, the Kobuk Valley SRC head, at the SRC chairs' meeting in December 1989. Sampson, angry at NPS officials, claimed that the incident "causes me to question the commitment of some of the personnel in your agency" regarding the SRCs; furthermore, it "emphasizes the inadequate support that we have received from NPS personnel over the years." NPS officials, however, tactfully defended their actions. A year later, on March 12, 1991, the proposal was officially submitted to the Interior Secretary. [3]

One reason for the relative paucity of activity—which, in large part, was a continuation of the state of affairs that had existed during the mid- to late 1980s—was the relative lack of staff and budget that the NPS provided for subsistence program management. As noted in chapters 5 and 6, the agency's Alaska Regional Office had hired a full-time Subsistence Coordinator in early 1984, and during 1987-88, the addition of new (if short-term) staff members brought about the establishment of a separate Subsistence Division. Between 1989 and 1991, as noted in Chapter 7, the regional office's subsistence staff swelled from one to six. [4] (See Appendix 3.) At the field level, however, subsistence-related matters continued to be handled as one of many collateral duties of a park's superintendent, management assistant, chief ranger, or resource management specialist.

The lack of staff time that could be devoted to subsistence matters, plus the small ($10,000) budget allotted to each of the SRCs, meant that subsistence concerns maintained a relatively low profile among park priorities. Moreover, few within the agency were in a position to advocate for the needs of park-area subsistence users. This state of affairs caused a state of widespread restiveness among some SRC members; one member later noted that the NPS during this period was "trying to eliminate subsistence as soon as possible," while another charged that "Any component of a hunting plan which is outside the scope of what NPS feels 'could prove detrimental to the satisfaction of subsistence needs of local residents' [is] unilaterally rejected without full consideration." [5] SRC members constructively reacted to the situation by calling for an increase in the SRC budgets, for an increase in the number of yearly meetings, [6] for new opportunities to communicate with other SRCs, [7] and for funding to travel to meetings of the State Game Board, the newly-established Federal Subsistence Board, or other regulatory bodies. [8] But agency officials, in response, typically denied these requests. The frustration level was such that SRC members occasionally resigned their positions with a strongly-worded letter to the agency, while those who remained in their positions sometimes complained about the intransigence and insensitivity of NPS officials, both at the park and regional levels. [9]

As noted above, a troubling undercurrent during this period—and an underlying concern of the subsistence community ever since ANILCA's passage—was that NPS officials were trying to curtail subsistence use in the various Alaska park units. During the 1970s, when Congress considered various Alaska lands questions, both Natives and non-Natives openly worried that subsistence, in the face of technological change and widespread economic development, might be on the verge of extinction. In May 1979, for example, House Interior Committee Chairman Morris Udall noted,

... change is occurring very rapidly in rural Alaska and it seems to me that as rural Alaskan people become more dependent on a cash economy, fewer and fewer will be dependent on subsistence resources and even fewer would qualify under our priority system. [10]

Despite that worry, however, the language contained in ANILCA (as noted in Chapter 4) clearly told rural Alaskans that the federal government would "protect and provide the opportunity for continued subsistence uses on the public lands by Native and non-Native rural residents." Furthermore, the bill's access provisions ensured that subsistence users would continue to "have reasonable access to subsistence resources on the public lands," and that methods of access could legally include "snowmobiles, motorboats, and other means of surface transportation...." [11]

During the years that followed ANILCA, Udall's prediction turned out to be wide of the mark; "living off the land" continued to a viable, sought-after lifestyle choice by some rural-based non-Natives, and for many Natives, keeping a subsistence-based lifestyle became an increasingly important aspect of cultural identification. Subsistence, it was clear, was not going to fade away any time soon. From time to time, however, frustrated SRC members charged that the NPS was trying to hamstring subsistence opportunities, and some subsistence users—mindful of traditional policies in parks outside of Alaska—may have felt that the agency's long-term goal was to eliminate subsistence activities in the parks altogether. Agency officials, in fact, had no such intention, but the NPS's perceived intransigence on various subsistence policy matters implicitly suggested that the agency had little interest in either supporting or encouraging subsistence uses.

B. NPS Subsistence Program Changes, 1991-1993

The McDowell court decision of December 1989, as noted in Chapter 7, had a profound, dramatic effect on how subsistence management activities throughout Alaska, and to a large extent, the changes that the McDowell decision wrought inevitably began to affect the process by which the National Park Service administered subsistence activities on its parklands. The most obvious result of McDowell took place on July 1, 1990, when federal officials assumed responsibility for overseeing subsistence activities on the three-fifths of Alaska's land mass that was administered by various federal land management agencies. The State of Alaska, as has been stated, vociferously opposed this action and attempted, through various means, to regain management authority. Alaska's three-man Congressional delegation, for its part, also preferred a unified system of state management rather than a strong federal management role. The delegation, however, recognized that the federal government, at least in the interim, needed a secure funding base for its management efforts. To that end, therefore, Senator Ted Stevens earmarked $11.3 million in Fiscal Year 1991 appropriations "to fund the management of subsistence hunting and fishing on federal lands." Much of that funding allotment was funneled to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which was the lead agency administering the federal government's subsistence program; portions of it, however, were distributed to the National Park Service and other federal land management agencies. [12]

As noted above, some of the NPS's budgetary allotment was directed to the Alaska Regional Office, and the agency was able to hire three new Subsistence Division personnel in 1991. But parks were the primary recipients of the NPS's allotment. [13] By November 1990, at least one Alaska park superintendent had told his SRC that federal assumption would result in new subsistence staff, and by March 1991, other park units had received word that new Subsistence Specialists would be joining the ranks. [14] (See Appendix 3.) But subsistence staff was not the parks' only priority, so when Lou Waller, in conjunction with other regional officials, decided to allot funds to each park unit in which subsistence activities took place, superintendents reacted in a variety of ways. Some, as suggested above, hired new individuals to manage park subsistence activities, but at other parks, existing staff—chief rangers, management assistants, or cultural resource specialists—readjusted their duties to accommodate subsistence-related concerns and spent the bulk of the new subsistence funds on equipment or other priorities. [15] Subsistence funds, moreover, were gradually phased in; the first subsistence coordinators were hired during the summer of 1991, but some hiring and other subsistence-related expenditures did not take place until the following year. By mid-1992, each park had designated an employee to oversee subsistence-related concerns. [16]

A primary aspect of the subsistence coordinators' job was to provide a local contact for the implementation of subsistence policies and regulations. In that capacity, the coordinators organized and helped conduct SRC meetings, approved various subsistence-related permits, and discussed subsistence problems with both park staff and subsistence users. The interpersonal nature of those interactions, and the fact that the agency, at long last, had personnel in place who could focus on subsistence concerns, inevitably meant that the agency's policies could be described and explained more effectively to users than was previously the case. Subsistence users, however, also benefited; NPS representatives, having more time to listen to users, began to more fully understand their lives, their subsistence patterns, and their concerns with federal policies. In a number of cases, subsistence coordinators—several of whom had lived in rural Alaska prior to assuming their jobs—empathized with the users' concerns. They also came to recognize, all too often, that users had legitimate grievances against the agency's interpretation of various subsistence regulations, and as a result, they took an advocacy role with park and regional officials in an attempt to modify the agency's stance. [17] Not surprisingly, NPS employees who were primarily or exclusively involved with subsistence matters were more likely to empathize with the plight of subsistence users than those to whom subsistence duties were a tangential part of their job.

Perhaps the first evidence of this empathy was manifested not long after the first subsistence coordinators began working at the parks. As noted above, several SRCs spent time during 1990 and 1991 mulling over how to react to the Interior Secretary's responses to their initial hunting plan recommendations, and in late 1991, they began sending revised recommendations back to Secretary Lujan. The Wrangell-St. Elias SRC sent him two recommendations in December 1991; its action was followed three months later by a similar letter from the Gates of the Arctic SRC, which made three recommendations. Both of the SRC letters contained at least one recommendation that was similar if not identical to those that had been rejected in 1988.

Roger Siglin, who served as Gates of the Arctic's superintendent from 1986 to 1993, occasionally clashed with regional officials on subsistence-related issues. NPS (AKSO)

Recognizing that part of the SRCs' ire toward the government was based on its lackadaisical response to their hunting plan recommendation, the Interior Secretary began to formulate a response to both letters soon after they arrived in Washington. Regarding the Wrangell-St. Elias letter, there was apparently little controversy over what the Interior Secretary should say; steering a cautious course, the Secretary's office urged further study for both of the issues that the SRC had raised. [18] But in regard to the Gates of the Arctic SRC's recommendations, a diversity of opinion emerged. In his initial overview of the SRC's letter, park superintendent Roger Siglin unequivocally stated that all three SRC recommendations—related to resident zones, access, and traditional use zones [19] — were "reasonable and within the purview of the commission." Siglin stopped short of wholeheartedly endorsing the three recommendations—he was cautious in his support for the first two and remained neutral on the third—but he did not reject any of them out of hand. [20]

Shortly after he sent the letter, however, several members of the region's Subsistence Division met with park staff in Fairbanks. Siglin, in response, penned a revised letter. He thanked Division personnel for "clarifying the appropriate format, timing, and content for these comments now and in the future;" he did, however, "feel strongly that park staff perspective ... is a necessary element if background is required for Secretarial analysis and response." Siglin reiterated that each of the SRC's recommendations were "reasonable and within the purview of the commission," but perhaps at the region's insistence, numerous clarifying comments were added to each discussion item. [21] The recommendations were then forwarded to Washington, where they were reviewed by Deputy Undersecretary Vernon R. Wiggins and other Interior Department officials. As a result of that review, the Secretary's office stated that the first recommendation was "consistent with Congress' intent to protect opportunities for subsistence users," and it further stated that "the NPS has drafted a proposed regulation" that would have implemented that recommendation. But the Secretary, taking the same protective stance that it had in 1988, rejected the SRC's other two recommendations. "Congress," the letter stated, "intended that NPS management relative to subsistence is to maintain traditional NPS management values," and the Secretary apparently felt that the SRC's two recommendations ran contrary to those "traditional ... values." [22]

During the same period in which the Secretary was considering Gates' SRC recommendations, the region's Subsistence Division staff was producing the first of several subsistence issue papers. By December 1992, two such papers—dealing with ORV/ATV use and the construction of structures in park areas—had been completed in draft form and circulated to the various subsistence superintendents. These thematic papers were an attempt to simplify the complexity of concerns surrounding various subsistence issues; each began with a reiteration of the 1981 regulations and pertinent language from the Congressional Record, to which were added opinions and interpretations previously expressed by Washington-based Interior personnel as well as regional NPS officials. No attempt was made to forge new policy; instead, these papers provided the opportunity to express existing policy in the simplest possible terms. [23]

Gates of the Arctic Superintendent Roger Siglin reacted strongly to both the substance and the implications of the two draft issue papers. In a December 1992 letter to regional Subsistence Division head Lou Waller, Siglin declared that "a piece meal policy-setting approach without the benefits of a coherent regional subsistence policy built on reasoned debate and consensus is premature at this time." He complained that

there is still a general tendency for managers to react to consumptive subsistence activities as an adverse use within these vast park system units. This tendency has been widespread and debilitating with respect to the process of seeking creative management solutions to these critical issues. We have made very little progress [in this area] since the passage of ANILCA.

Siglin also decried the "years of restrained funding" in the subsistence arena, and he vowed that "We must be in this for the long haul and reject simplistic or shortsighted solutions that unnecessarily restrict the options of future managers." Siglin, by this time, knew that regional subsistence head Lou Waller had organized a brief Subsistence Workshop, which was to be held in January 1993. Perhaps in anticipation of that upcoming event, he requested "that superintendents and subsistence managers from the parks have the opportunity to discuss these critical regulatory position statements as well as other concerns as a group." [24]

John M. (Jack) Morehead served as the Regional Director for Alaska's NPS units from 1991 to 1994. NPS (AKSO)

Other superintendents shared Siglin's concerns. [25] The tone of the various draft issue papers, combined with the Interior Secretary's narrowly-focused response to the Wrangell-St. Elias and Gates of the Arctic recommendations and the restrictive way in which regional subsistence officials were handling the Wrangell-St. Elias resident zone boundary issue, made park personnel feel increasingly empathetic toward subsistence users. Indeed, several superintendents were convinced that if the present regime continued, subsistence activities would begin to decline, and there was a vague perception that, given a continuation of existing policies, subsistence might well be regulated out of the parks. [26] Moreover, a perceived gap between how field personnel and regional personnel were interpreting subsistence regulations suggested that a reassessment of subsistence management policies was in order. Inasmuch as Regional Director John M. Morehead was himself a strong advocate for the rights of subsistence users, he readily agreed to a request from various superintendents that the January subsistence workshop be scuttled in favor of an extended conference that would allow a broad discussion of subsistence matters. As noted in one of Gates of the Arctic SRC's newsletters, the week of March 22-26, 1993 would be spent

thoroughly evaluating the statewide subsistence management program. The Regional Director and staff will meet with Superintendents and staff ... in a variety of sessions designed to identify problem areas within the programs and develop solutions. The Alaska Regional Director will make the final decision regarding the general agency philosophy toward subsistence in the parks, the appropriate balance between field areas and the Anchorage office in staffing and funds, and just how policies will be developed in the future. [27]

The conference, held in Anchorage, took place much as had been planned. [28] A variety of officials—superintendents and subsistence coordinators, regional managers, a Solicitor's Office representative and a cultural resource expert—shared ideas on philosophy, problem areas and possible solutions. As Lake Clark superintendent Ralph Tingey noted, "A major benefit of this conference is that it finally focuses all managers on a single important issue." The tone of the meeting was set by retired NPS historian William E. Brown, who gave the first oration. Many who attended the conference were stirred by both the power of his verbiage and his iconoclasm, and the daring tone he set as the conference's self-described "point man" may well have allowed other attendees to pursue similarly independent policy positions. [29]

One of the most-discussed problem areas was the degree to which parks should be involved in the subsistence decisionmaking process. Siglin, the first superintendent to speak, stated that frustration levels in the parks were high and that parks wanted more of a direct role in the decision making process; Karen Wade, from Wrangell-St. Elias, said that the agency needed a decentralized and localized approach to subsistence management; and Deputy Regional Director Paul Anderson advocated an approach that encouraged greater involvement of front-line employees. Bob Gerhard, from the Northwest Areas Office, also appeared to be arguing for a change in the decision making structure when he posed the rhetorical question, "Is subsistence here to stay or are we going to try to nitpick it apart and have it go away?" But others appeared to disagree with these viewpoints. Marvin Jensen, from Glacier Bay, argued for a more unified approach to subsistence and more teamwork with the regional office, and Joe Fowler from Lake Clark also bemoaned that there was a lack of consistency in how the agency dealt with subsistence. Chris Bockmon, from the Solicitor's office, concluded that the various laws and regulations under which the NPS operated argued for a unified approach to subsistence management. "Management must be more consistent than divergent in approach," he added. Regional subsistence chief Lou Waller, trying to steer a path midway between these viewpoints, said that subsistence management latitude was analogous to a "broad road with white outer markers. It is possible to maneuver within the lines, but we must avoid going over them and totally off the route intended by Congress." ("Management of ... the Alaska national parks," Waller said later, "should not be management by popularity.") Cary Brown, from Yukon-Charley Rivers, also appeared to espouse portions of both viewpoints when he averred that the agency needed a "system that allowed for local determinations with consistency between parks." [30]

Beyond that central question, participants presented a broad array of subsistence-related problems. One of the few commonly-held problem areas lay in education and training; several NPS field personnel readily admitted their ignorance regarding subsistence matters, and in addition, field staff repeatedly mentioned that SRC members needed periodic training. Finally, those who were involved in subsistence admitted to a general lack of direction; in order to gain a renewed orientation, therefore, the assembled participants completed a draft policy statement for the regional subsistence program. For the next four years, that draft document remained the region's best statement of subsistence policy direction. [31]

Perhaps because the conference was the first time in which such a diversity of decision-makers had met on the topic, few new policy directions were established. [32] Even so, the conference was widely perceived as being successful. At a mid-April meeting of the Gates of the Arctic SRC, for example, Superintendent Siglin felt that

changes will be seen as a result of that conference. One is that subsistence is a legitimate use of park resources, strongly endorsed by Morehead. Also he expects stronger general support for SRCs. ... SRC members [however] must also respect the constraints that laws put on subsistence users, seek ways to minimize conflicts between wilderness and subsistence users, and support sound wildlife practices. [33]

One organizational change that resulted from the March 1993 conference was the establishment of an ad hoc Superintendents' Subsistence Committee. By June 1993, this group had already held two teleconferences, and briefing papers had been completed on several of the major topics that had been addressed at the conference. In addition to completing the remainder of the briefing papers, two goals that the ad hoc committee hoped to pursue were the establishment of an annual meeting of the various SRC chairs and further training for rank-and-file SRC members. [34]

Regional NPS officials in 1993 included (top row, left to right): Clay Alderson (KLGO), Bill Welch (ARO), Steve Martin (GAAR), Bob Gerhard (NWAK). Second row: Mickie Hellickson (SITK), Karen Wade (WRST), Anne Castellina (KEFJ), Dave Ames (ARO). Third row: Jack Morehead (ARO), Paul Haertel (ARO), Judy Gottlieb (ARO), Don Chase (BELA). Fourth row: Paul Anderson (ARO), Janet McCabe (ARO), Russell Berry (DENA), Marvin Jensen (GLBA), Will Tipton (KATM). Front row: Ralph Tingey (ARO), Paul Guraedy (YUCH). NPS (AKSO)

During the summer of 1993, however, the momentum that had been established in the wake of the subsistence conference apparently dissipated. [35] Perhaps because of the July 1993 retirement of Roger Siglin, who had played a crucial role in organizing the subsistence conference, no further meetings of the Superintendents' Subsistence Committee took place.

In many respects, it appeared that the subsistence conference, at best, had had a temporary impact on long-established decision making patterns. Despite the urgings of two SRCs as well as the Superintendents' Subsistence Committee, the agency made no move during the summer or fall of 1993 to convene a meeting of the SRC chairs; similarly, nothing was done regarding training for SRC members. And subsistence users continued to be vexed by departmental inaction on several key SRC resolutions; in one particularly flagrant case, a resolution put forth by the Lake Clark SRC calling for so-called roster regulations, foot-dragging at the Secretarial level was such that the SRC was forced to send a reminder note to the Interior Secretary asking for a response. That letter, sent in August 1992—more than six years after the SRC had sent its resolution—brought forth only a lukewarm response from the NPS's Washington office. No one appeared willing or able to break the bureaucratic logjam. By the fall of 1993, these and similar actions (or inactions) were causing park superintendents to again voice the same complaints that had been heard prior to the March conference. Many of those complaints were directed at the Subsistence Division's chief who, in the opinion of many superintendents, refused to consult or coordinate with them on various subsistence proposals and activities. [36]

C. Agency Program Modifications, 1993-1996

Bob Gerhard, who served as the superintendent for the Northwest Alaska Areas from 1992 to 1996, has been involved with subsistence issues in Alaska since the 1970s. He currently serves as a program manager in the regional office. NPS (AKSO)

Regardless of the success or failure of the March 1993 conference, the issues that had been raised there refused to go away; and before long, conflict arose once again between park and regional officials. The next area of contention took place in the Northwest Alaska Areas Office as a result of nearly-identical hunting plans that the Cape Krusenstern and Kobuk Valley SRCs had forwarded to the Interior Secretary. (This plan included six thematic areas; the first such area included a critical recommendation calling for a huge resident zone to include all residents within the NANA Regional Corporation boundaries, while other recommendations dealt with aircraft and ATV access, traditional use areas, and sundry topics. (Portions of the plan, as noted in Chapter 6 as well as in Section A [above], had been finalized back in the mid-1980s but had never been sent to Washington.) These resolutions were finally mailed to Secretary Babbitt shortly after an August 1993 joint SRC meeting.

Superintendent Bob Gerhard, hoping to influence the agency's actions or at least hoping to crystallize agency opinions, sent Regional Subsistence Chief Lou Waller what was admittedly a "very rough draft" of a response letter in October 1993. In that letter, he noted that the SRCs' proposed resident-zone idea was "generally within the guidelines stated in ANILCA §808, and to be consistent with the intent of the legislation," and regarding other SRC recommendations, Gerhard appeared eager to be as amenable as the laws and regulations allowed.

The regional office responded by meeting with park staff in mid-November; then, three weeks later, it penned its own response letter which dealt less liberally with the SRCs' recommendations. Park staff, who had been promised that they would be immediately apprised of all regional-office actions in the matter, had to wait more than two weeks before hearing about the region's draft letter. Gerhard, clearly taken aback by the turn of events, told regional officials that "if we are supposed to be working together on this project, I do not think we are doing it well." [37] He made a renewed attempt to ink a mutually-acceptable draft response letter, but as the files on this subject clearly indicate, park and regional officials were unable to forge a final response letter. Finally, in June 1994, the two SRCs signaled that their patience had worn thin. In identical letters written to Interior Secretary Babbitt, Cape Krusenstern SRC chair Pete Schaeffer and Kobuk Valley SRC chair Walter Sampson let it be known that because "we have not received a response to our recommendations ... further meetings of the Commission will be contingent upon the receipt of a formal response to the recommendations contained in the proposed hunting plan." [38]

Ralph Tingey, the superintendent for Lake Clark National Park and Preserve from 1992 to 1996, was a key member of a 1994 task force that produced a draft review of subsistence laws and agency regulations. Ralph Tingey photo

Jon Jarvis, who was Wrangell-St. Elias's superintendent from 1994 to 1999, was the principal author of a report that reviewed of the region's natural resources program. One outcome of that report was the dissolution of the region's subsistence division. NPS (AKSO)

By this time, new pressures were beginning to confront the Park Service. Beginning in late 1993, Clinton administration officials let it be known that the NPS, along with other government agencies, would be facing likely budget cutbacks and a staff reorganization. The NPS, in response, recognized the necessity of moving many personnel to the parks from central and regional office positions. But regional officials were also aware that reorganization methods that might work at other regional offices would hold little relevance in Alaska, where subsistence management was a major agency function. And as suggested above, it was becoming increasingly obvious that the subsistence problems that had brought about the Spring 1993 superintendents' conference had not been solved, and there was almost a complete breakdown in communications between regional subsistence officials and several park superintendents. In the spring of 1994, therefore, Regional Director John M. Morehead (in the words of one subsistence expert) "threw up his hands" over the continuing difficulties between the regional office and the field and demanded that the major subsistence problems be re-analyzed by establishing a regional subsistence working group or task force. As Gates of the Arctic Superintendent Steve Martin explained, "the task force was a working group of NPS managers [intended] to assess the subsistence management program and identify issues requiring policy development." The group, which was asked to look "at subsistence issues on a regional basis," was selected by Deputy Director Paul Anderson and Management Assistant William Welch; it consisted of superintendents Ralph Tingey and Steve Martin along with subsistence specialists Lou Waller, Hollis Twitchell, and Jay Wells. Others attended meetings and contributed to the discussion from time to time. [39]

The task force, which met for the first time on May 12, quickly recognized that its primary task would be the compilation of a subsistence issues paper that would clearly and explicitly describe the major subsistence management issues. It may be recalled that the regional subsistence division, back in late 1992, had written a few draft position papers on specific thematic topics, but the 1994 task force wanted consistency in how a wide variety of subsistence laws and regulations was being interpreted. The task force, therefore, undertook a comprehensive review of laws and regulations that affected Alaskan subsistence activities. It met some twenty times over the next several months (primarily but not exclusively in Anchorage), and by the fall of 1994 it had completed a "Draft Review of Subsistence Laws and National Park Service Regulations." The group felt that it had broken much new ground during the discussions that resulted in that document; at the same time, however, members felt that there was little need to distribute the document to anyone outside of the agency. As a result, only a few copies of the draft document were produced, and for more than a year the document was largely ignored. [40]

During 1994 and 1995, the specific direction in which the agency's reorganization was to take place became increasingly clear. Former regional offices, for example, were cleaved into either field offices or system support offices, and funding allocation authority was significantly shifted from the old regional offices to the newly-formed Alaska Cluster of Superintendents. Months after implementing that change, however, it became increasingly obvious to officials at the park level that the call for reorganization as detailed in the NPS Restructuring Plan—particularly as it related to natural resource management—had not yet been implemented at the regional level; in addition, the new balance of power between the regional office and the parks (from "directing" the parks to providing "support" to them) was not being applied in Alaska. To overcome these structural problems, Field Director Robert Barbee in early December 1995 organized a four-person team, headed by Wrangell-St. Elias superintendent Jon Jarvis, to analyze the problem and recommend workable solutions. [41]

The team soon ascertained that the existing natural resource management system (consisting of the Subsistence, Natural Resources, Minerals Management and Environmental Quality divisions) was an inefficient organizational breakdown. Rather than subdividing tasks by program or issue, it argued, tasks should instead be based upon discipline or function. It thus recommended that natural resource programs be undertaken by four new divisions (or "teams"), plus one existing division that would assume a new function. The plan called for seven of the nine staff members who then comprised the Subsistence Division to be included in either the Biological Resources or Program Support Teams, both of which were new; the remaining two staffers would be added to the long-established Cultural Resource Division. The plan, to a large extent, was worked out in a series of meetings in mid-February 1996. Agency leadership broadly approved the plan during the last of those meetings, and a report delineating the reorganization process—dubbed the "Jarvis report"—was prepared soon afterward. [42] By May of 1996 the Subsistence Division ceased to exist; most of its former functions were assumed by interdisciplinary teams of new and old staff and by other members of the natural resource and cultural resource teams. [43] Paul Anderson, who had assumed leadership of the NPS's subsistence program in late 1994, continued to guide the agency's subsistence efforts during this transition period; key to his management style was the promotion of a more consultative and participatory approach to addressing and resolving subsistence issues.

D. The NPS Subsistence Program, 1996-present

Paul Anderson served as the Alaska Region's Deputy Superintendent from 1992 to 2002. From 1994 to 1999, he served as the NPS's representative to the Federal Subsistence Board. NPS (AKSO)

No sooner had the mid-February meetings taken place than SRC members and other observers began to recognize, to an ever-increasing degree, that NPS staff bore a new attitude toward subsistence issues. (Superintendent Jarvis himself called it a "new paradigm.") Personnel at both the support office as well as the various parks listened anew to subsistence users' concerns, and agency personnel made renewed attempts to solve long-simmering issues related to eligibility, access, and similar topics. And as if to underscore the agency's willingness to sound out subsistence users' concerns, Deputy Regional Director Paul Anderson invited the various SRC chairs to an Anchorage workshop on June 1, 1996. It was the first time that the chairs had met in more than six years; furthermore, the NPS noted that "the meeting was a very positive and productive session and several recommendations resulted." [44]

Even before reorganization was complete, several subsistence experts felt that one significant way the agency could display a new openness toward subsistence issues was by preparing a public document explaining its stance on eligibility, access, and similar matters. As noted above, the NPS had expended a great effort two years earlier in order to prepare a "Draft Review of Subsistence Law and National Park Service Regulations," and shortly after Alaska's NPS superintendents met in mid-October 1995, agency officials decided that this document should be dusted off and used as the basis for public comment. [45] Over the next few months, members of all of the active SRCs were given a copy of the document and asked to comment on it. Copies were also distributed to state officials, regional advisory councils, representatives of Native corporations and conservation groups, post office boxholders in resident zone communities, and others interested in subsistence activities on NPS lands. [46] Bob Gerhard, an ad hoc subsistence coordinator in the regional office, played the lead role in distributing the document and receiving comments related to its strengths and weaknesses.

NPS subsistence staff, after receiving a broad array of comments, held a subsistence workshop in Anchorage on April 14-15, 1997 and hammered out a final draft, which was issued that July. This paper was critiqued once again, and a final copy was completed and distributed a month later. Despite the "final" nature of the August 1997 paper, those who coordinated its completion were careful to note that "the document is living and will continue to evolve." As if to emphasize the open process that produced the paper, each section of it included not only the final text but all comments to the draft and the NPS's response to those comments. Just a week after it was completed, the issues paper was distributed to an assembled meeting of SRC chairs; soon afterward, it was mailed out to local fish and game advisory committees, Native organizations, federal and state agencies, conservation groups, and interested individuals. The NPS produced and distributed more than 250 copies of the issues paper to a broad array of interested individuals: federal and state legislators, SRC members, and other subsistence users as well as to NPS staff. [47]

A project far more massive, and no less important to the various SRCs, was the preparation of a series of subsistence management plans. As has been noted above, Title VIII of ANILCA gave few specifics as to what specifically constituted a "program for subsistence hunting" in the various park units, and because of that lack, the SRCs provided widely varying versions of what, in their opinion, fulfilled that requirement. The NPS, as a result, occasionally fumed that what the SRCs submitted fell short of a "program for subsistence hunting," and although various general management plans called for the preparation of a subsistence management plan, agency officials were loathe to make specific suggestions for what specifically was needed.

Shortly after the reorganization was completed, Superintendent Jarvis suggested that what constituted a "subsistence management plan" was, to a large degree, a compendium of all subsistence-related actions—Congressional laws, departmental regulations, agency interpretations and SRC recommendations—pertaining to a particular park unit. Given that administrative road map, he asked if subsistence specialist Janis Meldrum would be able to work together with Jay Wells, his chief ranger and subsistence coordinator, to assemble such a record for Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. Work began in the spring of 1996, and by February 1997 Meldrum had an initial draft ready for distribution to the park's SRC members. For the next two years, the park's SRC reviewed and critiqued the plan at its semiannual meetings; in response to members' comments, Meldrum revised and expanded the draft plan. Finally, in November 1998, the public review process had been completed, and Meldrum and the SRC declared that a mutually satisfactory product was at hand. [48]

The Denali National Park Subsistence Resource Commission has had the same chairperson—Florence Collins of Lake Minchumina—since its inception in 1984. Since 1993, communications from Denali's SRC have sported this handsome letterhead. NPS (DENA)

Meldrum has also compiled two other subsistence management plans. In the spring of 1997, she began work on the Denali National Park SMP and was able to complete an initial draft plan in time for the SRC's July 1997 meeting; the plan, however, did not go through its ninety-day public review period until the fall of 1999, and the SRC did not officially approve it until August 2000. And in the fall of 1997, she began work on a similar effort for Lake Clark National Park. She distributed an initial draft of the volume at the park SRC's February 1998 meeting, and after a ninety-day public review period, the Lake Clark SRC declared the plan complete at its October 2000 meeting. [49]

Two other subsistence management plans were guided, to some extent, by the efforts of subsistence specialist Clarence Summers. In mid-1997, Summers assisted Steve Ulvi on a plan for Gates of the Arctic National Park, and during the same period he started work with Susan Savage (and later with Donald Mike) on a similar volume for Aniakchak National Monument. The Gates of the Arctic volume was initially shown to park's SRC in January 1998, but a draft of the Aniakchak volume was not ready until its SRC met in November 2000. The Gates of the Arctic SRC, along with Superintendent Dave Mills, declared that its subsistence management plan was complete at the November 14, 2000 SRC meeting; as for Aniakchak, the monument's SRC approved its hunting plan at a Chignik Lake meeting on February 20, 2002. [50]

The success of the various subsistence management plans has spawned similar educational efforts at various park units. The goal of some of these efforts has been to educate subsistence users about basic hunting rules and regulations, while other efforts have attempted to educate the general public about subsistence activities and their role in Alaska's national park units.

The first such effort, begun in February 1998 at the request of the Denali National Park SRC, was the preparation of a users' guide that would give condensed, pertinent information about subsistence rules and regulations as they pertained to Denali-area subsistence users. This short report was first presented to the SRC at its August 1998 meeting; the SRC approved a final version six months later, and in August 1999 copies were mailed to all postal boxholders in Denali's four resident zone communities.

Soon after work began on the Denali report, park and support-office staff began work on a similar effort at Wrangell-St. Elias. But based on suggestions from the park's SRC, the agency decided, in lieu of a users' guide, to compile a series of public-education hunting maps and a brochure briefly describing the park's subsistence program to area subsistence users. By early May 1998, the NPS had produced maps for the Northway and Tanacross areas for caribou, for sheep, and for moose. The maps were well received by the residents of those communities. By the following March, copies of the final brochure had been mailed out to all boxholders in the park's 18 resident-zone communities, and two months later, a new set of hunting maps (for sheep, caribou, and moose) was made available to residents of twelve area communities.

At other park units, SRCs have suggested new ways to publicize the agency's subsistence program. In the fall of 1998, work began on a Lake Clark National Park users' guide, and two years later a similar effort began at Gates of the Arctic National Park. The Lake Clark guide was completed in March 2001, while the Gates of the Arctic guide has been finished in draft form. At Denali National Park and Preserve, the SRC opted for a subsistence brochure; unlike its equivalent at Wrangell-St. Elias, this was intended primarily for park visitors rather than area subsistence users. Alaska Support Office staff completed this task in early 2001. [51]

In the years since the issuance of the so-called "Jarvis report," relations between NPS staff and subsistence users have been fairly amicable. This "era of good feeling"—which was a decided change from the storminess that had characterized relations in past years—has emerged for several reasons. First, both park staff and support-office (regional) staff came to recognize both the necessity and desirability of finding common solutions to subsistence-related problems. And as a corollary to that mutual recognition, the agency has been able to provide sufficient staff time and financial support to allow SRC members and other subsistence users to periodically and democratically express their opinions on subsistence-related issues.

Communication has been a key to this "new paradigm." The agency, for example, has encouraged each of the SRCs to meet as often as necessary and has consistently provided funding for travel and per diem expenses, even when meeting in remote, rural locations. In addition, the agency has arranged for annual opportunities for the SRC chairs to meet, discuss common problems, and formulate resolutions of mutual interest. [52] The SRCs, with the agency's blessing, have made recommendations on a wide variety of topics in recent years, and their advice is now sought by the various regional advisory committees on matters pertaining to wildlife and fisheries management within the areas of their jurisdiction. In recognition of that expanded role, the SRCs now often schedule their meetings so that they can take maximum advantage of either 1) submitting new wildlife and fish proposals so they can be considered by a regional advisory committee, or 2) evaluating previously-submitted proposals that affect wildlife and fish populations within a given park unit.

Since 1996, the various SRC chairs have met each year to discuss common issues and concerns, both with each other and with NPS officials. Photographed at their October 2001 meeting, chairs included (left to right): Pete Schaeffer (CAKR), Ray Sensmeier (WRST), Florence Collins (DENA), Jack Reakoff (GAAR vice-chair), and Walter Sampson (KOVA). Author's collection

Managing Alaskan subsistence resources in recent years has been a more decentralized process than had been the case prior to the Subsistence Division's dissolution. The so-called Jarvis report had suggested one possible management solution—in lieu of a formalized divisional structure, "interdisciplinary teams (IDTs) would be formed to handle existing and new issues ... each IDT would be ... temporary or long term as the project dictated." Indeed, an ad hoc IDT structure was employed during much of 1996 and 1997 (i.e., during the completion of the issues paper) to accomplish subsistence-related goals; the only formal structure was that provided by a so-called Subsistence Committee of the Alaska Cluster of Superintendents. [53] But as the issues paper neared its completion, subsistence personnel began to recognize the need for some form of regularized organization. In order to provide a periodic forum for the discussion of common subsistence issues, Bob Gerhard—who had been serving as an ad hoc subsistence facilitator since his return to Anchorage in September 1996—convened a monthly teleconference beginning in June 1997. [54] This meeting, which provided the opportunity for park subsistence coordinators, superintendents, regional managers and regional subsistence staff to share ideas and opinions, met each month on a fairly regular basis.

The latest change to the subsistence management structure took place in 1999. In mid-February of that year, the various park subsistence coordinators, along with other subsistence experts, convened for several days in Anchorage and established a regional Subsistence Advisory Committee. By forming such a committee, subsistence personnel were provided a designated conduit for evaluating subsistence projects; as such, it put them on a par with their co-workers in the natural resource and cultural resource spheres. [55] Several months later, the Alaska Cluster of Superintendents approved the petition that officially sanctioned the committee. Ever since that time, subsistence personnel have continued to meet once each month; meetings of the Subsistence Advisory Committee have alternated with meetings of the more loosely-affiliated group that had been meeting since June 1997. Another managerial change in 1999 was a direct outgrowth of the assumption of fisheries management on federal lands, which took place on October 1 (see Chapter 9). In recognition of that action, Sandy Rabinowitch became the de facto coordinator of wildlife-related subsistence activities—particularly as they related to the Federal Subsistence Board—while Bob Gerhard assumed a coordinating role over the agency's subsistence fisheries management efforts.

E. Subsistence in the Legislature, Part I: the Case of Glacier Bay

One of the most contentious subsistence-related issues that the NPS dealt with during the 1990s concerned subsistence harvesting in Glacier Bay and in adjacent waters within Glacier Bay National Park. As noted in Chapter 6, provisions within ANILCA had made it clear that subsistence uses in these areas were prohibited. The State of Alaska, however, had kept the issue alive, and owing in part to actions by Fish and Game Commissioner Don Collinsworth, the NPS and Hoonah residents narrowly avoided a confrontation over the issue during the summer of 1989.

That fall, many Hoonah residents renewed their intention to press for subsistence access to Glacier Bay, and before long, the NPS and the ADF&G were once again at loggerheads. Commissioner Collinsworth, as he had in 1989, moved to issue subsistence permits for Glacier Bay; and the state legislature, in a similar vein, passed a resolution asking that the NPS "amend its regulations in order to ... expressly provide for subsistence uses in the Park." The NPS, in response, told state authorities that the agency had "no administrative authority for allowing subsistence activities in the park." Having few other alternatives, it tried to dampen what had become a high-profile issue and announced that it would be "lenient in its enforcement" of the subsistence regulation. The agency encountered few enforcement problems that summer. [56]

By this time, authorities on both sides of the issue recognized that the only way to change the existing state of affairs—that is, the only way for local residents to gain legal, long-term subsistence access into Glacier Bay—lay in the passage of federal legislation. [57] Alaska's Congressional delegation took no immediate action in the matter. But in August 1990, the Alaska Wildlife Alliance filed suit against the NPS in the Anchorage District Court, claiming that the agency, among other things, was allowing illegal commercial and subsistence fishing to occur. A month earlier, on July 1, the NPS—perhaps knowing of the imminent AWA suit—made it known that it intended to issue a proposed rule regarding commercial fishing in the bay; that rule would state that commercial fishing in the bay's few wilderness waters would be immediately prohibited and that commercial fishing in the remainder of the bay be prohibited after December 1997. (Subsistence was not addressed in the proposed rule.) The Congressional delegation stridently opposed this proposed rule, which was issued on August 5, 1991. [58]

Marvin Jensen served as the superintendent of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve from 1988 to 1995. Fishing issues, both commercial and subsistence, remained controversial throughout this period. NPS (AKSO)

Anticipating that rule, both Senator Frank Murkowski and Representative Don Young introduced bills that summer that would authorize both commercial fishing and subsistence uses in Glacier Bay. (One other provision in these bills was related to cruise ship entry.) In September and October, the NPS held hearings on the proposed commercial fishing regulations in eight Alaskan communities as well as in Seattle. The following May, Murkowski's and Young's bills were addressed by their respective subcommittees; they were passed by voice votes in June and advanced to the full committee. In October 1992, however, the bill collapsed in the Senate during the waning hours of the 102nd Congress. [59] The status quo remained, at least for the time being. Although similar bills would be resurrected in the 103rd Congress, they would be no more successful than their predecessors. [60]

During the fall of 1992, in the midst of last-minute negotiations over Senator Murkowski's Glacier Bay bill, an incident took place in the bay that started a whole new round of controversy related to subsistence fishing's legal status. On October 6, NPS rangers observed Gregory Brown, a Tlingit residing in Hoonah, hauling a dead hair seal from a skiff to a seine boat. Inasmuch as the action took place near Garforth Island, which is located near Adams Inlet within the bay, the rangers cited Brown for violating the prohibition against subsistence harvesting. Brown readily admitted that he had killed the seal; it was needed, he claimed, for a "payback party" (a kind of potlatch) for a recently deceased relative. Given these circumstances, Brown's citation aroused strong feelings in Hoonah. The Huna Traditional Tribal Council soon sent a letter of protest to Alaska's Congressional delegation; it charged that "we are made criminals for our food" and reiterated longstanding concerns that the NPS was insensitive to the Hoonah's cultural and historical ties to Glacier Bay. [61]

Those who defended Brown checked the various federal regulations that pertained to the NPS's management of the park's marine waters. They evidently discovered that a 1987 technical amendment to the agency's 1983 regulations meant that the regulations specifically applied to privately owned lands but that it was "silent as to the applicability" of the regulations on other "non-federally owned lands and waters" within the boundaries of park areas. Therefore, the regulations as they existed in 1992 "had the unforseen and unintended affect [sic] of rendering ambiguous the applicability of NPS regulations to navigable waters in Glacier Bay National Park." Because the NPS did not have clear regulatory authority over the navigable waters of several NPS units—of which Glacier Bay was just one example—the Interior Department moved to dismiss the case in December 1993. [62]

The loss of this case, of course, meant that the NPS had no clear authority to enforce a broad range of regulations pertaining to Glacier Bay's marine waters. In order to reassert that authority, Russel Wilson of the NPS's Alaska Regional Office was asked to draft an interim rule that established the federal government's clear regulatory authority without addressing the larger question of who owned the park's submerged lands. This rule, which was promulgated "to insure the continued protection of park wildlife ... and to clearly inform the public that hunting continues to be prohibited," was published in the Federal Register on March 29, 1994; it became effective the same day and was to remain valid until January 1, 1996. The public was given ninety days—until June 27, 1994—to comment on the interim rule. After receiving and considering those comments, the NPS published a Proposed Rule, which was broadly applicable to units throughout the National Park System, in December 1995. [63] The rule called for another round of public comments, to end in February 1996, and during that period both the Alaska Attorney General and the state legislature (among other entities) submitted comments. Five months later, the NPS issued a final rule on the subject. The NPS, with this rule, thus regained the legal ability to enforce subsistence (and other) regulations on Glacier Bay's waters while sidestepping the complicated issue of submerged lands ownership. [64]

Meanwhile, NPS officials moved to curtail commercial fishing within the bay. As noted earlier in this chapter, activities during the early 1990s had led to a standoff; the NPS—faced with a wall of protest at a series of public meetings—had been unsuccessful in promulgating a commercial fishing ban in Glacier Bay National Park, but Alaska's congressional delegation had likewise been unsuccessful in two successive Congresses in implementing a bill that would have allowed subsistence fishing and mandated the continuation of commercial fishing. A small part of that standoff was resolved in conservationists' favor in 1994, when District Judge H. Russel Holland ruled, in Alaska Wildlife Alliance's lawsuit against the NPS, that commercial fishing was prohibited in the park's wilderness waters. Three years later, this decision was upheld in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In other matters related to Glacier Bay fishing, however, the standoff continued. What eventually emerged from this standoff was a series of informal workshops among the major stakeholders—Interior Department officials, commercial fishermen, area residents, and others, collectively known as the cultural fishing working group—that made major strides in resolving outstanding issues. These meetings continued until the winter of 1997-98. [65]

Frank Murkowski has been Alaska's junior U.S. Senator from 1981 to the present time. He introduced bills in 1991, 1993, 1997, and 1999 that would have legitimized or expanded fishing rights in Glacier Bay. Office of Sen. Murkowski

In April 1997, NPS officials decided that they would once again issue a proposed rule that called for a termination of commercial fishing in Glacier Bay. The rule was similar to that proposed in August 1991, but it called for a 15-year rather than a 7-year phaseout period. The NPS's action, predictably, resulted in Senator Murkowski submitting a section into a larger bill (authorizing ANILCA amendments) that would have legalized both subsistence and commercial fishing in the bay. This bill was similar to bills that the Senator had submitted in both 1991 and 1993. [66] During the next several months, NPS staff began preparing an environmental assessment related to its proposed rule, and the agency held several public hearings in area communities as part of that effort. The NPS issued a final report on that topic in April 1998.

Before the NPS could issue a final rule, however, Senator Stevens was successful in implementing a compromise between the NPS's and Murkowski's position. In the waning hours of the 105th Congress, Stevens inserted a clause (Section 123) into the huge Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Act for Fiscal Year 1999 (P.L. 105-277), which was signed by President Clinton on October 21, 1998. Stevens's compromise allowed commercial fishing to continue unimpeded outside of Glacier Bay proper; within the bay, it delineated zones where commercial fishing would be prohibited. (The section made no mention of subsistence issues.) [67] Senator Murkowski and Representative Young reacted to the compromise by introducing legislation on March 2, 1999 that would have allowed commercial fishing to continue. (That bill remained alive for most of that session before stalling.) Senator Stevens, however, was more successful. In May 1999, Stevens was able to insert a paragraph (Section 501) in the 1999 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act (P.L. 106-31) that provided a $23 million compensation package for commercial fishers who were impacted by the closures outlined in the October 1998 bill. Given those mandates, NPS officials began enforcing these closures in non-wilderness waters on June 15, 1999. (Enforcement of closures in wilderness waters had begun four months earlier.) [68] In the light of the two recent congressional measures, the agency re-issued a proposed rule on August 2. The new proposal proved uncontroversial, and a final rule on the subject was issued on October 20. [69]

Although Alaska's Congressional delegation was unable to overturn the ban on subsistence uses in Glacier Bay, park officials became increasingly sensitive to local concerns (some of which related to subsistence issues) and began meeting with local residents on items of mutual interest. A major outcome of a series of meetings with Hoonah residents was a Memorandum of Understanding, signed on September 30, 1995 and effective for five years, between Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve and the Hoonah Indian Association. The MOU had several objectives: "to formally recognize our government-to-government relations and recognize areas of mutual concern and support, establish a framework for cooperative relationships, and promote communication between both parties." Since that time the Hoonahs have discussed with NPS officials a number of subsistence-related concerns—a cultural fishery program, the gathering of berries and gull eggs, and other matters—which the agency has attempted to accommodate whenever possible. [70] The MOU was updated for an additional five years on September 29, 2000.

F. Subsistence in the Legislature, Part II: Gates of the Arctic ATV Use

Another contentious subsistence-related issue during this period dealt with the all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) in Gates of the Arctic National Park. As Chapter 6 has noted, the NPS determined during the early 1980s that ATVs were not a traditional means of access in the park; then, in January 1986, the NPS issued a memorandum stating that Anaktuvuk Pass residents' use of ATVs was nontraditional. But NPS officials, recognizing that the amount of ATV-accessible land was insufficient to support villagers' needs, had begun talks back in 1984 to resolve the situation, and in March 1986 the park's Subsistence Resource Commission passed a resolution supporting the concept of a three-way land exchange between the NPS, the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC) and the Nunamiut Corporation. Work on an exchange agreement was finalized on January 20, 1989, when the NPS, ASRC, Nunamiut Corporation and the City of Anaktuvuk Pass signed a draft agreement. Among its other provisions, the agreement would have designated several thousand acres as wilderness (of both existing parkland and Native lands transferred to the federal government), and deauthorized wilderness on several thousand additional acres. [71] All parties knew that only Congress could approve these actions, so a team of 11 NPS officials set to work on a legislative environmental impact statement (LEIS) that would provide a factual basis for the proposed land transfers. In the meantime, all parties recognized that until a bill passed Congress, ATV use on park lands was technically illegal. To circumvent that technicality, and to serve the greater interest of a negotiated settlement, NPS officials granted a series of one-year extensions to the 1986-88 ATV impact study, because only under the guise of that study could park ATV use legally continue in areas where a historical pattern had been established. [72]

Work on the document consumed far longer than anyone expected; at least five working drafts were prepared. [73] A final version of the draft LEIS was issued in January 1991. It offered three alternatives, the first of which called for a continuation of the status quo. A second alternative, which combined a negotiated agreement with proposed legislation, was the NPS's proposed action. And a third alternative called for all elements of the second alternative plus a land transfer from the NPS to the ASRC; some 28,115 acres of NPS wilderness land northwest of Anaktuvuk Pass would be transferred to the ASRC, while a 38,840-acre parcel northeast of the village would be transferred from the ASRC and the Nunamiut Corporation to the NPS. This latter parcel would become designated wilderness land.

The second alternative—the NPS's proposed action—stated that 17,825 acres within Gates of the Arctic National Park would be designated as wilderness and would thus be prohibited to ATV use. It also called for the deauthorization of wilderness on 73,880 acres in the park, plus the allowance of dispersed ATV use for subsistence purposes on 83,441 acres of park nonwilderness. (Within the latter category, a network of designated ATV easements had existed since the 1983 Chandler Lake Exchange Agreement—in which ASRC had transferred key Native lands within the park to the federal government—but area residents soon found that access to caribou often took them well away from those easements.) As stated in the draft LEIS, the proposal was intended to "foster a more reasonable relationship between NPS, recreational users and the village residents and provide better public access across Native land to park land." [74]

During March 1991, the NPS held public hearings on the draft LEIS in Anchorage and Fairbanks as well as in Anaktuvuk Pass. [75] As a result of those meetings, the agency received six written replies plus additional oral input. It then commenced preparing its final LEIS, which was completed in February 1992 and issued two months later. In a surprising move, the agency adopted its third alternative—not the second alternative, which had been championed a year earlier. Due to slight variations in acreage calculation from the previous year's document, the NPS agreed to allow 73,992 acres of Gates of the Arctic National Park wilderness to be transferred to less restrictive uses: 46,231 acres would allow for dispersed ATV use, while another 27,762 acres would be transferred from NPS to ASRC ownership. In addition, the deal called for 17,985 acres of park land to be designated as new wilderness, and another 80,401 acres of nonwilderness park land to be opened to dispersed ATV use, and another 2,880 acres of nonwilderness park land to be transferred to Native ownership. A final aspect of the deal, as noted above, was that the ownership of a 38,840-acre parcel northeast of Anaktuvuk Pass would be transferred from Native corporations to the NPS; all of that acreage, moreover, would be designated wilderness. [76] On October 20, 1992, an Interior Department official issued a Record of Decision in favor of implementing the third alternative; that decision was then forwarded to the other three governments for their signature.

The NPS, it should be noted, was careful in its Anaktuvuk Pass-area negotiations to sidestep the larger question of whether ATVs were a traditional means of access in Alaska's national park units. As the Record of Decision noted, the agency still did "not consider ATVs a traditional means of access for subsistence use in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve and prohibits their use on NPS land. The Native community of Anaktuvuk Pass contends, however, that ATVs have been traditionally used and are necessary to reach subsistence resources in the summer. ... The proposed agreement and legislation meet the objective of resolving the ATV controversy. ... The agreement will also avoid a legal battle over the meaning of the legislative phrase '...other means of surface transportation traditionally employed...' and the NPS position that ATVs are not a traditional means of surface transportation." [77]

The last of the four participants in the Anaktuvuk Pass-area land exchange signed the agreement on December 17, 1992. [78] Revised agreements were signed in both 1993 and 1994, and in June 1994 the administration finally submitted the proposal to Congress. A month later, on July 13, bills intended to implement the agreement were introduced. Two different bills were submitted in the U.S. House of Representatives that day: H.R. 4746, introduced by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) by request, and H.R. 4754, by Alaska Representative Don Young. [79] A third bill, S. 2303, was introduced a week later by Alaska Senator Frank Murkowski. The three bills, all called the "Anaktuvuk Pass Land Exchange and Wilderness Redesignation Act of 1994," were identical in asking for an additional 56,825 acres of park wilderness and the dedesignation of 73,993 acres of park wilderness. Where they differed, however, was whether new wilderness acreage was contemplated elsewhere. Miller's bill, which was backed by environmental interests, called for an additional 41,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management wilderness in the Nigu River valley adjacent to Noatak National Preserve, while Young's and Murkowski's bills made no such provision.

On September 21, the major players in this issue—George Miller, Bruce Vento (D-Minn.), and Don Young—brokered a deal and agreed to settle the differences in acreage, and on September 27 the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee issued a report on S. 2303 that called for an additional 17,168 acres of wilderness in the Nigu River Valley. (This figure was chosen so that the bill would result in no net change in wilderness acreage.) This acreage was also incorporated into H.R. 4746. During the closing weeks of the 103rd Congress, many additional NPS-related provisions were added onto H.R. 4746, so when the bill passed the House of Representatives on October 3, the various provisions related to Gates of the Arctic National Park were just one section of a much larger omnibus bill. H.R. 4746 was forwarded on to the Senate, which received the bill on October 8; the Senate, however, was unable to pass a bill containing an Anaktuvuk Pass land exchange during the waning hours of the 103rd Congress. [80]

A bill to implement the deal was quickly re-introduced in January 1995, and because it was fairly noncontroversial, it moved fairly quickly. H.R. 400, introduced on January 4 and calling for 17,168 acres of new wilderness acreage in the Upper Nigu River to be added to Noatak National Preserve, sailed through the House Resources Committee on January 18, and on February 1 the bill passed the full House on a unanimous 427-0 vote. [81] Action then shifted to the Senate, which waited for several months before considering it. The full Senate considered the measure on June 30. During those deliberations, Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.) introduced an amendment to the bill urging action on provisions unrelated to the Anaktuvuk Pass ATV issue. The bill, with Dole's amendment, passed the Senate that day on a voice vote. [82] That bill's provisions, however, were soon folded into an even larger bill, H.R. 1296, which passed the Senate on May 1, 1996. Four months later, during the waning weeks of the 104th Congress, legislators cobbled together an even more comprehensive bill, H.R. 4236. This bill, called the Omnibus Parks and Public Lands Management Act of 1996, was introduced on September 27, and within the next month it passed both houses of Congress. President Clinton signed the bill on November 12. [83] Twelve years after Anaktuvuk Pass residents and NPS officials began working on the problem, the land exchange was finally implemented. Anaktuvuk Pass residents responded by holding a festive November 14 celebration in the village's community hall. [84]

G. SRC Recommendations: Eligibility Issues

During the 1990s, SRC members and other subsistence users continued to be concerned over several eligibility-related issues. Among them were 1) the consideration of new resident-zone communities, 2) the delineation of resident-zone boundaries, 3) the establishment of a community-wide "roster system," and 4) the imposition of a residency requirement. These four topics will be discussed in the order listed above.

1. New Resident Zone Communities. As noted in Chapters 5 and 6, Alaska's national park units had 49 different resident zone communities at the close of the 1980s; this was the same number that had been listed in the June 1981 subsistence management regulations (see Table 5-1). [85] During the 1980s, SRCs had sent letters to the Interior Secretary recommending that Ugashik, Pilot Point and Northway be considered as new resident zone communities, but each had been rejected on the grounds that the NPS knew of no proven interest in subsistence hunting by residents of those communities.

During the 1990s, these and other communities were considered anew for resident zone status. At Aniakchak, SRC members recognized in 1990 that a logical first step to involve Ugashik and Pilot Point residents was to have them apply for 13.44 permits; given that option, the SRC received no further action for new resident zones. Seven years later, a similar scenario was played out at Denali; the SRC asked the park superintendent for assistance in obtaining resident zone status for Tanana, and in response, the NPS dispatched the park's subsistence coordinator to the community but found no one there interested in obtaining a 13.44 permit. [86]

All other activity pertaining to potential new resident zones occurred at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. As has been noted in greater detail in the park's subsistence management plan, the SRC responded to the Interior Secretary's denial of eligibility for Northway by resubmitting, in December 1991, a recommendation that was similar in intent to that which it had submitted in August 1985. Seven months later, the Interior Secretary responded to the SRC by noting that "the NPS must first verify that [Northway has] a significant concentration of local rural residents with a history of subsistence use." [87] Four years later, the SRC also recommended the addition of Tetlin and Dot Lake as resident-zone communities, and before long Tanacross, Healy Lake, and Cordova were considered as well. The NPS responded to each of these requests by either 1) studying the situation (support-office staff wrote a 1998 environmental assessment regarding the eligibility of Northway, Tetlin, Tanacross, and Dot Lake), 2) holding a public hearing soliciting interest from townspeople, or 3) asking an agency anthropologist to visit each community and ask residents about local subsistence-harvesting patterns. [88] In time, the NPS found that five villages—Dot Lake, Healy Lake, Northway, Tanacross, and Tetlin—were eligible to be new resident zone communities. As a result, the agency published a proposed rule on the subject in June 2001 and a final rule in February 2002. The rule became effective on March 27, 2002. [89]

2. Resident Zone Boundaries. As noted in Chapter 6, NPS officials had made some attempts during the 1980s to establish boundaries around the resident zone communities, but their efforts had been only modestly successful. By 1990, in fact, only two resident zone communities had established boundaries, both of which were near Denali. The Wrangell-St. Elias SRC, by contrast, had dug in its heels and stated its refusal to establish any such boundary lines.

This halting progress continued during the 1990s. Communities adjacent to several park areas moved to establish resident zone boundaries, but elsewhere, NPS officials and SRC members skirmished over the issue, resulting in an awkward standoff. At Denali, for example, the park SRC decided in June 1994 to establish boundaries around the two resident-zone communities (Nikolai and Telida) that did not previously have one. [90] And at Gates of the Arctic, the park SRC responded to a request from the Wiseman Community Association by moving, in September 1991, to establish boundaries for Wiseman; the NPS responded to the SRC's proposal the following February by conditionally approving the proposed boundaries. [91]

Karen Wade, Wrangell-St. Elias's superintendent from 1990 to 1994, weighed in on many subsistence issues. A particularly nettlesome issue was that of resident zone community boundaries: whether boundaries should be established, and if so, where they should be located. NPS (AKSO)

At most park units, NPS officials were relatively unconcerned about the application of boundaries; as Regional Director John Morehead noted, "it has not been necessary to literally identify community boundaries because the geographic extent of the communities is easily identifiable." But at Wrangell-St. Elias, conditions were different because "the geographic confines of the communities designated in 1981 were never clearly identified for eligibility purposes, primarily because the communities are along highway systems." [92] Here, the NPS and the SRC had less amicable relations. In the late 1980s, it may be recalled, the Interior Secretary's office had intimated that the park SRC should "conservatively" establish boundaries for its resident-zone communities, but the SRC defiantly responded that "no change is necessary to further restrict eligible residents (such as the Park Service suggestions to define boundaries)." A second round of conflict in this arena erupted in the early 1990s. It began in June 1992, when NPS officials began working on a proposed boundary for Glennallen. By late November, they had expanded their effort and, at an SRC meeting, officials again proposed conservatively-drawn boundaries around each of the park's 18 resident-zone communities. "The intent of the Park Service," Superintendent Karen Wade told the SRC, "is to put boundaries into effect in a timely manner after consultations with the Commission." The Commission, however, "expressed concerns with the boundaries as presented to it," and its response was to recommend a second set of boundaries for 15 of the 18 communities: a long, 15-mile-wide resident zone that paralleled the northern and western park boundary. (This band would include all resident-zone communities located along the Glenn and Richardson highways between Slana and Tonsina). The SRC, together with the park, agreed to solicit and consider public comment on both sets of boundaries before making a recommendation to the Interior Secretary. A public comment period, in which proposed maps were distributed to interested persons, began on January 19 and ended on March 26, 1993. [93] On April 6, the park SRC met and decided to establish a subcommittee that would "complete the draft recommendations which had been started." The subcommittee, in fact, soon emerged with a draft proposal—to adopt the same 15-mile-wide resident zone it had recommended several months earlier—and in April 1994 the full SRC recommended the same action. The NPS, however, was less than enthusiastic over the SRC's proposal, and in the SRC's 1995 annual report the agency noted that the proposal was "still in review." [94] But sometime during the next few years—perhaps because of the "Jarvis report" and its ramifications—the agency had a change of heart. In November 1998, the minutes for the park's SRC meeting noted that Jack Hession of the Sierra Club "also felt ... that RZC [resident zone community] boundaries should be established. Again, NPS disagrees with that." [95]

Although most parties agreed that the idea of establishing boundaries for existing resident-zone communities should be dropped, most likewise agreed that it was necessary to establish boundaries as a prerequisite for the establishment of any new resident zone communities. SRC members recognized that doing so was a political necessity; as park resource manager Russell Galipeau noted,

to establish these communities as RZC but without boundaries ... would be rejected by the environmental community. [It] is our preference that each community would have up to one year from the date of establishment to recommend to the Superintendent the boundaries of their communities; if they do not do it within a year then would default to the census of 1990 for the designated areas. [96]

One high-profile issue related to resident zone boundaries that has been previously referred to (see Section C, above, and Chapter 6) was the proposal, by two northwestern Alaska SRCs, to have a single large residence zone that encompassed all land within the NANA Regional Corporation boundaries. This proposal had been discussed at a joint meeting of the Cape Krusenstern and Kobuk Valley SRCs as far back as February 1985; a proposal had been prepared for submission to the Interior Secretary in January 1986; and the Interior Secretary had actually been considering such a resolution since August 1993. But park and regional staff had differed on how a response letter should be worded, and the continuing standoff had resulted in a June 1994 letter from the two SRC chairs that they would cease meeting until the Interior Secretary had sent them a "formal response to the recommendations contained in the proposed hunting plan." The chairs' strong stand resulted in a predictable new round of draft responses by both park and regional officials, and by February 1995 Regional Director Robert Barbee had approved a draft response that was forwarded on to Washington. But no answer from Washington (from either the NPS or the Interior Secretary's office) was immediately forthcoming, and the lack of apparent activity made it appear, to SRC officials at least, that the agency was in no rush to respond to the August 1993 hunting plan.

During the same period in which the "Jarvis report" was approved and renewed exposure was given to the "Draft Review of Subsistence Law and NPS Regulations," Northwest Alaska Areas personnel reasserted their previously-held position relative to the Cape Krusenstern/Kobuk Valley SRCs' hunting plan. In mid-April 1996, they conducted their own assessment of the "Draft Review" package, and they concluded, in part, that

The resident zone for Kobuk Valley National Park and for Cape Krusenstern National Monument is a single area (coinciding with the NANA Regional Corporation boundaries). The people of the Northwest Arctic Region consider themselves a cohesive social and cultural unit and have traditionally hunted throughout the area without regard to jurisdictional boundaries. The large single area resident zone best represents the traditional and continuing hunting patterns of the people of the area. [97]

A more important factor in breaking the logjam, however, was a July 1996 fact-finding trip to Kotzebue taken by Deborah Williams, the Interior Department's Alaska representative, and by Deputy Interior Secretary John Garamendi. During that trip, Northwest Areas Superintendent Bob Gerhard mentioned the issue to Williams and Garamendi. Williams, dismayed at the standoff, facilitated a meeting of park staff, regional office staff and a Secretary's representative that finally brought action. Interior Department officials issued a response letter to the SRCs' hunting plan on September 25, 1996. On the resident-zone boundary issue, they concluded that the Commissions' recommendations were "worthy of further investigation." As a result, they demanded that the NPS, within a year, complete a report assessing the subsistence and environmental impacts of the SRCs' recommendation. [98] By early 1999, park staff had begun work on both a "Section 810" report on the topic and an accompanying environmental assessment. But the SRCs' seven-year hiatus delayed resolution of the issue, and efforts to work out a broad agreement have not yet been consummated. [99]

Recognizing that the key criterion for defining a resident zone community has been "significant concentrations" of subsistence users, several efforts were made during the 1990s to more specifically define the term. In 1992, the Interior Secretary's office informed one SRC that the "significant concentrations" requirement had to be verified before any new resident zone communities could be considered. At Gates of the Arctic, the SRC was asked to help on the definition, and in July 1993, subsistence coordinator Steve Ulvi cautiously stated, "Some have suggested that 'significant concentrations' may mean at least 51% of the people within a community." [100] During the winter of 1996-1997, the term was debated again as part of the public process that resulted in the August 1997 issues paper; some felt that 51% of the population constituted a "significant concentration," while others argued that a more vaguely-defined "cultural vitality" (or "subsistence character") determined eligibility as a resident zone community. The final issues paper reflected both viewpoints. [101]

Lake Clark National Park SRC Meeting, February 2001. Those in attendance include (left to right) Chief Ranger Lee Fink (NPS), SRC chair Glen Alsworth (from Port Alsworth), and members Andrew Balluta (Newhalen), Lary Hill (Iliamna), Howard Bowman (Lake Clark), Bill Trefon, Sr. (Nondalton), and Melvin Trefon (Nondalton). Balluta also serves on the Bristol Bay Subsistence Regional Advisory Council. NPS (LACL), photo by Karen Stickman

3. The roster regulations idea. A third major issue related to eligibility was whether resident-zone communities would opt for so-called "roster regulations" (a community-wide permit system) in order to protect subsistence opportunities for long-term community residents. As noted in Chapter 6, both the Lake Clark and Denali SRCs had advanced such an idea because members were concerned about an influx of residents due to large-scale development projects, and the Interior Department in its 1988 responses had certified the concept's validity. Clouding the picture, however, was the State of Alaska's reversal of its previous position approving the idea; in addition, the Denali SRC—no longer worried about impending development in the Cantwell area—was now less than enthusiastic about pushing the idea for that community.

During the 1990s, the roster regulations issue was considered by four SRCs, two of which had been active on the issue during the previous decade. At Denali and Lake Clark, the SRCs hoped that the Interior Department would follow its 1988 approval of the roster regulations concept by initiating a rulemaking process. That process, however, did not begin until July 1991, when the NPS's regional director submitted a proposed rule to Washington. That rule, revised by the regional office in October, was reviewed by the NPS's Solicitor's office in February 1992. The rulemaking, however, was halted for the time being because in January 1992, President Bush issued a broad moratorium on the issuance of new government regulations. Glen Alsworth, who was apprised of the moratorium later that year, questioned the "apparent inaction of the Department of the Interior in promulgating regulations;" further, he stated that the Lake Clark SRC "does not feel that the presidential moratorium should have any effect upon this particular action" because "it does not stand to effect the economy." But Washington-based NPS official John H. Davis begged to differ; he replied that "While the proposed rule may not appear to have a significant effect on the economy, the moratorium is more inclusive" and that "a strict reading of the criteria would indicate that the proposed rule could not be exempted." [102]

Just a month after Davis's letter, President Bush's defeat in the 1992 general election campaign promised new leadership in Washington. The change of leaders, however, brought a temporary slowdown in administrative machinery, and the lack of movement on the roster regulations issue forced Morehead, in July 1993, to once again write to Washington "to reemphasize the need for publication of the Alaska Region's proposed regulation." "Both the NPS in Alaska and the Lake Clark and Denali SRCs," he wrote, "have been distressed by the delay in publication of this regulatory package. This delay has seriously affected the credibility of the NPS" because of the failure of the SRCs' program recommendations "to be 'promptly' implemented." Morehead noted that "a delay of 5 years in implementing mandated departmental action seems unreasonable. We hope," however, "that the new administration will make the publication of this proposed regulation a priority." [103] The Washington office, however, did not move on the issue, and in February 1995—more than a year and a half after Morehead's second reminder letter—an obviously frustrated Florence Collins complained to Secretary Babbitt about the department's inaction. She noted, with understated emphasis, that "it has been seven years since we submitted our proposal and nearly as many years since the proposed Roster Regulations have been submitted to the Department. [The SRC] feels this delay is inappropriate," and "we respectfully request" that some action take place on the issue by July 1. [104] Given such a reasonable plea from one of Alaska's most conscientious subsistence representatives, NPS officials scrambled to provide some answers; in April, Regional Director Barbee noted that "we anticipate a proposed rule to be published in the Federal Register in the next few months," and in June Barbee informed her that "we continue to support the proposal" and "we are hopeful for further action by July 1, as you have requested." [105] But Alaskan officials, to their chagrin, soon learned that a key Washington official "may be willing to move [the roster regulation] along, but it doesn't appear to be a high priority...." Given that state of affairs and other complications, the proposal continued to languish in Washington, and in mid-July 1995, Barbee was again forced to note that "DOI continues to review the proposal and has not yet requested publication in the Federal Register which would start formal rulemaking." [106]

This state of affairs remained until August 1996, when the Denali SRC was asked to comment on the "Draft Review of Subsistence Law and NPS Regulations." During the SRC's section-by-section review of that document, it reiterated its general support for a roster regulation, but it further avoided a prickly issue by stating that "we do not want to be the responsible party for picking the roster list members. The Commission as a group is not familiar enough with all the individuals within the resident zone populations to be able to fairly identify all eligible users." [107] When the Lake Clark SRC met in February 1998, its members discussed the proposed roster regulations, and comments from members appeared to be similar to those stated, eighteen months earlier, by the Denali SRC. Based on such qualified support—and the lack of any population increase that threatened the area's subsistence resources—the Lake Clark SRC moved to rescind the original set of proposed regulations. Soon afterward, the NPS withdrew the rule from consideration based on a perception that the Lake Clark and Denali SRCs no longer supported such an action. [108]

By mid-1998, therefore, the long-discussed idea of a roster regulation appeared to be dead. But an action from an unexpected source —the Aniakchak National Monument SRC—soon revived the idea. During the early 1990s, this Aniakchak SRC had wrestled with the roster regulations issue, and in a March 1992 hunting plan recommendation it had concluded that it "supports the development of a ... roster regulation." The Commission admitted that it had no interest in "changing resident zone status right now," but it did want "the opportunity to do so [later] if needed with the option of using a roster system." This recommendation was duly forwarded to others for their comment, but due to the Commission's inability to muster a quorum for its meetings, the recommendation could not be forwarded to the Interior Secretary until October 1998. The official response, received by the SRC a month later, stated that the NPS promised to "re-submit a draft proposed rule for a roster eligibility system." As a result of that submission, the roster regulations idea is again alive and well. At present, however, the Interior Department has not yet approved a draft rule for publication as a proposed rulemaking. [109]

Woman flensing a sheefsh with an ulu at the water's edge, June 1974. NPS (ATF, Box 10), photo 2341-3, by Robert Belous

Communities in one other SRC—Gates of the Arctic—have toyed with the idea of a roster regulation. As noted above (Section F), the NPS was involved in a land use issue in the Anaktuvuk Pass area that began in 1983 and continued for more than a decade. Between 1989 and 1991, the NPS compiled a Legislative Environmental Impact Statement (LEIS) on ATV use in the Anaktuvuk Pass area, and options that were considered in the draft and final versions of the LEIS called for the replacement of the Anaktuvuk Pass resident zone with a roster regulation. In light of that process, the park's SRC passed a May 1991 resolution that stated, in part,

If substantive changes occur in any of the communities such that established patterns of subsistence use are significantly altered, the Commission might recommend that a permit system be substituted for the resident zone to ensure that park values and subsistence needs are protected. Such changes might include connection of the community to a year-round road or significant changes in the local economy to the degree in which subsistence no longer comprises a major component. Because of its unique history, circumstances, and the stated desires of the representatives of the community of Anaktuvuk Pass, the Commission supports the elimination of the resident zone and the development of a roster system, subject to Commission review, as described in the proposed Agreement among the National Park Service, the Nunamiut Corporation and the City of Anaktuvuk Pass. [110]

But changes in the "proposed Agreement" in the next few months removed the need to eliminate the Anaktuvuk Pass resident zone, and by February 1992, the resolution that was sent to the Interior Secretary made no mention of a roster regulation. Similarly, SRC minutes beginning in early 1990 show that the residents of Wiseman seriously weighed the idea of establishing a roster regulation for their community. But in August 1991, the Wiseman Community Association held a public meeting and decided "that we ... want to retain our Resident Zone Status." Since that time the issue has not again surfaced, either in Wiseman or in any of Gates of the Arctic's other resident zone communities. [111]

4. Residency requirements. A fourth eligibility issue that subsistence resource commissions debated was, how long does someone need to live in a resident zone community in order to harvest subsistence resources? The subsistence regulations clearly state that subsistence harvests would be open to those who lived in resident zone communities (or those outside of such communities who qualified for 13.44 permits). Beyond that requirement, the regulations are relatively lenient; they note that "This concept [of a local rural resident] does not impose a durational residency requirement." [112]

Despite that interpretation, various SRCs have broached the idea of a minimum period of residency in order to protect area subsistence resources. In May 1988, it may be recalled, the Interior Secretary had disallowed the SRC's attempt to impose a 12-month minimum residency, citing the 1981 regulation as the reason for doing so. They continued to retain such a stance until November 1989, but the state—which managed subsistence at the time—also rejected the idea because it was inconsistent with state statutes. Given that advice, at least one Commission member pressed for a recommendation "that emphasizes the need for a [resident] state hunting license" (which required a 12-month residency in the state), but the SRC's 1991-1992 recommendations omitted any mention of a residency requirement. [113]

The issue lay dormant for the next several years, but in March 1997 the Wrangell-St. Elias SRC resurrected it as part of its review of the draft issues paper. The SRC concluded that

an individual should be required to live in a resident zone community for at least one year before becoming eligible for subsistence uses within the national park. There was concern that people are establishing "instant eligibility" with no intent of living in the community on a permanent basis. The SRC felt that a minimum residency requirement of one year would be sufficient. [114]

At its next meeting, in November 1997, the Wrangell-St. Elias SRC passed a draft hunting plan recommendation calling for a one-year residency requirement. The recommendation made an exception for students and the military; these individuals would be allowed to temporarily leave the area and retain their subsistence eligibility if they had previously established residency. [115] This vote was followed, just ten days later, with a similar draft recommendation (for a "minimum residency requirement" of undetermined length) from the Aniakchak SRC. Almost a year later, at an Anchorage meeting, the SRC chairs discussed these two recommendations, and in October 1999, the issue arose again. A key question emanating from the discussions was: Inasmuch as resident hunting licenses were required of all subsistence hunters, was a one-year residency requirement necessary? Since that time, the various SRCs have shown a diversity of opinion on the topic, but no move has yet been made by those who favor a residency requirement to suggest new or modified regulations. [116]

H. SRC Recommendations: Access Issues

During the 1980s, most of the state's SRCs were concerned about questions of subsistence access to the various park units; NPS officials endeavored to explain access-related laws and regulations, and various SRCs passed recommendations intended to either clarify subsistence legalities or lodge a clear statement of intent regarding the legitimacy of existing access methods. Conflict erupted between the NPS and the SRCs on numerous access questions. By the end of the decade, most of the state's SRCs—though they may or may not have been pleased with how the Interior Department and NPS interpreted the regulations—at least had a clear idea on what those regulations were.

Access questions remained prominent through most of the 1990s. These questions took several forms, including 1) protests against the NPS's subsistence aircraft access policies, 2) protests against the agency's all-terrain vehicle policies, and 3) attempts, by both SRC members and NPS staff, to study the legality and methodology of access into Alaska's park units.

As ANILCA's legislative history and the final 1981 regulations had made clear, aircraft were to be used only sparingly to access subsistence resources in the Alaskan parks. In only two cases—at Anaktuvuk Pass (in Gates of the Arctic National Park) and on the Malaspina Forelands (in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park)—were aircraft to be considered a "traditional" (and thus legitimate) form of subsistence access. Furthermore, NPS officials ruled that it was illegal for subsistence hunters to fly to an area just outside of a national park in order to harvest wildlife inside a park's borders. These regulations and interpretations angered many subsistence users because, in their estimation, the use of aircraft was the primary way to access subsistence resources in remote areas.

These protests continued. Between 1988 and 1990, for example, several Gates of the Arctic airplane owners—one an SRC member—publicly stated their opposition to the agency's subsistence access policy. [117] Several years later, a Glennallen resident told the Wrangell-St Elias superintendent, "you realize that traditional access to most areas in the park has been by aircraft. In fact, in many cases [it] is the only reasonable access." At Wrangell-St. Elias, feelings about the NPS's access policy—first clarified in 1985—continued to run so strong that in 1997, the park SRC urged the agency to "change its policy to allow subsistence users to fly to the preserve, to private lands within the park or to land adjacent to [the] park and then walk into the park to subsistence hunt." And at Aniakchak—as at Wrangell-St. Elias—SRC members were disgruntled with the Interior Secretary's 1988 refusal to recognize aircraft access as "traditional." The Aniakchak SRC, however, decided in 1992 "not to pursue [the issue of] airplane access at this time ... there were not very good places to land within the monument anyway." [118]

NPS staff and SRC members also debated a closely related aviation access issue; namely, can someone living in a park's resident zone community fly to another resident zone community for subsistence hunting purposes? Back in 1987, the Gates of the Arctic SRC had recommended that the subsistence regulations "not be interpreted by the NPS as restricting in any way [the] travel of local rural residents on scheduled air carriers between villages in or near the park." The Interior Department, however, skeptically noted that such an activity "would presumably take a person out of his community's traditional use zone and into that of another. This could prove detrimental to the satisfaction of subsistence needs of local residents." The recommendation was denied. [119] The SRC fully recognized the NPS's rationale as it pertained to flying to the boundary of a national park for subsistence purposes, but it argued that flying between resident zone communities—for whatever reason—did not fit that criteria. At several meetings during 1989 and 1990, the SRC and agency staff wrestled with the problem, but the SRC, holding fast to its opinion, stubbornly insisted that "the NPS has no authority to restrict air access between resident zone communities," and in both its draft (1991) and final (1992) recommendations it noted that "travel between resident zones located outside the park by eligible users should not be considered as accessing the park by aircraft. NPS has no jurisdiction over lands outside the park and applying Section 13.45 to such lands is clearly outside the scope of their authority." The Interior Department, however, continued to take a hard line; using language almost identical to that employed in 1988, the Department refused to implement the SRC's recommendation. [120] The conflict, to a large extent, was reflective of the long-running difference of opinion between the agency and subsistence users over traditional use zones (see Chapter 6 and Section I); many NPS officials felt that each resident zone community had its own, geographically-limited traditional use zone, while "some commission members felt that resident zone subsistence users should have customary and traditional use in all of Gates of the Arctic National Park." [121]

In a few cases, the NPS's access rules forced subsistence users who had both a winter home and summertime hunting cabin to choose a "primary, permanent home." Jeff Poor, for example, maintained one residence in a resident zone community (Bettles) and another in a remote area (Iniakuk Lake). Poor typically flew his plane from Bettles to Iniakuk Lake, and from there he entered Gates of the Arctic National Park via snowmachine and ran a trap line. The NPS had no problem with his dual residency, with his snowmachine activities or with his trap line operation; it was, however, concerned about his using the Iniakuk Lake cabin as a temporary residence prior to trapping operations. If he chose Bettles as his permanent residence, he was free to "engage in subsistence activities within the park" but he could not fly to his cabin prior to entering the park. If he chose Iniakuk Lake as his primary residence, he would also be free to harvest the park's subsistence resources and would similarly be free to fly in and out of his cabin anytime he chose; but if he did so, he would need to obtain a subsistence permit (13.44 permit). Given those options, Poor chose the latter course, and in late 1993 he became the holder of a subsistence permit. [122]

Russell Berry was the superintendent of Denali National Park and Preserve from 1989 to 1994. Beginning in 1992, Berry and his subsistence specialist, Hollis Twitchell, commenced a process that re-evaluated subsistence ATV use patterns in the Cantwell area. NPS (AKSO)

A second access issue revolved around the NPS's surface transportation policies, specifically as they related to all-terrain vehicle (ATV) use. During the 1980s the NPS had let it be known—based on its observation of existing conditions—that ATV use would be tacitly condoned for subsistence-access purposes at Cape Krusenstern National Monument, Lake Clark National Park, and Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, so long as subsistence users remained on existing routes and ATV use did not unduly damage park resources (see Chapter 6). At the other parks, the agency declared that ATV use was not traditional and was therefore prohibited.

At parks where ATV use was prohibited, subsistence users and park staff reacted in widely divergent ways to the agency's dictums. At Gates of the Arctic, for example, the 1983 Chandler Lake land agreement in the Anaktuvuk Pass area (see Chapter 6) meant that ATV use, previously confined to Native- and state-owned lands within park boundaries, was now taking place on NPS lands. But NPS officials felt so strongly about prohibiting ATV use in the park that they initiated a series of discussions that culminated, more than a decade later, in the Congressional passage of a four-way land swap. At Aniakchak, the monument's SRC reacted to the Interior Secretary's prohibition against ATV use by deciding "not to pursue [the issue of] ATV access at this time." [123] At Cape Krusenstern, NPS officials in 1992 took a narrow view and stated that ATVs were "currently not allowed," but in language reflective of the park's general management plan, the park superintendent told SRC members that the agency "was interested and ready to work with [them] to identify trails and access routes." The SRC, in response, took a bold stand; it recommended to the Interior Secretary "that traditional use of ATVs ... be allowed in the Monument for subsistence purposes and to access inholdings." But the Secretary responded that "there has been no evidence presented to indicate that subsistence use of ORVs in CAKR is a traditional means of access for subsistence," and he thus vetoed the SRC's recommendation. [124]

At Denali, new information about ATV use resulted in a reassessment of the agency's access rules. In the newly-expanded portions of Denali National Park, it may be recalled (from Chapter 6) that ATV use was prohibited because, as noted in the park's GMP, "existing information indicates that specific ORV use has not regularly been used for subsistence purposes." Hollis Twitchell, the newly-hired park subsistence coordinator, reiterated the park's stance at a 1992 SRC meeting held in Cantwell. But as the minutes noted, "some hunters were not aware of this prohibition," and two months later, Twitchell explained the park's position once again to southside subsistence users. [125] Cantwell resident Vernon J. Carlson responded to the news by writing a letter to Superintendent Russell Berry; that letter described past ATV uses in the area and included affidavits from eight local residents detailing similar activities. Berry, who had long known that subsistence hunting had been taking place in park areas adjacent to Cantwell area, expressed a new willingness to learn more about ATV use patterns. The park scheduled an open house in Cantwell to solicit information on the customary and traditional uses of ATV use; that meeting, held on November 3, 1993, revealed that as early as the 1940s, one or more local residents had taken an ATV into the Windy Creek drainage of the "old park." In addition, several areas in the not-yet-designated "new park"—Bull River, Cantwell Creek, and Dunkle Hills—had witnessed ATV use for mining access. [126]

Steve Martin, as the Gates of the Arctic superintendent (1993-94), backed user concerns in the traditional use zone issue; later, as the Denali superintendent (1994-2002), he worked to resolve the issue of subsistence ATV use near Cantwell. NPS (AKSO)

Steve Martin, who replaced Berry as park superintendent during the winter of 1994-95, showed an immediate interest in resolving the situation. During the summer of 1995, therefore, he met with Twitchell and Carlson and visited several of the Cantwell residents' better-traveled subsistence routes; during that inspection, he was able to witness both the long history of use and the relative lack of environmental degradation that resulted from that use. Given that situation, he let it be known, on an informal basis, that the NPS had few qualms with a continuation of existing route usage in various "new park" drainages west of Cantwell. [127] The SRC, not surprisingly, welcomed this apparent change of stance; in August 1996, it reiterated that "people in the Cantwell resident zone have used ATVs traditionally," and members unanimously passed a motion stating that "Access [to the park] should be allowed at the same level as 1980, with reasonable allowances for restrictions to preserve the environment." The following year, the NPS began "the process of preparing an environmental assessment on subsistence ORV use within the park." [128] That study has not yet been completed.

At parks in which historical access patterns are not well known, both park staff and SRC members have sought to clarify such uses by requesting funding for further research on the subject. At various times during the 1990s, several Alaska parks have requested subsistence access studies. At Aniakchak National Monument, the SRC in 1992 requested that the NPS "conduct a study on the modes of transportation, including aircraft, and routes and areas of access used for subsistence by area residents prior to ... 1980." At Cape Krusenstern, interest in an access study first surfaced in 1991, and in 1993 the monument's SRC formally asked the NPS to "identify and study conflicts between local residents who are engaged in subsistence hunting ... and other persons using aircraft in the same areas." The Interior Department responded to both recommendations by urging the NPS to undertake these studies. Neither study, however, has yet been funded. [129]

At Wrangell-St. Elias, the SRC's December 1991 passage of a hunting plan recommendation advocating an access study has engendered a complicated series of events. The Interior Secretary's reply, in July 1992, noted that "the NPS is in the process of incorporating, within the [park's] Resource Management Plan, a study of subsistence access and use areas within the park." [130] And indeed, by the following August the final park RMP featured a study that was intended "to determine the customary and traditional means and use of access points and routes as they relate to the temporal and spatial use of subsistence resources." The park, however, made no immediate move to fund the study, and in December 1993 the state's Department of Fish and Game had told the NPS that it was initiating its own study of subsistence and traditional access in the park and preserve. [131] Shortly after it began its study, ADF&G staff asked their NPS counterparts to examine pertinent records; the NPS granted that request, though with considerable caution. The park's SRC, upon hearing that the ADF&G's effort was faltering due to a funding shortfall, recommended that the NPS "contribut[e] staff time and/or funding toward its completion." But the NPS replied that "the anticipated 1995 subsistence research budget will be needed for the completion of ongoing projects." In November 1995, the state completed a pilot "study of traditional access used prior to ... 1980." The state, by this time, had identified some 1,400 miles of historical routes (so-called RS 2477 routes) within the national park. NPS officials worried that if federal regulations were approved sanctioning the state's claims, the routes would then become state rights-of-way. The issue, however, was then tied up in the courts. At the time of this writing it remains so, and no resolution between the state and federal governments is expected in the foreseeable future. The NPS, for its part, has not yet been able to secure funding for its own subsistence access study. [132]

Map 8-1. Resident Zone Community Boundary Proposals, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, 1992-1993. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

I. A Renewed Discussion of Traditional Use Zones

As noted in ANILCA, five Alaska park areas—Aniakchak, Gates of the Arctic, Lake Clark, Wrangell-St. Elias, and the Denali additions—contained language stating that subsistence uses would take place "where such uses are traditional, in accordance with the provisions of Title VIII." As noted in Chapter 6, the NPS asked the various SRCs to help delineate traditional use zone boundaries, but the SRCs—despite considerable prodding from NPS officials—were reluctant to make such determinations. By the end of the 1980s, most of the state's SRCs had mulled over the issue; the Gates of the Arctic SRC had spent considerable time on the matter. The result was an awkward standoff, but none had seriously considered (let alone recommended) any traditional use zones.

This pattern, of NPS encouragement and SRC recalcitrance, continued on into the early 1990s. At Wrangell-St. Elias (where NPS staff, during the mid-1980s, had stated that the imposition of traditional use zones "would be an administrative nightmare") and at Lake Clark, neither government officials nor SRC members showed any particular interest in changing the existing state of affairs. And at both Aniakchak and Denali, the only opinion expressed by SRC members, predictably, was that the entire park unit should be considered a traditional use area for everyone living in the various resident zone communities. Even the Cape Krusenstern SRC—where the "where traditional" clause did not apply—got into the act; it too passed a hunting plan statement "recommend[ing] that the entire Monument be classified as a traditional use area." [133]

Most of the discussion pertaining to this topic during the 1990s was directed to Gates of the Arctic National Park, where attention had also been focused during the 1980s. In May 1988, it may be recalled, the Interior Secretary had responded the SRC's May 1987 recommendation with a strongly-worded denial: the recommendation "will not be implemented because [it] seems to imply that the entire park is an area of traditional use. Congress was clear in its intent to have the Commissions and NPS identify traditional use areas and to have some areas of the park remain, for the most part, unhunted. ... We believe that the Commission ... should analyze the patterns of subsistence use following establishment of each community and develop a definition of traditional subsistence areas by community." [134]

This difference of opinion between the SRC and the federal government continued for the next several years. After learning that the Interior Secretary had rejected its recommendation, the SRC mulled over the issue for awhile; then, in November 1990, it once again decided "that the entire park be generally classified as a traditional use area," and it further noted that its conclusion was "consistent with, if not compelled by, the intent of Title VIII." In February 1992, that recommendation—with an added caveat that "when a wild, renewable resource must be protected in a specific area, the NPS will take appropriate steps to protect [it]"—was forwarded once again to the Interior Secretary. The Secretary, however, was no more favorably disposed to this recommendation than he had been to the SRC's previous (1987) proposal. The Secretary further noted that the NPS "was in the process of incorporating, within the Resource Management Plan, a study of traditional use areas for designated resident zone communities. ... Based upon the data presented in the study, the NPS will initiate a process to identify traditional subsistence hunting use areas." The agency promised to "consult with and involve the Commission" in this process. Even so, its decision to initiate such a study and, by implication, to identify park areas where subsistence hunting might not be allowed, was clearly a change in tactics—and one that threatened to undermine the SRC's role in the process. [135]

The SRC, unbowed by the Secretary's letter, fought back. At its October 1993 meeting, it passed a new traditional use area recommendation because it felt "compelled to defend their definition of 'traditional use.'" Citing "elders of the communities within the Gates of the Arctic resident zone" as well as the 1982 publication, Tracks in the Wildland, the park SRC again resolved to "clearly define ... the entire 8.4 million acres of the park/preserve as the 'traditional use area.'" [136] This proposal (Recommendation 9) was sent to the Interior Secretary on April 11, 1994; shortly afterward, SRC officials learned that the NPS—in conformance to the Interior Secretary's instructions—had indeed included a proposal for a traditional use zone study (S102) in the park's still-developing Resource Management Plan. [137]

By this time, however, various NPS officials were beginning to rethink their long-held views on subsistence policy. The various park superintendents, for example had by this time held a subsistence management conference; the park had a new superintendent, Steve Martin, who had not previously worked in Alaska; and Martin, moreover, was a key member of the ad hoc group of NPS officials that spent much of the spring and summer of 1994 conducting a thorough review of subsistence laws and regulations. Martin, analyzing the traditional use zone issue in May 1994, sent Waller a draft response note which said, in part, that "The Gates of the Arctic staff has reviewed the substantial information available on this issue. ... Initial findings support the contention that nearly all of the 8.4 million acre unit has been used for subsistence activities at least since the contact period in the mid to late 1800s by those residing in the area of the park." Martin urged that the NPS "define the terms and legislative guidance pertinent to this particular issue to ensure that research, analysis, and designation of traditional use areas is consistent for the five ['where traditional'] park areas," and he concluded that various "key criteria ... must be identified [and] be carefully considered before deciding whether each community must have exclusive areas delineated." And two months later, he prepared a five-page briefing statement on the topic; most of the statement justified his conclusion that "the Subsistence Resource Commission proposition ... is reasonable and acceptable." Key to his argument were two statements that were gleaned directly from the Congressional Record:

1) if the subsistence zone concept is to be applied to any park areas, fundamental fairness seems to require that the designation and boundaries be made by the subsistence resource commissions ... rather than park planners and researchers, and 2) that if there is any doubt as to whether subsistence hunting should be permitted within a particular area, that the decision be made on the basis that subsistence hunting should be permitted rather than restricted. [138]

Martin's views, not surprisingly, were not shared by everyone. Ray Bane, an NPS subsistence specialist, countered that "the NPS must constructively work with local residents to identify use areas and to devise a flexible and effective system for accommodating traditional subsistence uses," while Jack Hession of the Sierra Club, who defined a "traditional national park" as one that was "closed to the consumptive use of wildlife," chided the NPS for its 13°-year delay "in establishing the five new traditional parks envisioned by Congress." [139] Faced with such a strong diversity of opinion, the agency's new regional director, Robert Barbee, approved of a draft response to the SRC's recommendation saying only that "the application of [the 'where traditional'] mandate is being examined by the Department. At the conclusion of this review, the Secretary will address the Commission's concerns regarding Recommendation 9." But perhaps because the NPS made no move to finalize its draft review of subsistence policies, the Interior Secretary did not immediately respond to the SRC's recommendation. The SRC waited until May 1996—two years after its initial submittal—before it publicly questioned the delay. Regional Director Barbee, in response, politely noted that the Secretary was "currently reviewing all the comments/suggestions received." Otherwise, however, no official response was forthcoming. [140]

Caribou herd crossing a stream in northwestern Alaska. NPS (ATF, Box 13), photo #69

NPS staff addressed the traditional use zone issue, along with a number of other subsistence issues, during the review and comment period that preceded the completion of the NPS's August 1997 subsistence issues paper. Gates of the Arctic and Denali were the only SRCs that commented on the issue; both, predictably, stated that the whole park area was a traditional use zone. The NPS, in its final document, hedged on the issue; it noted that Gates of the Arctic's staff was "currently responding" to the park SRC's recommendation and that it had not yet been determined whether the Federal Subsistence Board's "customary and traditional" determinations would be used as a basis for defining traditional use areas. [141]

Shortly after the issues paper was completed, however, the agency's position as it related to traditional use zones became slightly more clear. In November 1998, for example, Wrangell-St. Elias Superintendent Jon Jarvis stated at an SRC meeting that

Jack Hession [of the Sierra Club] has been saying ... that the NPS has the responsibility to zone the park into [a] traditional park [where all hunting is prohibited] and areas that subsistence could take place. We disagree with that. Per the recommendations from [the SRC], NPS experience, and all the C&T recommendations, is that the whole park should be used for subsistence.

A similar point of view emerged at Aniakchak, where a November 1998 response to an SRC recommendation allowed qualified subsistence users to hunt and trap throughout the monument. [142]

At Gates of the Arctic, additional information relative to this issue was gathered beginning in the winter of 1997-98, when the NPS, at long last, began work on a traditional subsistence use area analysis. That study, entitled Traditional Subsistence Use Areas: Information Necessary for Making a Determination for Gates of the Arctic National Park, was presented in draft form to the SRC at its April 20-21, 1999 meeting. But the SRC, upon receiving the report, decided that the status quo was working well; it therefore passed a resolution stating that a determination of traditional use areas is unnecessary as a management action. NPS staff, for their part, also recognized the wisdom in opting not to designate traditional use zones. [143]

Three weeks after the SRC meeting, Jack Hession of the Sierra Club pressed the agency to designate these zones. A long letter to Regional Director Robert Barbee served as a petition on the topic under the Administrative Procedures Act, and Hession later stressed that "such a zoning effort is required, not discretionary." Barbee, however, disagreed. In a July 8, 1999 response, he reiterated that the Gates of the Arctic SRC "currently does not wish to work further on this issue ... and there is no immediate need to make formal designations. ... We do not agree with your conclusion," he continued, "that NPS regulations mandate formal designations of traditional use areas. ... We do not believe that there is a need to make such [traditional use zone] designations at this time, but will certainly reconsider this decision if in our judgment it becomes necessary to do so in the future." A recently completed subsistence management plan reflects the language of Barbee's July 1999 letter. The plan notes that "Title 36, Part 13, Code of Federal Regulations, Section 13.41 gives the NPS the option of designating areas 'where such uses are traditional' as a management tool, if necessary, but it remains an option and not a fundamental directive of the law or the regulation itself." [144]

J. Wildlife Management Issues

As noted in Chapter 6, the various park SRCs during the 1980s played a minimal role in making wildlife-allocation decisions. When the SRCs met for the first time in the spring of 1984, NPS officials told several SRCs that they could either recommend changes to the state subsistence hunting regulations (on seasons and bag limits or methods and means of harvesting), or they could comment on wildlife management proposals affecting the park areas. But as the decade wore on, the lack of support that the NPS provided to the SRCs made it difficult to have members provide regular advice on wildlife allocation questions, and when the Gates of the Arctic SRC, in 1986, recommended that it be a "sounding board" for NPS recommendations and proposals, the Interior Secretary replied that it was "not practicable" to use the Commission in that capacity. Perhaps as a result, almost the only specific wildlife management actions that SRCs made during the 1980s were occasional protests against the Alaska Game Board's negative C&T determinations. (As noted in Chapter 6, above, and in Section M, below, Denali was the only SRC to file any such protests.) During this period, most specific wildlife proposals that affected NPS lands were either proposed or supported by agency officials.

Raymond Paneak, an Anaktuvuk Pass resident, chaired the Gates of the Arctic Subsistence Resource Commission from 1989 to 1998. NPS (GAAR)

A meeting of the SRC chairs in December 1989, however, apparently resulted in a change of attitudeby both subsistence users and federal regulators. Just a month later, a Gates of the Arctic SRC member asked chairman Raymond Paneak "if there was a consensus on what is a hunting plan" and Paneak, who had discussed the issue at the chairs' meeting, replied that "there was no clear answer." Members were also well aware that their recent hunting plan recommendations to the Interior Secretary had taken fourteen months for a response. On the heels of those discussions, member Bill Fickus recommended that the subsistence moose hunt in the Wiseman area be moved from December to November. Superintendent Roger Siglin, in response, perhaps surprised those in attendance by saying he "thought that such a suggestion may be more readily responded to by the [state] Game Board rather than being addressed in the hunting plan," and the SRC decided to assemble information on the proposal for the upcoming Game Board meeting. [145]

The federal assumption of authority over subsistence wildlife management on federal lands, which took place on July 1, 1990, had the practical effect of shifting subsistence decision making from the state Game Board to the newly-created Federal Subsistence Board. Before long, several SRCs considered wildlife management issues. At a May 1991 SRC meeting, Gates of the Arctic Superintendent Siglin encouraged his park's SRC to become more involved:

The commissions to date have ... talked very little about hunting seasons and bag limits or means and methods of take of wildlife. Roger stated that he thought it was particularly appropriate [to get more involved] now that the federal government is managing subsistence on federal lands. ... The commission needs to start thinking about a broader ranger of subsistence management issues. ... He also stated that he strongly encourages the Commission to broaden their horizons a little bit and think about other things that should be a legitimate part of a hunting plan or recommendations outside the hunting plan.

Later at the same meeting, Stan Leaphart, head of the Citizens' Advisory Commission on Federal Areas, agreed with Siglin but became more specific. As paraphrased, he noted that the Park Service and the Federal Subsistence Board had an opportunity to outline a role for the Subsistence Resource Commission in the review and development of the annually-revised regulations. Leaphart thought that it would be appropriate to draw a more formal mechanism for putting the proposed regulations in front of the Subsistence Resource Commission so that they could respond to them in a timely fashion. He suggested that the commission make such a recommendation to the Secretary.

Immediately afterward, NPS subsistence specialist Clarence Summers chimed in; he added that "nothing prevents the subsistence resource commission from making recommendations on methods and means, seasons and bag limits." Given that newly-conferred role, the SRC quickly generated three resolutions (a moose proposal and two brown bear proposals) for submittal to the Federal Subsistence Board and approved all three by unanimous votes. [146] To be valid, the proposals needed to be presented to the board by May 16; NPS staff, however, let the proposal "slip through the cracks." The error was not discovered until SRC members asked about the proposals at the September 1991 SRC meeting. SRC members, upon hearing of the snafu, merely asked the NPS Subsistence Coordinator to "make sure that commission recommendations get to the board." Five months later, the SRC passed a resolution in which it expressed its approval of four different board proposals. [147]

Other SRCs got involved, too. In November 1991, Wrangell-St. Elias SRC member John Vale asked Summers, "Can we make proposals to the Federal Subsistence Board about seasons and bag limits?" Summers replied that "If the SRC feels it is important to make proposals to the FSB, then you should go ahead and do it." Jay Wells of the park staff agreed, and shortly afterward the SRC voted to submit a wildlife recommendation to the board. (Regional Director Morehead had made it known that he supported the SRC's move.) Hoping to become a more prominent part of the advisory process, the SRC made two actions. First, it sent the board a note asking the NPS to consult with the SRC before it submitted any proposals to the board. In addition, the SRC proposed that its charter be changed "to authorize travel to Federal Board meetings regarding subsistence hunting plan/season or bag limits on park lands." The measure passed unanimously, and a letter to that effect was sent to Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan, Jr. The Secretary, however, squelched the idea. Taking a narrow view, he noted that while "I understand the importance of seasons and bag limits to subsistence users of park areas ... representation [of SRCs at board meetings] is unnecessary [because of the] unique, interlocking system of representation" between the Interior Secretary, the SRCs and the state-sponsored regional advisory councils. Lujan, therefore, may have had no problem with the SRCs either generating, or commenting upon, specific Federal Subsistence Board proposals. He seemed unwilling, however, to sanction any economic subsidy that might encourage the SRCs' participation in the proposal process. That unwillingness set him apart from at least some NPS regional and park officials. [148]

Manuel Lujan served as President Bush's Interior Secretary from 1989 to 1993. He finalized several policy documents pertaining to Alaska subsistence matters, many of which were drafted by Vernon Wiggins, his Undersecretary for Alaskan Affairs. NPS (AKSO)

In 1992, more SRCs became involved with specific wildlife proposals. In late March, the Aniakchak SRC passed a draft hunting plan recommendation for an extended moose-hunting season, and two months later, the Denali SRC passed a similar recommendation (which also called for a modification of the moose hunting season). That year the Lake Clark SRC did not propound any of its own proposals; it did, however, review various proposed board regulations for the upcoming (1992-1993) season. [149] That fall, an NPS officials told the Aniakchak SRC that "the Regional Director wants us to make sure [that the] Commission is aware of proposals that NPS makes" because proposals with joint SRC-NPS sponsorship had a greater chance of passage at the board than proposals with just a single sponsor. (The commission, in response, wrote a letter of support to the board; the specific NPS proposal dealt with caribou harvesting in and near the monument.) [150] The NPS, by this time, appeared to be clearly advocating an increased role for the SRCs in the annual hunting-regulations revision process.

During the next two years, few SRCs took an active part in the revision of wildlife management regulations. But despite this lull in activity, a key change took place in the federal government's attitude toward SRCs. In June 1993 the Denali SRC made further actions on its moose-season proposal, and that October it forwarded its proposal to the Interior Secretary. But this time, the Secretary's office did not reject the SRC's proposal out of hand, as in 1992; instead, it "direct[ed] the NPS to investigate the biological ramifications of the additional hunting season on the moose population ... and the customary and traditional basis of any possible late fall moose hunt in the area." The NPS was to present a report on the matter to the Federal Subsistence Board "as soon as possible." The Interior Secretary, at long last, acted much as the Game Board would have acted in a similar situation; it quickly responded to the SRC's proposal and demanded a brief study that included both biological and anthropological viewpoints. [151] Denali, however, was virtually the only SRC during this period that was active in the wildlife-management arena. It may be recalled (from Chapter 7) that there were no regional advisory councils (at either the state or federal levels) between June 1992 and September 1993, and during the winter of 1993-94, the ten federally-charted regional advisory councils were just getting started. Given 1) the lack of a regional advisory network, 2) the fact that the federal board was largely unaware of the SRCs' role and expertise, and 3) the fact that recommendations to the Interior Secretary were simply redirected back to the federal board, there was little encouragement for the SRCs to advance wildlife management proposals to either the Interior Secretary or to the Federal Subsistence Board.

By the winter of 1994-1995 (see Appendix 2), the various regional advisory councils had gained a year's experience, and the SRCs recognized the propriety of forwarding comments on federal wildlife management recommendations to the appropriate regional advisory councils. The Denali and Gates of the Arctic SRCs, and perhaps others as well, played an active role in the newly-evolving system that winter, and within a year the other active SRCs were taking part as well. [152]

In February 1996, the Wrangell-St. Elias SRC recognized the practical reality of the new system and asked Interior Secretary Babbitt to amend the various charters so that the SRC would be allowed "to report not only to the park Superintendent, but to the Federal Subsistence Board and the Federal Regional Subsistence Advisory Councils." Park staff backed the plan; they said that the SRC's proposal "is in effect what is happening right now," and further noted that "the FSB and the Regional Councils are very concerned about getting the input of the SRCs before they make decisions...." The agency's Office of Policy, asked to comment on the proposal, recognized that the idea, if approved, should apply to all of the state's SRCs. Its response, however, was cautious; because of language in the Federal Advisory Committee Act, it felt that "there is no basis by which we could have [the SRCs] 'report' to [a regional] council." The NPS's "issues paper," completed in August 1997, urged that the SRC's recommendation be adopted, and the agency's regional director contacted the Secretary's office twice that year in hopes of resolving the matter. The Secretary, however, did not respond to the Commission's recommendation. In lieu of a formal, written response, NPS officials decided instead to informally respond to the Wrangell-St. Elias SRC's request at a subsequent SRC chairs' conference; at that conference, agency officials informally told the assembled chairs that it had approved the SRC's request. All of the SRCs would henceforth have full authority to submit subsistence-related hunting or fishing recommendations to the regional advisory councils; for legal reasons, however, the agency did not feel it necessary to alter any verbiage in the various SRC charters. The various SRC chairs accepted that decision, and the issue has apparently been resolved. [153]

K. Miscellaneous Subsistence Management Issues

Although the most common issues that the SRCs faced were related to eligibility and access issues, traditional use zones and wildlife management, other issues arose from time to time. These included trapping issues, attempts to get some of the Interior Secretary's authority (on hunting plan recommendations, SRC charters, the appointment of SRC members, and similar actions) delegated to the NPS's Alaska Regional Director, and issues related to definitions of various key subsistence terms. These will be addressed in the order presented.

As noted in Chapter 6, the NPS and the state had spent much of the 1980s wrestling over whether trapping would be allowed with the use of a firearm in the various Alaska park units. By 1983, the NPS had passed the necessary regulations, but state wildlife officials remained unaware of them until January 1986. The NPS formally asserted its authority in the matter soon afterward, and the agency's various final (November 1986) general management plans stated that "Trapping in national park system units can be conducted only using implements designed to entrap animals." Wrangell-St. Elias's SRC, however, countered that in many parts of Alaska, the trapping of free-ranging furbearers with a firearm was a customary and traditional practice, and it further argued that state law allowed trapping with a firearm; based on those premises, the SRC sent Interior Secretary Donald Hodel an August 1987 recommendation asking that "trapping be allowed with the use of a firearm on Preserve lands within Wrangell-St. Elias National Preserve." W. T. (Bill) Ellis, the SRC's chair, was largely responsible for submitting that recommendation.

Soon afterward, the Game Board responded to Ellis's concerns by legitimizing the practice of same-day-airborne sport hunting. NPS officials, however, were concerned that the Game Board's action had the potential to jeopardize the populations of wolves and other furbearers in the preserves, so in November 1988 the agency issued an emergency, one-year moratorium on same-day-airport sport hunting. In June 1989, it proposed a permanent rule on the subject. Of the hundreds of public comments submitted, a strong majority supported the agency's proposed action. But before a final rule was published, state officials agreed to exclude the preserves from the state's same-day-airborne provisions. That exception went into effect in August 1990, and a Federal Register notice announcing that exception was published soon afterward. [154] But the state's action abrogated the need for moving forward with the final rule, and the NPS's rule making process on the issue was held in abeyance, at least for the time being.

During the early 1990s, same-day airborne wolf hunting remained a high-profile issue among the state's hunters and wildlife managers. In 1992, for instance, the State Game Board decided to prohibit same-day airborne wolf hunting and it continued its prohibition against land and shoot trapping, but in 1993, the Board reversed course and relaxed its land-and-shoot trapping regulations. None of these actions, it must be emphasized, legalized either same-day-airborne hunting or same-day-airborne trapping of wolves or of any other furbearers in any NPS areas; taking furbearers with either a hunting or a trapping license had been prohibited since the fall of 1988. Even so, however, NPS officials were concerned about two lingering issues. First, many worried that the 1993 Game Board decision had relaxed the state's land-and-shoot regulations as they pertained to NPS areas. A second concern, similar to the first, was that they were concerned about future Game Board actions and wanted to guarantee that those actions—whatever they might be—would not lessen protection for the parks' furbearers from either hunters or trappers that employed land-and-shoot methods. In response to these and similar concerns, the agency in September 1994 prepared a revised proposed rule. That rule had two parts: one part restated the agency's prohibition on land-and-shoot hunting on areas under its jurisdiction in Alaska, while the other part "clarif[ied] the existing NPS prohibition of using firearms and other weapons to take free ranging wildlife under a trapping license on lands under the jurisdiction of the NPS in the State of Alaska." The firearms prohibition, however, was not ironclad, because it "expressly recognize[d] as an exception, the common trapping practice of using a firearm to dispatch wildlife that is already caught in a trap." The revised proposed rule was published in the Federal Register on November 15, 1994; the public was given 30 days to provide comments. [155] But many of those who initially commented on the trapping provisions were apparently confused about the rule's intent and effect, so as a result, the agency issued another rule on April 14, 1995 that opened up the comment period for another 60 days. [156]

Only two SRCs provided comments to the rule, but both strongly opposed it. Raymond Paneak, speaking for the Gates of the Arctic SRC, stated that "the NPS seems to have a problem ... interpreting trap to mean only using an implement designed to entrap animals, under a trapping license, and to eliminate the customary and traditional practice of incidentally taking furbearers with firearms, which are free-ranging." He stated that "100% of the GAAR subsistence trappers used and currently use ... the customary and traditional practice of shooting free-ranging furbearers under a trapping license," and charged that the agency's "ill-thought out definition, and [its] enforcement of a 14 year old unenforced definition, ... drastically reduce[s] the limits concerning hunting bag limits for shooting furbearers." The Denali SRC, in a similar vein, "unanimously opposed the restriction of use of firearms in taking furbearers under a trapping license" and asked that the agency's definition of "trapping" be redefined to include taking "by any traditional and customary means. This includes the use of firearms and bow and arrow." [157]

Opposition from two of the state's major SRCs caused NPS officials (particularly those at Denali and Gates of the Arctic) to rethink the necessity of issuing a final rule on the subject. Meanwhile, the other half of the November 1994 proposed rule—that dealt with land-and-shoot hunting—was issued as a final rule on April 11, 1995. In a key modification of terminology, the proposed rule (which proposed a prohibition on land-and-shoot hunting) was re-interpreted as a prohibition of land-and shoot taking (which included both hunting and trapping). This definitional reinterpretation, to a large extent, provided NPS managers much of what they had been seeking when they had formulated the proposed firearms clarification rule in September 1994. [158]

Although SRC members and other subsistence users took some comfort in knowing that the firearms rule had not been finalized, many continued to advocate that the NPS renounce it. During the review period that preceded the issuance of the "issues paper," for instance, both the Denali and the Wrangell-St. Elias SRCs passed motions opposing the NPS's proposed rule. The final issues paper, as a result, presented a mixed message: it stated that "a firearm is not an approved method of taking free roaming furbearers under the authority of a trapping license." The NPS, it continued, "acknowledges the longstanding practice of doing so under state regulations, but [it] has a concern for high trapping harvest limits for many furbearers." [159]

Since the publication of the issues paper, NPS officials have attempted to tread a delicate middle ground on the firearms trapping issue. At the SRC chairs' meeting in October 1998, the chairs recommended that NPS officials "continue to work on the issue of trapping regulations, and the prohibition of use of firearm under a trapping license." In response, the NPS admitted that "this has been [a] difficult issue for us. While a strict reading" of the regulations prohibited the practice, the agency admitted that "there is a longstanding practice of doing so under state regulations." The NPS further concluded that "it may be difficult to attempt a change in our regulations at this time." Similar pleas from the SRC chairs at the fall 1999 and fall 2000 meeting have brought similar replies from NPS officials. [160] Meanwhile, individual SRCs continued to tell the NPS about the folly of its regulation. Gates of the Arctic SRC member Jack Reakoff, for instance, stated that "he can't really back off on this issue, although he is not sure how to proceed from here." In response, agency officials were equally candid; as Gates of the Arctic subsistence coordinator Steve Ulvi told his SRC, "we are in a non-enforcement scenario for something that is traditionally done, which is not a good solution." [161]

A second "miscellaneous" subsistence issue dealt with during the 1990s—and solved to some extent—was the nettlesome problem of authority delegation. Since the establishment of the SRC back in 1984, SRC members (and many NPS officials, too) felt that many necessary actions related to SRC operations were either delayed or completely overlooked because most SRC communications were directed to the Interior Secretary in Washington, D.C. The Interior Secretary's office, not surprisingly, had little institutional expertise in subsistence-related matters, and it also had an overwhelming number of other demands that competed for its time and attention. As a result, both routine actions (such as the appointment and re-appointment of members) and the evaluation of hunting plan recommendations often took months or even years. By the end of the 1980s, NPS officials were well aware of the SRCs' frustration related to this topic, but they made no moves to change the system. But they also knew that State of Alaska officials liked the fact that the current system gave both the state and federal governments a prominent role, and they were wary that any moves toward authority delegation conveyed the appearance that the NPS was acquiring additional powers. [162]

This frustration continued into the 1990s, and in 1991 the Wrangell-St. Elias SRC became sufficiently concerned about the problem that they sent the Interior Secretary the following resolution: "To improve the timely appointment and reappointment of Secretary appointees to the Commission, we request that you delegate your appointment authority to the Director of the National Park Service." Secretary Lujan, however, responded by requesting the NPS to speed up its appointments deadline. "There is no need to delegate my appointment authority to assure timely appointments," he noted. [163]

The issue simmered for the next several years and was partially addressed in the NPS's August 1997 issues paper. It noted that "as a result of recent restructuring ... the majority of decision-making for subsistence issues in Alaska is now vested in the Superintendents of parks where subsistence issues occur, but is still subject to review at the regional and national levels as appropriate. In accordance with the language of Section 808 of ANILCA, ... hunting plan recommendations must still be submitted to the Secretary of the Interior ... but many issues can and are being resolved at the local level." SRC members, however, wanted more, and at the October 1998 chairs' meeting a resolution was passed stating that Secretarial response times to SRC recommendations were "unacceptable." Just one month later, the Secretary's office, for the first time, allowed the NPS's Regional Director to respond to a hunting plan recommendation. When it came time to respond to the chairs' request, therefore, the NPS was able to note that the agency was in "preliminary discussions with the Secretary of the Interior's office concerning the possibility of the Secretary delegating the response to your hunting plan recommendations to the Regional Director in Alaska." [164] Moving proactively on the issue, Regional Director Robert Barbee wrote to Assistant Interior Secretary Don Barry in July 1999 and specifically requested formal delegation of signature authority on all hunting plan recommendations. Two months later Barry granted that authority, at least as it pertained to "straightforward issues." The SRC chairs, encouraged at the news, asked the NPS to develop an appeal procedure in case disagreements arose with the regional director's decisions. The agency, in response, made it clear that such an appeal procedure already existed. "If you have a disagreement with a response from the Regional Director," an official noted, "you can write to the Secretary with your concerns." [165]

A final, vexing issue that the SRCs addressed was that of definitions. ANILCA and the 1981 regulations based much of its subsistence policy emphasis on specific terms, but as Chapter 6 notes, it was less than forthright in applying exact definitions to terms such as "customary and traditional," "natural and healthy" and "customary trade." Because neither Congress nor the Interior Department defined these terms with any degree of specificity, both the NPS and the various SRCs discussed these terms in some detail during the 1980s. In more recent years, attempts to define critical subsistence-related terms have met with mixed success. A discussion related to "significant concentrations" has been presented (see Section G, above); in this section, similar efforts are made in defining "natural and healthy" and "customary trade."

As noted in Chapter 6, neither the NPS nor the SRCs had much progress in defining "natural and healthy" during the 1980s. The NPS made little headway because of the sheer difficulty of formulating a definition that would be broadly accepted; and the SRCs were reluctant to finalize any measure that had the potential to limit subsistence harvests. This state of affairs continued on into the 1990s. At Gates of the Arctic, Superintendent Roger Siglin responded to a 1992 SRC recommendation—one that asked the NPS to protect an area's subsistence resources until it reached a "harvestable level"—by asking the agency to define "natural and healthy ... so that SRC members can use commonly agreed upon terminology in their recommendations or challenge our definition of terms if they are so inclined." The recommendation, as it turned out, was rejected because the Interior Secretary interpreted the term "harvestable level" to be akin to the maintenance of a "healthy" population (as the national preserves were supposed to be managed); the parks and monuments, by contrast, were to be managed "to maintain traditional NPS management values" in which the manipulation of "habitat or populations to achieve maximum utilization of natural resources" was prohibited. The Interior Department, therefore, took a small first step in defining "natural and healthy;" though it could not otherwise be more specific, the term clearly did not allow for wildlife or habitat manipulation. [166]

Dave Spirtes, the superintendent of Bering Land Bridge National Preserve since 1994 and Western Arctic National Parklands since 1996, has been a leader in the "natural and healthy" issue and numerous other subsistence-related topics. NPS (AKSO)

A few months later, at an SRC teleconference, two members asked park staff to define various subsistence-related terms. Subsistence coordinator Steve Ulvi responded by noting that "natural and healthy" was "used in reference to the NPS's mandate for managing wildlife populations that are used for subsistence. ... Wrangell-St. Elias National Park staff is currently working on a proposal for management of the Mentasta Caribou herd that defines the term. Other agencies will have to buy into the idea for it to work." The plan, in fact, defined "natural," but it was silent regarding a definition of "healthy." [167] A year later, as noted above, the so-called "subsistence task force" spent the summer reviewing NPS subsistence management policies. Gates of the Arctic Superintendent Steve Martin, a key member of the task force, stated at the outset that a primary task force goal was "to decide ... what criteria to use for natural and healthy populations." The "natural and healthy" issue was, in fact, debated in some detail during the preparation of the task force's original (1994) report. Then, in August 1995, a ten-person working group that included three superintendents spent a day in Fairbanks mulling over the issue, and perhaps in response, Bering Land Bridge Superintendent David W. Spirtes produced his own draft report on "NPS Wildlife Policy for ANILCA Areas" that spent several pages analyzing the "natural and healthy" issue. [168]

By early 1997, the Alaska Cluster of Superintendents (ACS) recognized that "there is still some internal [definitional] debate between parks and preserves," and to clear up the issue it asked the region's Natural Resource Advisory Council (NRAC) to prepare a report comparing "natural and healthy" [as derived from ANILCA] with "optimal sustained yield" [which is ADF&G's guiding harvest principle]. Because of that "internal debate," the agency was unable to produce a clear definition as part of the August 1997 issues paper. Instead, the paper merely noted that the NPS's "major role is to see that [natural and healthy] populations are conserved. To that end, we are developing guidelines (separate from this document) to help evaluate and protect natural and healthy or healthy populations." [169]

In response to the ACS directive, NRAC established a six-person Natural and Healthy Subcommittee, and in February 1998, Rich Harris of that subcommittee produced a draft 16-page report on the subject. Chief among the report's conclusions was that "natural" was defined as "the condition of a biological population, community, or landscape without substantial alteration by humans for other than subsistence activities," and that the definition of "healthy" was "a population that is self-sustaining within its habitat over the long term." Although the subcommittee members were "completely satisfied with our definitions," others were not; Superintendent Spirtes, for instance, felt that the conclusions of the "biological group" were "not rooted in the extensive administrative record of ANILCA or NPS policy." By July 1, Spirtes had produced his own draft treatise on the subject, and on July 23 he issued an updated draft entitled "An NPS Interpretation of Natural and Healthy." Other players, however, took exception to Spirtes's conclusions; Superintendent Martin, for example, felt that "the original review document drafted by the ad hoc committee [i.e., the NRAC subcommittee] provided a more solid basis upon which to further refine the definitions of natural and healthy and the process to apply those definitions." [170] For the time being, at least, the NRAC study appeared to be the primary vehicle for discussion among NPS subsistence decision makers.

In an attempt to create a less contentious path, Superintendent Jon Jarvis recommended that the terms be defined both biologically and legally, and in February 1999 a three-person panel completed work on a report that espoused that approach. That spring, a small group met in Anchorage to finalize the definition, but with no finality at hand, the project was delegated to Hunter Sharp, the chief ranger at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Jarvis, however, left Alaska soon afterward, leaving Sharp as the park's acting superintendent for the next several months and, by necessity, delaying efforts toward a workable definition. In January 2001, hoping to bring closure to the long, unresolved process, Superintendent Spirtes completed and distributed an updated version of the report from the three-person panel. [171] A month later, agency staff held a conference in Anchorage in hopes of arriving at a consensus on the issue. But despite this and subsequent meetings on the subject, no definitions of either "natural" or "healthy" have yet been agreed upon by all parties. In the various recently-completed park subsistence management plans, the most detailed statement of current status is that

several multi-disciplinary teams of NPS staff from across the State have been tasked to develop the legal and biological assessment framework and definitions of "natural and healthy." ... Once a strategy addressing these concepts is developed that meets the approval of park managers and NPS administrative policies, this document will be presented to the SRC and other entities as appropriate, for review. [172]

Greater progress has been made in recent years in defining "customary trade." As noted in Chapter 6, the various general management plans that were issued during the mid-1980s helped clarify the June 1981 definition as it pertained to specific park units, and in 1989 a minor controversy erupted at Cape Krusenstern National Monument over the sale of dropped (shed) caribou antlers.

Neither the NPS nor the SRCs showed much interest in customary trade issues for the next several years, but the term was discussed at some length during the comment period that preceded the issuance of the August 1997 issues paper. The NPS allotted an entire section of the paper to customary trade, and its primary statement on the topic was largely a restatement of the existing canon. Several commentors, however, disagreed with the agency's policy position and told the NPS that such items as dried fish, crafts, utensils, clothing, meat from hares, and any handicrafts made from animal, minerals, or vegetation should all be permitted for sale under the "customary trade" clause so long as significant quantities of cash were not involved. In response, the agency promised to "work with the Federal Subsistence Board and the state, as appropriate, to ensure that all customary trade practices are recognized and permitted." [173]

A few months after the issues report was distributed, the Western Interior Regional Advisory Council (WIRAC) wrote the NPS and asked that the "customary trade" definition in which "only furs may be exchanged for cash" be broadened to "allow the sale of handicrafts made from nonedible byproducts of fish and wildlife resources." The agency, in response, stated that no conflict existed. As Deputy Regional Director Paul R. Anderson stated, "what you request is and always has been permitted under ANILCA and under NPS regulations." But because there was an apparent misunderstanding on the issue, Anderson dispatched a series of letters to the SRC chairs in December 1998 that clarified NPS policy in the "customary trade" arena. [174]

The SRC chairs, upon reading those letters, recognized that the agency's customary trade policies, in many cases, did not allow the continuation of many historically-established trading patterns. At its October 1999 meeting, therefore, the chairs suggested that each SRC "review the NPS customary trade regulations to ensure that local customary trade practices are recognized and authorized ... and that NPS customary trade regulations should be consistent with Federal Subsistence Board regulations." The NPS, in response, was quick to agree that these regulations "should to the extent possible address local customary trade practices," so it asked the various SRCs to "review this issue[,] provide us with your recommendations", and provide "whatever specific information you have about those practices." [175] Several SRCs responded to the agency's request for information and recommendations. In October 2000, the SRC chairs again raised the issue. The NPS, hoping to move the issue forward, promised to convene a small group of park and regional office staff to discuss customary trade issues. From that meeting, it hopes to prepare some draft regulatory language, or at least some guiding principles, to accommodate those practices. [176]

L. The Federal Program (Wildlife Issues), 1993-present: General Trends

As was noted in Chapter 7, the federal government began managing subsistence resources on federal lands on July 1, 1990. On that date, responsibility for federal subsistence decision-making was entrusted to the Federal Subsistence Board. For the next two years, the State of Alaska continued to manage a series of six regional advisory councils. But on April 6, 1992, the federal government's Notice of Decision regarding subsistence management ruled that ten federally-chartered regional advisory councils would be established. Given that decision, the State of Alaska stopped funding its regional council network just two months later. For more than a year after the state councils' termination date, no regional advisory councils existed at either the state or federal level. Slowly, however, the constituent elements of a federal advisory system began to emerge. In May 1993, the Federal Subsistence Board hired the five subsistence coordinators that would be entrusted to run day-to-day regional council operations, and that August, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt officially appointed the 84 men and women that were to serve on the various regional councils. The initial meetings of the ten regional advisory councils were held between September 15 and October 20, 1993.

At the time of the first regional council meetings, the Federal Subsistence Board had been in operation for more than three years. Its members, at the time, were John M. Morehead (National Park Service), Walter O. Stieglitz (Fish and Wildlife Service), Edward Spang (Bureau of Land Management), Michael Barton (Forest Service), and Niles Cesar (Bureau of Indian Affairs). The sixth member was interim chairman Ronald McCoy, who also served as the U.S. Interior Department's Alaska Representative in an acting capacity. Richard S. Pospahala, who was the Assistant Regional Director in charge of the Fish and Wildlife Service's Office of Subsistence Management, provided staff support to the federal board. Pospahala had been serving in that capacity ever since the federal government had assumed management over subsistence on federal lands. Four of the six federal board representatives—Walt Stieglitz, Ed Spang, Mike Barton, and Niles Cesar—were also charter members, having run their agencies' Alaska operations since July 1990 if not before. Assisting the federal board was a five-member staff committee that was also in its fourth year of operation. Its members, at the time, were Norman Howse (Forest Service), Tom Boyd (Bureau of Land Management), John Borbridge (Bureau of Indian Affairs), Richard Pospahala (Fish and Wildlife Service), and John Hiscock (National Park Service). All except Pospahala and Hiscock had been serving on the staff committee since its inception.

By the time the first regional councils met, the Federal Subsistence Board had already established an annual schedule on how subsistence proposals would be submitted and evaluated. This process was based, to a large extent, on how the Board had been operating since 1990. The initial step in that annual schedule, the proposal solicitation, was normally announced between mid-August and early September. Soon afterward—usually in September or October—regional councils held their first meetings. (See Table 8-1, following page.) Council members, other subsistence users, agency staff and the general public were invited to these meetings in order to ensure a wide variety of subsistence proposals. The proposal deadline was shortly after the last of the fall regional advisory council meetings. Staff then spent the next several weeks evaluating those proposals before distributing them for public comment. The public was normally given six to eight weeks to weigh in on the various proposals. The regional councils then held a second series of meetings; these usually took place between late January and mid-March. At those meetings, regional council members mulled over each proposal; and based on written comments, oral testimony, and staff analyses, the proposals were either accepted, rejected, or accepted with modification. These recommendations were then forwarded to the Federal Subsistence Board, which met sometime between early April and early May and made final decisions. Those decisions were then published as regulations in the Federal Register. Unless subject to appeal, they were implemented on July 1.

Table 8-1. Federal Subsistence Hunting Regulations Chronology, 1993-present

@ - The regulations cycle could not be completed by June 30, a notice in The May 23, 1996 Federal Register extending the existing regulations until July 31.

These photos, taken at an October 1999 Bristol Bay Regional Advisory Council meeting, show a typical subsistence advisory council meeting in action. The photo at left shows council members (left to right) Robert Heyano, Timothy Enright, Andrew Balluta, Peter Abraham, Dan O'Hara (chair) and Robin Samuelson. In the right-hand photo, Andy Aderman of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service speaks before an audience that also includes OSM employee Helga Eakon (left) and Lake Clark-Katmai Superintendent Deb Liggett (back of room, wearing a vest). USF&WS (OSM)

During the regional councils' first year of operation (late 1993 and early 1994), the process that resulted in new regulations was often bumpy and unpredictable. The first series of meetings, not surprisingly, were somewhat inefficient; there was little precedence on how the meetings should be organized, and the previous, state-managed regional council system had been judged a poor model by both federal officials and subsistence users. Council members and agency staff, from both the Office of Subsistence Management as well as the individual agencies, were unsure of what roles they would play or how meeting agendas would be organized. Moreover, because few working relationships had been established—between council members and their staff, between the staff members at the various federal agencies, and between council members and the Federal Subsistence Board—there was a general lack of understanding, and in some cases, a lack of trust. Compounding these problems was a severe lack of staff and resources on the part of federal subsistence managers. A further factor clouding the picture during this period was the fact that virtually everyone involved assumed that subsistence management, due to legislative action, might revert to the State of Alaska at any time; as a result, both staff and board members tended to make decisions that, in hindsight, appeared tentative or incremental. [177]

During their first year of operation, the regional councils faced a daunting workload. Much of that workload was analyzing various subsistence hunting proposals and making recommendations about so-called "Subpart D" harvest regulations (i.e., seasons and bag limits, and harvesting methods and means). Then, as now, agency staff gave council members background reports that addressed biological capacity, historical use patterns, and similarly relevant information. But because the various parties had no history of cooperation and little familiarity with each other, as noted above, problems erupted. For instance, each proposal was given to a single agency (either the NPS or the F&WS) for analysis and recommendations. As a result, there were often inconsistencies between agencies on what these reports should contain. [178] All too often, moreover, the information that was presented in the reports reflected the agency's bias regarding subsistence harvesting. (Proposals written by NPS staff, for example, were perceived to be more conservative than those by F&WS staff.) Another problem quickly surfaced regarding data legitimacy; agency biologists often trusted only "Western science" (i.e., survey data on population trends, of which little was sometimes available) while ignoring or discounting traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and other local perspectives. [179]

Council members, confronted with such biases, did their best to fairly evaluate the various proposals. Because the federal advisory system was still new, however, regional councils occasionally disagreed with the recommendations of either agency staff or committee staff; these disagreements were usually based on political rather than scientific factors. This generalization also held true with the Federal Subsistence Board; on the one hand, an observer at the April 1994 Board meeting reported that the regional councils "played a key role" in the Board's decisionmaking process, but on the other hand, the federal board reversed the regional councils' recommendations in some cases. [180] The regional councils, who represented subsistence users, were often philosophically and temperamentally at odds with federal board members and agency staff, who enforced and interpreted the laws and regulations. Much of this antagonism, to be sure, was merely a manifestation of the real or perceived treatment that subsistence users had received from government officials—at both the state and federal levels—in recent years. Whether the antagonism was warranted or not, it was nevertheless unmistakable, and all parties recognized that all parties needed to work together if the as-yet-untried federal council system had any chance to succeed. [181]

In addition to their work on the "Subpart D" regulations, the regional councils recognized that a large backlog of unanalyzed customary and traditional use ("C&T") determinations had built up during the three-plus years since federal assumption; sooner or later, those determinations needed analysis and recommendations. In this area, federal staff moved to lighten the councils' workload. Even before the first regional councils met, an interagency staff committee had convened to work out various problems related to C&T determinations; before long, it had developed a schedule and process for addressing the backlog of C&T requests. [182] This staff work, and a broad public recognition that the C&T backlog was being addressed at the staff level, allowed council members to concentrate on other matters. (Despite that recognition, the importance of C&T-related issues meant that some people continued to address these matters; resolution of these matters, however, were delayed for the time being.) As noted below, it would take several years for staff members to arrive at an acceptable format by which the councils would be able to recommend which specific communities were legally entitled to harvest specific wildlife species.

Table 8-2. Proposals Considered by the Federal Subsistence Board, by Region, 1993-present

NOTE: The numbers within the chart indicate the number of proposals affecting each region. Because many proposals affected more than one region, the sum of the proposals approved in each region may exceed the state total; also, because the FSB has deferred many proposals, the number of proposals acted upon is less than the state total. Special actions and requests for reconsideration are omitted from this table. Source: Final Rule (annual), as published in the Federal Register.

* - the "S/M" column indicates either statewide proposals (S) or those that affected multiple regions (M).

Gerald Nicholia, from Tanana, has been a member of the Eastern Interior Regional Advisory Council since the 1990s and has been its chair since 2000. USF&WS (OSM)

By the second annual round of regional council meetings, which were held in the fall of 1994, the federal system had begun to improve. One significant improvement was that all parties tried to be as inclusive as possible. The various park and monument SRCs, as noted above, were invited to take part in the process; and Native corporations, local fish and game advisory committees, and other entities were also invited to submit proposals and testify at the various regional advisory council and Federal Subsistence Board meetings, all of which were open to public comment. Another major improvement, which was initially risky but bode well for the long-term viability of the federal program, was a change in the way that proposals were developed; instead of each agency compiling its own proposal analyses and recommendations, federal staff members, for the first time, analyzed and made staff recommendations as part of interdisciplinary teams. These teams included appropriate regional council coordinators as well as various agency staff. [183]

A third positive development was the regularity of the meeting schedule. Because meetings of the staff committee, the regional councils, and the federal board were held on a consistent, predictable schedule, the various stakeholders soon became more familiar with each other. Many of the regional council meetings were multi-day affairs that were held in small towns and villages; here, as well as in urban settings, federal staff and subsistence users increasingly learned to see other participants in the system beyond the official roles that they assumed. This budding network of professional and personal relationships allowed meetings to run more smoothly, and before long, subsistence users and agency staff alike began to understand a broader context behind their opinions and decisions. Given that increasing understanding, federal staff were more likely to approve well-justified user-generated proposals; in other cases, however, subsistence users gained an ever-greater understanding as to why federal officials had to deny certain proposals. Before long, the percentage of regional advisory council decisions that were reversed by the federal board (which was never very high to begin with) began to drop. [184] Subsistence users also began to recognize—perhaps to their surprise—that most federal officials were honestly concerned about rural residents' long-term welfare in their wildlife management reports and decisions. This perception, which was a stark contrast to attitudes that had prevailed when the state had managed subsistence resources, caused many rural residents to support the federal system and decry the state's ongoing efforts to regain subsistence management. [185]

One reason that the federal system was able to work as successfully as it did was because it was funded far better than the old state-managed system. Under the state system, as noted in Chapters 5 and 6, ADF&G's Subsistence Division "was in its heyday" in the early 1980s, but the "oil bust" that followed shortly afterward forced severe cutbacks; several of its field offices were forced to close, and the Division played an increasingly marginal role in departmental affairs as the decade wore on. [186] The state's other subsistence-related funding area was the regional advisory councils, which were part of the department's Division of Boards budget. Advisory council meetings were sporadic during the early 1980s, but in early 1985 the department hired a series of subsistence coordinators. Within months, however, the councils' travel budget was truncated, and between 1985 and 1988 all but one of the coordinator positions were eliminated. At the end of the decade the state made a renewed effort to hire subsistence coordinators and organize regional council meetings, but the state's effort was halfhearted at best. In 1992, shortly after the federal government issued its Record of Decision on its subsistence management program, the Alaska legislature eliminated all funding for the regional councils, and that June they ceased operating.

Subsistence users soon discovered, by contrast, that the federal government was willing to invest substantial resources in order to make its subsistence management program work. (See Table 8-3, facing page.) Given that level of budgetary input, the OSM seemed to be consistently capable of organizing a regular retinue of regional council meetings, federal board meetings, and staff committee meetings. The fact that most regional council meetings took place in rural settings, and the additional fact that OSM consistently had funds available for travel, per diem, and other expenses gave additional assurance to subsistence users that the federal government was fully committed to its subsistence management responsibilities.

Table 8-3. Office of Subsistence Management -Budget and Employee Strength, 1990-present

Source: Nancy Beres (Administrative Specialist, OSM), May 31, 2002 interview. Budget figures were obtained from F&WS internal documents; employment data were derived from OSM organizational charts and telephone lists. The budget figures quoted above are "before shared costs" by the F&WS's regional office; actual operating budgets, therefore, are 2-6% less. n/a = not available.

As was noted in Chapter 7, the federal assumption of subsistence management and the cessation of the state-charted regional advisory councils did not spell the end of the state involvement in federal subsistence activities. Federal officials were quick to recognize that the data and experience of the state's Subsistence Division personnel could be invaluable in furthering their own management goals, and beginning in 1990 a series of annual cooperative agreements were instituted; the federal government provided funding in exchange for data collection and the maintenance of the Division's Community Profile Database, among other tasks. These funding levels decreased each year, and by fiscal year 1995 the federal government provided less than $50,000 to support Subsistence Division programs. But soon afterward, the federal government began to allot specific funds for ADF&G liaison and staff support, and by the late 1990s more than $125,000 in annual funding assistance was being provided. A far larger economic inflow during this period was provided by specific federal agencies such as the Fish and Wildlife Service, NPS, and Minerals Management Service. As the state legislature decreased its support for subsistence programs, Subsistence Division personnel came to increasingly rely on program and project support provided by the F&WS, NPS and other federal agencies. [187]

The workload that federal subsistence managers assumed during the mid-1990s remained heavy. As noted above, a major task that the regional councils and federal board faced throughout this period was eliminating the backlog of proposals to either establish new customary and traditional (C&T) use determinations or revise existing determinations. Early in the process, federal managers had hoped to research these determinations for each rural settlement and for each applicable wildlife species. That process, however, promised to be exhaustive, and staff soon recognized that such an approach might require a minimum of 25 years to complete. [188] An event at the April 1995 Federal Subsistence Board meeting, however, forced federal managers to rethink their approach toward C&T determinations. As part of a Board discussion of a proposals 43 and 44 (regarding the Seward Peninsula musk ox herd), federal board solicitor Keith Goltz read aloud a letter from Mike Anderson, a solicitor in the Department's Washington office. That letter stated, in effect, that the Board was obligated to honor the C&T recommendations of the various regional councils unless certain specified criteria had been violated. Based on the contents of that letter, federal board members overrode the NPS's recommendation regarding the musk ox proposal. They did so because it was contrary to a vote of the Seward Peninsula Regional Advisory Council and because it did not meet any of the three criteria for rejection. [189]

Since 1994, Sandy Rabinowitch has been a program manager and NPS representative to the Federal Subsistence Board's Staff Committee. NPS (AKSO)

In response to the solicitor's new interpretation, the federal board's way of handling C&T proposals dramatically changed. Instead of an exhaustive, staff-driven approach that had characterized the process prior to 1995, the various RACs took the lead and began making C&T proposals. And the federal board responded in kind. During its spring 1996 meeting, the board "for the first time ... acted on proposed regulations to the Subpart C regulations governing customary and traditional use determinations." But the proposals that were generated during this period were by no means piecemeal. Instead, several proposals asked for C&T determinations for all species within specific villages, and in some cases, C&T proposals were made for entire game management units. Given that new approach, the C&T proposal backlog disappeared. During the mid-1990s, between 60 and 90 proposals were presented to, and acted upon by, federal managers in each annual regulatory cycle. (See Tables 8-1 and 8-2, pages 218 and 219 respectively.) Some of these proposals urged a modification in C&T determinations, while others were for changes in seasons and bag limits or in methods and means of subsistence hunting. By 1998, the backlog for wildlife species had finally been eliminated. [190]

The National Park Service during this period had a mixed record of support for the federal subsistence management effort. During the 1993-1994 regulatory cycle, when the federally-chartered regional advisory councils were meeting for the first time, "official" NPS support consisted of Regional Director John M. Morehead, who served as the agency's Federal Subsistence Board representative, and John Hiscock, the agency's staff committee representative. Assisting Hiscock in the preparation of wildlife proposals were three regional office employees—Bruce Greenwood, Paul Hunter, and Clarence Summers—along with various park subsistence coordinators. In late 1994, several personnel changes were made: Robert Barbee replaced Morehead, Barbee in turn asked Deputy Regional Director Paul Anderson to assume responsibilities over the agency's subsistence program, and Sanford (Sandy) Rabinowitch replaced Hiscock. The agency's staffing level, for the time being, remained constant. That stability, however, was torn asunder in early 1996 by the dissolution of the Alaska Support Office's Subsistence Division. As noted above, Subsistence Division personnel were reassigned to one of three other divisions.

The three regional office employees assigned to federal board projects, along with virtually all other former Subsistence Division staff, were given added responsibilities by their new supervisors that were unrelated to subsistence. Rabinowitch, forced to make do with only half the staff time that he had previously enjoyed, was able to realize some efficiencies because his staff—and the park subsistence coordinators on whom he depended so heavily—were now thoroughly familiar with the proposal process. Based on their collective expertise, Rabinowitch fashioned a system whereby agency staff ranked all proposals as high, medium, or low. Proposals ranked as "high" were researched more thoroughly than those in the "medium" category; similarly, staff invested more time and effort in proposals ranked "medium" than those judged to be of low priority. [191]

With one notable exception—the October 1999 assumption of fisheries management, which will be discussed in Chapter 9—the federal subsistence management program has witnessed few major changes since the mid-1990s. The annual regulatory round has continued to follow the same general schedule that was initially established in 1993-1994, and the regional advisory councils and the Federal Subsistence Board have continued to meet on a regular, predictable basis. (Except for occasional work sessions, where no policy decisions are made, all meetings are open to the public and are announced beforehand, both in local media and via the Federal Register.) [192] Funding for the Office of Subsistence Management has remained sufficient to maintain effective oversight authority (see Table 8-3), and the various agencies supporting the federal board have also been able to consistently budget sufficient funds to maintain their roles in the subsistence program. [193] By the late 1990s, it was becoming increasingly evident that the federal subsistence program was maturing. The program, now almost ten years old, offered consistency and predictability to subsistence users and their representatives on the various regional advisory councils. Because the federal government, through its regional advisory council meetings, held public forums throughout the state twice each year, longstanding tensions between subsistence users and agency staff began to ease; in addition, staff representatives of the various federal agencies also began to trust each other to an increasing degree because the federal interagency staff committee met numerous times each year. One positive byproduct of this longtime interaction is that the number of proposals forwarded to the federal board has decreased each year since 1998. (As noted in Table 8-1, there were 109 proposals advanced for the 1998-1999 regulatory year, while only 48 proposals were submitted for the 2002-2003 regulatory year.)

Judy Gottlieb, an Alaska resident since the 1970s, has represented the NPS on the Federal Subsistence Board since March 1999. NPS (AKSO)

Another positive sign has been that a decreasing number of the proposals that have been submitted are deemed contentious. In recognition of that fact, Forest Service representatives on the Federal Subsistence Board's staff committee successfully lobbied for a "consent agenda." This provision, reserved for proposals that were either approved or rejected by all involved parties—the state, regional council members, and federal agency staff—was intended to streamline the federal board meetings by limiting the time that board members spent on uncontroversial proposals. Recent years, in fact, have seen an increasing number of proposals appear on the consent agenda. (The inclusion of a state ADF&G representative at the staff committee's springtime meeting, where many decisions regarding wildlife proposals are made, has further boosted the number of consent items.) A decrease in the number of overall proposals, along with an increasing percentage of proposals on the consent agenda, has made Federal Subsistence Board meetings in recent years shorter than ever before; whereas meetings during the mid-1990s had taken five days to complete, most meetings since 1998 have typically been just three days long, and both the 2001 and 2002 meetings were completed in just two days. [194]

Yet another sign that the federal program was maturing was an increase in the effectiveness of data collection and monitoring programs conducted by cooperative groups. In 1992, the Office of Subsistence Management commenced its first so-called Section 809 agreements with such entities as the Association of Village Council Presidents, in the Yukon-Kuskokwim area; the Tanana Chiefs Conference and the Council of Athabaskan Tribal Governments, in interior Alaska; and the Bristol Bay Native Association. Some of these agreements, inevitably, were more successful than others, and by 1996 a new cooperative model arose, in which state Subsistence Division personnel played a major role both in designing projects and analyzing the data that had been collected by the employees of the various Native organizations. The new model was widely seen to be more cost effective and time efficient, and it also resulted in a more useful final product. [195]

At the National Park Service, one major change since the mid-1990s took place in March 1999 when Judith C. Gottlieb, the Associate Regional Director in charge of Resources, replaced Paul R. Anderson as the agency's federal board representative. Gottlieb had been an Alaska resident for more than twenty years and had been involved with subsistence issues for much of that time. Another major change was Bob Gerhard's involvement in the program beginning in the fall of 1996. Gerhard, like Gottlieb, was fully experienced on subsistence matters; he had served as superintendent of the three Northwest Alaska Areas park units, where subsistence was a major concern, and he had also spent two years as the agency's federal board staff committee representative. Otherwise, however, the program has changed little since the mid-1990s; the number of staff hours available to support the federal subsistence hunting program (both in the Alaska Support Office as well as in the parks) has not grown, and few major changes have taken place in staff support for wildlife issues. Details of the agency's support of the federal subsistence fisheries program are provided in Chapter 9.

M. The Federal Program (Wildlife Issues), 1993-present: Specific Issues

The overall federal subsistence management system has considered several actions that have been of particular interest to the National Park Service and to subsistence users within NPS units. They have included 1) proposed changes to regional council boundaries, 2) proposed changes in regional-council representation on the SRCs, 3) the selected lands issue, 4) issues concerning migratory bird hunting and egg gathering, and 5) the debate over the validity of individual customary and traditional use determinations. These issues will be discussed in the order presented.

1. Proposed Regional Council Boundary Changes. Three changes in regional council boundaries have been proposed in or near a national park or monument. One change, made during the public process that produced the federal government's EIS on subsistence management, involved the westernmost portion of the boundary line between Northwest Arctic Region (Region 8) and North Slope Region (Region 10). The final EIS, which was produced in February 1992, showed that the boundary line in this area for its proposed alternative (Alternative IV) was also the boundary line between Game Management Units 23 and 26A. In early April, however, the Record of Decision for the EIS showed that approximately 75 miles of this boundary had moved southward. Though the Record of Decision stated that "the Board recommends the regional boundaries follow the boundaries of the existing Game Management Units established by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game," the new regional council boundary was moved away from the GMU boundary. The new boundary, close to the northern tip of Cape Krusenstern National Monument, was nearly collinear with the boundary between the NANA Regional Corporation and the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation. It was moved at the apparent suggestion of Native corporation officials, who had recommended the new boundary as part of a regional-council alternative that the federal board had not adopted. [196]

Boundary-modification measures were also discussed in and near Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. As noted above, regional council boundaries were collinear with ADF&G game management unit boundaries in many cases. The City of Anaktuvuk Pass, which lay astride a regional boundary, petitioned the Federal Subsistence Board, in late 1992 or early 1993, to have the boundary line moved south so that all incorporated land would be included in the North Slope Region. In April 1994, the Gates of the Arctic SRC seconded the city's petition. At a meeting in Anaktuvuk Pass, it recommended that the regional council boundary line be moved 10 to 30 miles south so that all of the village's "traditional subsistence use area" would fall within the North Slope Region. But the idea was never approved primarily because village residents were assured that the boundary's location would have no effect on the continuation of their traditional hunting patterns. The SRC also suggested that a smaller area, at the western end of the park and preserve, be moved from the Western Interior and Northwest Arctic regions into the North Slope Region; this was because Anaktuvuk Pass residents claimed that the area was part of the Nunamiuts' traditional trapping territory. This proposal was actively considered until the matter was discussed at a Northwest Arctic Regional Advisory Council meeting in Kotzebue in early 1995. Members of that regional council, however, openly worried that adopting such a resolution would set a precedent for many other communities that were located near regional council boundaries. The proposal, therefore, was voted down. Based on that opposition, the federal board failed to support the measure when it voted on the matter in mid-April. [197]

2. SRC Representation on the Regional Councils. Another regional council matter that concerned the various SRCs was the delegation of which regions would be able to appoint new SRC members. As was noted in Chapter 5, the NPS had originally decided back in 1982 which of the new, state-chartered regional advisory councils would be able to choose members for the new SRCs; and in November 1984, a memo from the agency's regional director, Roger Contor, had explained and justified that process. That distribution of regional representation had worked satisfactorily until the early 1990s. But in April 1992, the Federal Subsistence Board determined that the number of regional councils would increase from six to ten. No sooner had the Board made its decision than SRC members, in certain cases, began to complain that the new system did not provide adequate representation for their park's subsistence users.

Two SRCs lobbied for a change. At Denali National Park, two appointments had traditionally been made from the Interior Regional Council and one from the Southcentral Regional Council. But in May 1992, just a month after the Federal Subsistence Board's decision, the Denali SRC—recognizing that most subsistence users lived south of the park—asked that the former representation be reversed: that is, one should come from the Interior Regional Advisory Council and two from the Southcentral Regional Advisory Council. And eighteen months years later, the SRC asked for an additional change; in order to incorporate the interests of subsistence users who lived west of the park, it asked that one of the two Southcentral regional council appointments be shifted to the new Western Interior Regional Advisory Council. The commission's charter has not yet been changed to reflect that request. Despite that omission, areas west of the park are represented; members from both McGrath and Telida (the latter a resident zone community) have been on the commission since the mid-1980s. [198] The Gates of the Arctic SRC was also uncomfortable with the distribution of regional council seats. The commission's first charter, signed prior to its first (May 1984) meeting, stated that the SRC would have two Arctic Regional Council seats and one Interior Regional Council seat. But when the first charters were issued that reflected the shift from state to federal councils, representation shifted to two members from the Western Interior regional council and one from the Northwest Arctic regional council. Anaktuvuk Pass resident Raymond Paneak, who chaired the SRC, was quick to recognize that the new alignment excluded representation from villages north of the park (and including Anaktuvuk Pass as well). So at an October 1993 meeting, the SRC passed a resolution stating "that the Western Interior Regional Advisory Council (6) should defer the appointment of one seat of the Gates SRC to the Arctic [i.e., North Slope] Region (10) ... as many resident zone people live in region 10." The public, given the opportunity to comment on the proposed change, was "strongly in favor of shifting one of the Western [Interior] Region's SRC appointments so that each of the three regions has one appointment," and in January 1995 the SRC asked Secretary Babbitt to implement the change. Babbitt approved the change, and in 1996 the commission's charter was amended to reflect the new representation. [199]

3. The Selected Lands Issue. As noted in Chapter 1, the 1958 passage of the Alaska Statehood Act gave representatives of the new state the right to select up to 102,550,000 acres of "vacant, unappropriated and unreserved" federal lands for their own purposes. Based on that provision, state lands officials began selecting lands soon afterward, and before long the state had laid claim to tens of millions of acres of Alaskan real estate. Then, as noted in Chapter 4, Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in December 1971. That law gave Alaska's Natives—through a series of new regional and village corporations—the right to select 40 million acres of Alaskan land; and Native groups lost no time in selecting millions of acres of their own. But for both state- and Native-selected lands, there was no guarantee that selecting lands guaranteed ownership, and even if ownership was the eventual result, millions of acres of lands often remained in the "selected" category, sometimes for ten or twenty years or more.

These "selected" lands, which were legally still owned by the federal government, were not a management issue during the decade that followed the passage of ANILCA; this was because the Alaska Department of Fish and Game management extended to all selected lands save those that were located within national parks and monuments. In the wake of the McDowell decision, the federal government took steps to assume subsistence management of Alaska's federal lands, and as part of the regulation-writing process that federal officials undertook in early 1990, a decision was made to not assume jurisdiction over the "selected" lands. Key to their decision was Section 102 of ANILCA, which stated that "public lands" specifically excluded "land selections of the State of Alaska which have been tentatively approved or validly selected under the Alaska Statehood Act" and "land selections of a Native Corporation made under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act which have not been conveyed to a Native Corporation." The 1990 temporary regulations, therefore, duly noted that "Lands validly selected by the State or Native corporations are therefore excluded from this public lands definition." The federal government's final subsistence regulations, which became effective on July 1, 1992, made no changes regarding this point. [200] Selected lands were to be managed by state, not federal, authorities.

Subsistence groups, at first, seemed unconcerned over the issue. But on April 12, 1994, the Northwest Arctic Subsistence Regional Advisory Council and a broad spectrum of Native groups submitted a "Petition for Rule-Making by the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture that Selected But Not Conveyed Lands Are To Be Treated as Public Lands for the Purposes of the Subsistence Priority in Title VIII of ANILCA." The following February, a public comment period began when a Petition for Rulemaking was published in the Federal Register. The Alaska Legislature, furious at the move, quickly introduced a joint resolution "requesting the Congress to amend ANILCA to clarify that the term public lands means only federal land and water and that any extension of federal jurisdiction onto adjacent land and water is expressly prohibited." This resolution was introduced on March 6, and by May 12 it had passed both legislative chambers and was headed for the governor's desk. The Denali SRC, however, generally supported the Petition for Rulemaking. It agreed that "a limited expansion of federal jurisdiction ... could be beneficial," and it noted that many lands in the Denali National Park area that were "originally selected for their subsistence resources ... are closed to the federal subsistence program." [201]

In April 1996, the Interior and Agriculture departments took the process a step further. As part of a larger action pertaining to management of the subsistence fisheries, they expressed their intent to amend the definition of "public lands" to include selected lands by publishing an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the Federal Register. Specifically, the notice stated that

After reviewing the matter, the Secretaries have concluded as a matter of law that certain selected but not conveyed lands are governed by the terms of ANILCA Sec. 906(o)(2), 43 U.S.C. Sec. 1616(o)(2), which provides that "Until conveyed, all Federal lands within the boundaries of a Conservation System Unit ... shall be administered in accordance with the laws applicable to such unit." Accordingly, the Secretaries have determined that all Federal lands within the units specified in ANILCA Sec. 906(o)(2) will be administered as part of the unit to which they belong and will be subject to the administrative jurisdiction of the Federal Subsistence Board until conveyed from Federal ownership. The contemplated change relating to the definition of public lands contained in the preliminary regulatory text reflects the Secretaries' conclusions in this regard. [202]

Later that year, two SRCs made their opinions known on the matter, both as part of the process that resulted in the August 1997 issues paper. In the summer of 1996, the Denali SRC reiterated its interest in having the selected lands opened up to Title VIII subsistence uses. And the Gates of the Arctic SRC passed a resolution requesting that all people living in the park's resident zone communities, along with all 13.44 permit holders, be granted a positive customary and traditional use determination for all of the park's subsistence resources. (This action, among its other effects, granted local residents access to selected as well as public lands.) But Alaska's Congressional delegation, recognizing that the proposed rulemaking was an effective federal takeover of a large amount of state-owned acreage, opposed the idea. On September 13, 1996, an amendment was inserted into the Fiscal Year 1997 Interior Department appropriations bill (Sec. 318 of H.R. 3662) that would have made it impossible to apply federal regulations to selected lands. [203] But the amendment was removed not long afterward, and no further Congressional action took place on the matter. The NPS, in its final issues paper, stated that it "still believes that the federal subsistence program should extend to selected lands." [204]

After August 1997, the fate of the selected lands issue was dependent upon whether the federal government would assume management over navigable waters within federal conservation units. (See Chapter 9.) In December 1997, the Interior and Agriculture departments issued a Proposed Rule on the subject; as part of that proposed rule, they suggested that the following qualifier be added to the "public lands" definition: "until conveyed, all Federal lands within the boundaries of any unit of the National Park system ... shall be treated as public lands for the purposes of the regulations in this part pursuant to section 906(o)(2) of ANILCA." This qualifier was also included in the Final Rule that the Secretaries issued in January 1999. [205] The State of Alaska, during its 1999 legislative session, was unable to piece together a subsistence plan that conformed to federal guidelines, so the Secretaries' final rule was implemented on October 1. Since then, agency officials have managed subsistence on selected lands within the various NPS units much as they have federally-owned lands.

4. Migratory Bird Hunting and Gull Egg Collecting. Residents in various parts of the Alaskan bush had long hunted migratory birds and collected migratory bird eggs as part of their traditional harvesting patterns. That activity, however, had been illegal ever since the Congressional passage, in July 1918, of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. (This act, signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, put into effect the Convention Between the United States and Great Britain for the Protection of Migratory Birds which had been ratified two years earlier. Great Britain had acted on Canada's behalf.) The 1918 law made it unlawful "to pursue, hunt, take, capture [or] kill ... any migratory bird, any part, nest, or eggs of any such bird" that migrated between the United States and Canada. The treaty gave the Interior Secretary the authority to permit specific harvesting of various migratory bird species, but by barring all migratory bird hunting between March 10 and September 1, it effectively prevented Alaskan residents from legally conducting traditional migratory bird harvests. The United States broadened the provisions of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in February 1936 when it signed a similar treaty with the United Mexican States. [206]

Even prior to statehood, the Fish and Wildlife Service—which administered and enforced the act—was well aware of the conflict between the law and traditional hunting patterns. And in a few well-publicized cases, rural Alaska residents strongly protested agency enforcement measures; in 1961, for example, the arrest of state representative John Nusunginya (D-Point Barrow) for hunting ducks out of season caused 138 other area residents to harvest ducks and present themselves for arrest to federal game wardens. (A year later, all charges were dropped.) [207] Based on such an incident, the Fish and Wildlife Service was low-key in its enforcement efforts. As the agency later noted,

The Service has recognized for many years that residents of certain rural areas in Alaska depend on waterfowl and some other migratory birds as customary and traditional sources of food, primarily in spring and early summer. Because of this long established dependence, prohibitions on taking during the closed season generally have not been strictly enforced provided that the birds were not taken in a nonwasteful manner and were used for food. [208]

Officially, however, the prohibition remained. Negotiators from both the U.S. and Canada, hoping to solve the problem, signed an agreement on January 30, 1979 that would have allowed subsistence hunting of waterfowl outside of the normal hunting season. The treaty, however, did not take effect because the U.S. Senate never ratified it. A year later, Congress passed ANILCA with a subsistence provision. But Congress, aware of the stalemate in the international negotiations, was careful to note that "Nothing in [Title VIII] shall be construed as modifying or repealing the provisions of any Federal law governing the conservation or protection of fish and wildlife, including ... the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (40 Stat. 755; 16 U.S.C. 703-711)." [209] ANILCA, as stated in Chapter 4, brought 13 new or expanded units into the NPS system. Inasmuch as migratory bird harvesting had traditionally taken place in several of those units—including Aniakchak, Gates of the Arctic, Wrangell-St. Elias and the various Northwest Alaska Area parks—NPS officials soon recognized that the migratory bird issue was an agency concern.

During the years immediately following ANILCA's passage, Fish and Wildlife Service staff began to recognize that drastic declines were taking place in various Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta bird populations. Four species were particularly affected: cackling Canada geese, emperor geese, Pacific white-fronted geese, and Pacific brant. The cause of that decline was contested; agency managers felt that spring harvesting in the delta was the primary reason, while local residents claimed that their harvest rates had not increased. Residents speculated, instead, that either overhunting or habitat loss in the birds' wintertime home (in California and Mexico) may have caused the decline. To ensure the health of those populations, the F&WS worked with the ADF&G and local residents on a goose management plan. That plan was finalized in 1984 and renewed in 1985, but a suit challenging the legality of those plans was filed in the Alaska District Court. The Court's ruling, issued in January 1986, stated that the 1925 Alaska Game Law—and not the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act—governed subsistence hunting for migratory birds in Alaska. On the heels of that decision, the F&WS began a rulemaking process to permit and regulate subsistence hunting for migratory birds throughout Alaska. The agency planned public hearings and hoped to issue a final rule in time for the spring 1988 migratory bird harvest. That process, however, was halted by an October 9, 1987 ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed the District Court's ruling. The Appeals Court held that any regulations for subsistence hunting of migratory birds must be in accordance with the 1916 U.S.-Canada treaty and the 1918 act. The decision did, however, give the F&WS some leeway in enforcing the measure, and the agency responded by concentrating its enforcement efforts on aircraft access to nesting areas, egging, and taking for the four above-named bird species. [210]

Following that ruling, Fish and Wildlife Service officials decided to push for a new cooperative goose management plan, and it also issued a proposed policy on how it would enforce the MBTA's closed-season policy. In addition, it asked the U.S. State Department to begin negotiations on legalizing the subsistence harvest during the closed season by proposing amendments to both the U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico treaties. By 1993, the Service had either been assured (or was hoping) that the two countries were close to an agreement, and on that basis it wrote a draft environmental assessment regarding the impacts of legalizing a expanded hunting season on Alaska's migratory bird populations. That study, announced in mid-August 1993, recommended several action alternatives; the preferred alternative called for modified Convention that allowed a regulated harvest during a portion, but not all of, the currently closed period. The public was given until mid-October to comment on the draft EA. Many of those who responded requested that the Service include additional materials on such subjects as the demographics and harvest situation in Alaska. Given those requests, the Service issued a second draft in early March 1994, and two months later it issued its final environmental assessment, entitled Regulation of Migratory Bird Subsistence Hunting in Alaska. The Service's acting director approved the final EA on July 1, 1994. [211]

Before long, the State Department's negotiations began to bear fruit. On December 14, 1995, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Sheila Copps signed a protocol amending the U.S.-Canada treaty, and a similar protocol was signed with Mexico that same year. In October and November 1997, the U.S. Senate ratified the amendments to migratory-bird treaties with Canada and Mexico, respectively, and in the fall of 1999 the amended treaties with both countries were formally implemented. F&WS officials, at that time, promised rural Alaskans that specific hunting regulations reflecting the amended treaties would be implemented by 2001; until that time, residents would be bound to existing policy, which allowed subsistence harvests so long as they were compatible with sustainable conservation. The process, however, has proven to be more complex than anticipated. As a result, no regulations are expected prior to the spring of 2003. [212]

NPS officials, and those who harvested subsistence resources in NPS units, were periodically updated on the status of these negotiations. The Wrangell-St. Elias SRC, which was the active SRC from a park unit most involved with migratory bird issues, sent an April 1994 letter to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt that made two requests: first, that regulations be adopted which provided for a fall subsistence harvest of waterfowl consistent with the State's season and bag limits, and second, that amendments to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act were needed to protect the subsistence harvest of bird eggs, especially sea gull and tern eggs. (The SRC, in making these requests, apparently knew that the Interior Secretary, which carried out the provisions of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, was "authorized and directed ... to determine when ... it is compatible with the terms of the conventions to allow hunting, taking, capture, [and] killing" of the various species that were subject to the Act, and the SRC also apparently knew that the Secretary had authorized a longer-season migratory bird hunt in various parts of western Alaska.) The Interior Department, in its response, referred both to the ongoing negotiations and the F&WS's environmental assessment; pending further negotiations, however, the Department refused to sanction any activities that conflicted with Migratory Bird Treaty Act provisions. The Department told the SRC that its request for a fall waterfowl subsistence harvest was "in conflict with the existing Federal subsistence management regulations," but in order to initiate a new regulations process, it indicated a willingness to "consider this matter in the future" if the SRC resubmitted its request in the form of a hunting plan recommendation. [213] At its next meeting (in February 1996), the Wrangell-St. Elias SRC did just that; it passed a two-part recommendation and forwarded it on to various local and regional advisory committees, and in December 1996 it sent its recommendation to the Interior Secretary. [214]

The Interior Secretary, unsure of his legal position, spent almost two years mulling over the matter. But in June 1998, the Department's Office of the Solicitor dashed cold water on the SRC's proposal. First, it concluded that the Federal Subsistence Board had no management authority over migratory birds; thus the board was powerless to allow a fall waterfowl hunt. A second, more sweeping conclusion was that not even the long-expected Migratory Bird Treaty Act amendments would legalize waterfowl hunting or egg collecting in an NPS unit. Wrangell-St. Elias Superintendent Jon Jarvis told his SRC that only Congress could legally sanction these activities. He stated that

there is a body of congressional law that says no park value can be derogated [i.e., diminished in value] without specific direction from Congress. The Secretary does not have the authority to allow [a] migratory bird hunt in a National Park Unit because Congress never gave that authority to the Secretary in Title VIII. Even if you modified the Migratory Bird Treaty you still could not hunt, because Congress has said specifically [that] the only kind of hunting you can do in a National Park in Alaska is that which falls in the provisions of Title VIII. [215]

In a subsequent letter to the SRC chairs, an NPS official further clarified the matter and suggested that the legal harvesting of waterfowl and their eggs, in national preserves as well as in the parks and monuments, might require Congressional action. [216]

Not long after NPS officials told the Wrangell-St. Elias SRC of the Interior Solicitor's opinion, the Gates of the Arctic SRC protested the action. Citing Section 802 of ANILCA, which stated that it was "the policy of Congress ... to provide the opportunity for rural residents engaged in a subsistence way to life to do so," SRC chairperson Pollock Simon, Sr. stated that because the

harvest of waterfowl does not violate any recognized conservation principles or modify or repeal any provision of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, their use should continue on Park lands. We question the solicitor's opinion, and would like to see the findings delineated. It would be better to resolve this issue with the NPS before entertaining an act of Congress with ANILCA changes. [217]

Taking a cue from both the Interior Department Solicitor as well as the Gates of the Arctic chair, NPS officials began working with their counterparts at the Fish and Wildlife Service to resolve the problem without Congressional intervention. (Fish and Wildlife Service officials had a more relaxed interpretation of the treaties, laws, and regulations; as F&WS employee Mimi Hogan noted, "the subsistence hunters in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park Subsistence Resource area can legally take waterfowl, snipe, and cranes consistent with federal and state hunting regulations. The decision on whether hunters are eligible to hunt migratory birds within Wrangell-St. Elias Park and Preserve is a National Park Service decision based on their interpretation of Title VIII....") Before long, NPS officials began to rethink its former position, in part because the definition of "subsistence uses" in Sec. 803 of ANILCA, which included "the customary and traditional uses by rural Alaska residents of wild, renewable resources for direct personal or family consumption," seemed broad enough to include migratory birds. This issue, however, was not resolved quickly. In October 1999, NPS officials told the SRC chairs that they were "hopeful for a positive resolution to the issue." Four months later, however, the agency had "still not been able to complete the necessary consultation" with Interior Department Solicitors in Washington, D.C. [218]

Finally, on May 16, 2000, the NPS responded to the two hunting plan recommendations that the Wrangell-St. Elias SRC had made in December 1996. Robert Barbee, speaking on behalf of the Interior Department (due to its newly-implemented delegation authority), concluded that

there is nothing in ANILCA that specifically prohibits the taking of migratory birds for subsistence purposes within national parks or national park monuments in Alaska where subsistence users are otherwise allowed. ... The traditional harvest of migratory birds may be permitted in parks and monuments, as long as such harvest is consistent with the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. ... Earlier analysis of the impact of [ANILCA sections 815 and 816] led us to believe that the taking of migratory birds could not be permitted in national parks and monuments, because such use could not be considered a subsistence taking as permitted in ANILCA. This is not the case.

The NPS thus approved of the first of the SRC's two recommendations, and it permitted the requested fall waterfowl harvest as long as it was consistent with MBTA regulations. It stopped short, however, of approving the other recommendation, which advocated a general exception to the spring and summer prohibition against harvesting migratory birds and their eggs for subsistence purposes. This recommendation, the NPS concluded, could not be approved until the Fish and Wildlife Service had approved regulations in accordance with the amendments to the Canadian and Mexican migratory bird treaties, which were finalized in the fall of 1999. As noted above, these regulations had not been adopted even in February 2001; as a result, NPS officials told the SRC chairs that the NPS was powerless to relax this prohibition until the F&WS's regulations process had been finalized. [219]

5. The Individual C&T Issue. A final area of interest revolved around the following question: should it be legal, under the federal management program, for individuals who had a customary and traditional pattern of subsistence use to continue that use if they lived in an area where the Federal Subsistence Board had not established a positive C&T determination? Relatively few Alaskans, to be sure, fit both of these criteria, but because neither ANILCA nor the subsistence regulations directly addressed this subject, the resolution of the so-called "individual C&T" issue has been a complex, drawn-out process.

The precursors of this issue reached back to the mid-1980s, several years before the federal government assumed jurisdiction over the subsistence resources on Alaska's federal lands. As noted in Chapters 5 and 6, the Alaska's Board of Fisheries and Board of Game made its first rural determinations in April 1982. Then, in the wake of the Madison case, the joint board made a new series of rulings regarding rural residency between May 1986 and March 1987 that covered the entire state. But some communities did not clearly fit either a rural or non-rural definition, so between 1987 and 1989 the joint boards, on a case-by-case basis, either moved—or refused to move—several areas from a non-rural to a rural classification.

One area that fell into a regulatory gray area was the 84-mile stretch of the Parks Highway between mileposts 216 and 300. (Milepost 216, six miles north of Cantwell, is the boundary line between Game Management Units 13E and 20A; while Milepost 300, four miles south of Nenana, is near the boundary between Game Management Units 20A and 20B.) Many residents along this highway corridor live in the small communities of Healy, Anderson/Clear, and Denali Park/McKinley Village, while others carry on a more dispersed lifestyle. Many of the residents of this road corridor have long harvested subsistence resources. But when Interior Department personnel began compiling regulations on how the newly-expanded Denali National Park should be managed, they decided that none of the communities in this corridor should be designated as resident zone communities. The June 1981 regulations listed Cantwell as the only resident zone community along the Parks Highway. This did not mean, of course, that subsistence harvesting in Denali National Park was limited to residents of designated communities. It did, however, mean that residents who lived outside of these designated communities needed a so-called 13.44 permit in order to hunt; to obtain a 13.44 permit, moreover, required that prospective permittees be required to satisfy various customary and traditional (C&T) criteria.

When the Alaska joint boards made their initial rural determination rulings, in April 1982, this road corridor was judged to be rural. That ruling remained until March 1987, when—perhaps as a result of growth taking place along the eastern border of Denali National Park—the state board reversed its earlier decision and declared the area to be non-rural. On the basis of that decision, the NPS revoked all 13.44 permits for residents along the Parks Highway corridor. In reaction to the state board's decision, local fish and game advisory committees filed a petition for a change back to rural status. At a joint board meeting, held in Anchorage in March 1988, that petition was granted. But in an ironic twist, the Alaska Game Board (which met in a separate session a few days later) "examined the question of whether people domiciled in this area had customary and traditional uses of moose and caribou in Units 20(A) and 20(C). Based on their review, the board was unable to conclude that the people in this area met the criteria." The state "assumed that [the joint board's rural determination] would allow the Park Service to reissue the subsistence permits it canceled last year." The NPS, however, interpreted the situation differently, and based on the state's negative C&T determination, NPS officials could not reissue any 13.44 permits to residents who lived along the Parks Highway corridor. The Board of Game was unable to re-address the situation for the next several years, much to the chagrin of local residents. [220]

When the Federal Subsistence Board began managing subsistence resources on federal lands in July 1990, it adopted all of the state's decisions regarding rural or nonrural status until it had the opportunity to undertake its own rulings process. That process, as noted in Chapter 7, was conducted between September and December 1990. It concluded with the federal board recommending that the entire 84-mile road corridor be declared rural. But this decision, while laudable, was a reaffirmation of the status quo. For reasons outlined above, it had little direct impact on the ability of local residents to obtain 13.44 permits.

In December 1990, six residents who lived along the eastern boundary of Denali National Park (between mileposts 216 and 239) wrote a letter to the Federal Subsistence Board. They outlined the joint game board's voting history as it pertained to their area and asked why they had not received subsistence permits for hunting within the park. The Denali SRC, which supported the residents' efforts, sent its own letter to the federal board in March 1991. Because the SRC's letter dealt specifically with Denali National Park it was forwarded to the NPS, and in September 1991 the agency's regional director, John M. Morehead, responded. He noted that

When the federal government implemented its interim subsistence regulations (on July 1, 1990), the state Board of Game's determinations for C&T uses were adopted. The current determinations preclude Parks Highway residents between mileposts 216 and 239 from subsistence use of caribou and moose within Game Management Unit 20C, which includes portions of Denali National Park. Accordingly, Parks Highway residents are not qualified to subsistence hunt within Denali National Park for those animals. However, the superintendent is authorized to issue permits to Parks Highway residents who meet NPS eligibility criteria for other subsistence uses within Denali National Park.

Nenana resident Mitch Demientieff, during the mid-1980s, worked briefly as a regional council coordinator for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Since 1995, he has served as the Federal Subsistence Board chair. ADN

Morehead assured those affected, however, that the federal board would "adopt a process for making C&T determinations prior to July 1, 1992" and that "once a process is adopted, the Board will review existing determinations for consistency with that process." All the residents had to do, therefore, was to exercise some restraint; in the not-too-distant future, they would be able to "submit written comments on C&T determinations" in hopes of changing caribou and moose subsistence regulations along the highway corridor. [221]

Local residents and SRC members, hoping for an expedited review of their case, were chagrined to hear in May 1992 that their request for a C&T determination review was ranked poorly and that "it may be several years before it comes before the board." SRC coordinator Hollis Twitchell, in response, recommended that the request be changed from the "new rural community category" to the more highly-ranked "appeal category" based on the negative C&T determination that the Alaska Board of Game had given previously. The newly-minted Eastern Interior Regional Advisory Council (EIRAC) was also supportive; it noted in the fall of 1993 that the Council's "highest priority C&T issue" was along the Parks Highway, and it voted unanimously for the Federal Subsistence Board to act "as soon as possible." But the board made no immediate moves because it was buried under an avalanche of other C&T requests from throughout the state. [222] NPS officials, doing what they could in support of local residents, decided to re-issue 13.44 permits to residents in the McKinley Village area residents for both 1994 and 1995. But their gesture had little practical effect, because only the FSB could act on the negative C&T determination. [223]

By early 1995, the FSB had still not ruled on whether the Parks Highway corridor satisfied the federal government's C&T criteria, and no action appeared likely in the foreseeable future. So the Denali SRC suggested a new angle: obtaining C&T determinations for individual permit holders—all of whom lived between mileposts 216 and 239—rather than for the entire road corridor. (The May 1992 final regulations appeared to allow for individual C&T determinations for those harvesting subsistence resources on NPS land because they stated that "The legislative history of ANILCA clearly indicates that, with the exception of lands managed by the National Park Service, customary and traditional uses should be evaluated on a community or area basis, rather than an individual basis.") The SRC wrote to Acting Superintendent Steve Martin and asked him "to be sure the original [13.44] permittees know about possible actions they could take to expedite the appeal process or how to apply for an individual exception to the determination." Shortly afterward, the SRC wrote the Federal Subsistence Board. It asked, once again, that it reexamine its existing C&T regulations for the area, but "If the area does not meet the customary and traditional criteria for subsistence use of moose and caribou, we believe the Federal Subsistence Board should grant a waiver to the individuals residing in the area who have subsistence use permits issued by the National Park Service." [224]

The SRC's coordinator, Hollis Twitchell, responded to the interests of his commission by submitting a federal board proposal in the late summer of 1995. Proposal 19 requested a change in the C&T determination for moose in Game Management Unit 13E, and for caribou in GMUs 20A and 20C, for people living along the Parks Highway between mileposts 216 and 239. During their subsequent review, the Eastern Interior and Southcentral regional councils generally supported the proposal, but at EIRAC's request, Healy and the park headquarters area were excluded from the proposal. In late April and early May 1996, the board met and approved the modified proposal. NPS officials, upon hearing the news, told McKinley Village subsistence permit holders that they were now free, for the first time since the spring of 1987, to harvest moose and caribou in the newly-expanded portions of Denali National Park. [225]

The board's favorable action negated the need for any McKinley Village residents to seek an individual C&T determination. But as noted above, C&T determinations for Healy residents did not change, and one of the major area subsistence users—Dan O'Connor, the son of longtime advocate Pat O'Connor—lived in Healy, which had been excluded from the area "freed up" in the recently-approved proposal. The federal regulations related to individual C&T determinations seemed tailor-made for O'Connor; he lived in a community without a positive C&T determination for moose, but because he had lived there since 1981, he had a well-established (and well-known) pattern of harvesting moose for subsistence purposes. Thus it was not particularly surprising that O'Connor, in mid-March 1997, wrote the federal board and requested an individual exception to the existing C&T determination for moose in Game Management Units 20C and 13E. To expedite matters, he requested a ruling prior to the fall moose season, and to buttress his case, the Denali SRC followed up with a supporting letter. But because the letter was written just six weeks before the federal board's annual meeting, the board did not immediately respond to his request. The NPS's federal board staff committee representative responded to the rejection by pursuing a new vote prior to the fall moose season, but the board informed him that C&T determinations were made only once per year, at the spring meeting. [226]

Later that summer, Dan O'Connor continued his quest for access to the park's subsistence resources by submitting Proposal 38—which was simply a more formal version of his March 1997 request. But O'Connor was not the only person requesting an individual C&T determination that year. A similar proposal was active at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, where Frank Entsminger had submitted two proposals requesting a positive C&T determination—Proposal 25 for Dall sheep and Proposal 29 for goat—for areas in Game Management Unit 11 located south of the Sanford River. Entsminger submitted his proposal on behalf of himself and six other individuals. Based on those proposals, NPS personnel conducted C&T analyses for all eight of the affected parties. In the process of compiling those reports, four of the seven families that had initially supported proposals 25 and 29 indicated that they were no longer interested in pursuing an individual C&T determination for either sheep or goat in a portion of GMU 11. [227]

Tom Boyd (right) has served since 1995 as the chief of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Office of Subsistence Management (OSM). Peggy Fox (left) also has extensive experience working on subsistence issues, with both the Bureau of Land Management and OSM. USF&WS (OSM)

All three of these proposals, however, had to be delayed. In January 1998, the Wrangell-St. Elias superintendent contacted the various parties interested in proposals 25 and 29 that their federal board proposal would need to be deferred because of a severe and unanticipated staff shortage. Then, two months later, the NPS informed the federal board that the agency had contacted the Interior Department's Office of the Solicitor and was requesting an opinion on the legality of individual C&T determinations. On the basis of that advice, the board decided to defer action on all three of the individual C&T proposals at its May 1998 meeting. The issue was held in abeyance until the Solicitor's Office issued its opinion. Meanwhile, an identical series of proposals was submitted to the board in the late summer of 1998; the Wrangell-St. Elias proposals were numbers 9 and 11, while the Denali proposal was number 25. [228]

It was widely anticipated that an opinion would be forthcoming from the Solicitor's Office in the spring of 1999, and in late March, Regional Solicitor Lauri J. Adams issued a review on the subject. She noted that federal board chair Mitch Demientieff had asked her to judge the validity of the statement "For areas managed by the national Park Service, where subsistence uses are allowed, the [C&T] determinations may be made on an individual basis," which was found in two different sections of the Code of Federal Regulations: 36 CFR § 242.16(a) and 50 CFR § 100.16(a). In response to that task, Adams noted that

Your question is whether there is sufficient legal authority under ANILCA to make C&T determinations for NPS-administered lands on an individual basis as this regulation allows. The short answer to your question is yes. The regulation is valid; and individual C&T determinations may be made in the Board's discretion, pursuant to Title VIII of [ANILCA] ... for lands administered by the National Park Service. ... [W]e believe the approach to C&T adopted by both the [June 1990] Temporary Regulations and the [May 1992] Final Rule reflects a reasonable administrative interpretation of ANILCA and is legally supportable.

Based on the Regional Solicitor's decision, the Federal Subsistence Board at its May 1999 meeting supported the individual C&T concept. The board unanimously approved Dan O'Connor's request for a C&T determination to hunt moose for subsistence purposes in GMUs 13E and 20C. Both of Frank Entsminger's proposals (regarding sheep and goat hunting in GMU 11) were also approved, but only two of the three individuals who still sought a positive C&T determination were awarded it. Shortly after the board made its initial decisions, the NPS established a policy by which future individual C&T determinations would be made. Since then, however, no new C&T proposals of this nature have been submitted to the federal board. [229]

Notes — Chapter 8

¹ Collins to Lou Waller, October 18, 1990, in DENA SRC files. The only two SRCs that held a legally-binding meeting in 1990 were those representing Gates of the Arctic National Park (which met three times) and Lake Clark National Park (which met once).

² As noted below, the Aniakchak, Denali, Gates of the Arctic, and Wrangell-St. Elias SRCs all sent in hunting plan recommendations that, to a greater or lesser extent, resembled recommendations that had been rejected in 1988. The Interior Secretary, however, did not receive the revised recommendations until 1992 or 1993.

³ Walter Sampson to Boyd Evison, January 15, 1990; David B. Ames to Sampson, February 5, 1990; Frank Stein to Manuel Lujan, March 12, 1991; all in CAKR SRC folder.

⁴ Lou Waller email, December 18, 2000. As noted in Chapter 7, new Subsistence Division employees included John Hiscock, Clarence Summers, and Betty Barlond (all hired in 1989), along with Janis Meldrum and Bob Gerhard (hired in 1991).

⁵ GAAR SRC minutes, January 14, 1998, 3; Shirley L. Lee to "To Whom it May Concern," May 8, 1991, in GAAR SRC folder. The first quote, made at a 1998 meeting, is by Jack Reakoff, who joined the Gates of the Arctic SRC in 1990; he noted that "the NPS has changed for the better since the early days."

⁶ John Vale of the Wrangell-St. Elias SRC complained in March 1991, "Why are we limited to $10,000? [W]e have to meet two times a year to be effective." Raymond Paneak of the Gates of the Arctic SRC, on the other hand, wanted more; he stated in May 1991 that he'd "like to see a commission meeting more than twice a year because the commission doesn't get anywhere with just two meetings." The NPS inexplicably rejected the Wrangell-St. Elias SRC's request, but the NPS's Clarence Summers responded to the Gates of the Arctic request by stating that "the budget allows for another one or two meetings this year." Indeed, Appendix 5 indicates that the Gates of the Arctic SRC—in the 1980s as well as the 1990s—often met three times per year. Beginning in January 1993, moreover, the budget for the Gates SRC—alone among Alaska SRCs—was raised from $10,000 to $25,000 per year. WRST SRC minutes, March 19, 1991, 1; Bill Ellis to Jack Morehead, October 21, 1991; WRST SRC meeting, November 13, 1991, 1; GAAR SRC minutes, May 8, 1991, 20; February 25-26, 1992, 1, 5; GAAR SRC newsletter, February 9, 1993, 1.

⁷ In October 1990, the Denali SRC chair requested an SRC newsletter; that same year, the Gates of the Arctic SRC spoke out in favor of a joint meeting of all seven SRCs. Neither idea was implemented. During the first half of the 1990s, the SRC chairs (despite protests to the contrary) did not meet; and for most SRC members, informal conversations with regional subsistence staff (such as Clarence Summers, who attended SRC meetings throughout Alaska during this period) appears to be the only way in which SRC members heard about other SRCs' activities. For some reason—perhaps it was coordinator Steve Ulvi's involvement—Gates of the Arctic SRC members stayed better informed than other commission members on statewide subsistence issues; they received periodic updates on the actions of the other SRCs, and in July 1992, Ulvi distributed the first of several detailed newsletters to his SRC. Collins to Waller, October 18, 1990; Collins to Clarence Summers, July 9, 1993, both in DENA SRC files; GAAR SRC minutes, January 27, 1990, 6; Raymond Paneak to All Subsistence Resource Commissions, January 31, 1990, in GAAR SRC file; GAAR SRC minutes, May 6, 1992, 6; NPS, GAAR SRC Newsletter, July 22, 1992.

⁸ In the fall of 1991, the Wrangell-St. Elias SRC requested funds to travel to Federal Subsistence Board meetings, and several months later the Denali SRC made an identical request. In both cases, the Interior Secretary rejected the SRC's request, arguing that "such representation is unnecessary because the interest and involvement of the Commission are already reflected in the process" by which SRC members are chosen. Bill Ellis to Manual Lujan, November 14, 1991; Lujan to Ellis, February 21, 1992, both in WRST SRC file; Florence Collins to Lujan, March 9, 1992, 2; Lujan to Collins, May 28, 1992, both in DENA SRC file. Also see ANIA SRC minutes, January 11, 1990, 3.

⁹ Gates of the Arctic SRC member Shirley Lee, who resigned in May 1991, rued that the "NPS ignores and pressures the commission," and that "the NPS has also failed to keep the Commission apprised of its budget." SRC member Delbert Rexford did not resign but stated that he was "deeply disturbed" that the SRC had "limited administrative support" to carry out its charter provisions. Lee to "To Whom it May Concern," May 8, 1991; Rexford to Raymond Paneak, April 15, 1993; both in GAAR SRC files.

¹⁰ Congressional Record, May 2, 1979, E 2014.

¹¹ Public Law 96-487, December 2, 1980, Sec. 801(4), Sec. 802(1), and Sec. 811. Congress made it clear that subsistence users, within proper limits, should be able to utilize new technologies; it thus agreed with Shismaref resident George Olanna who told Congress, "We cannot be limited and restricted into one small world of the past, where hunting was done with spears and total demand of obtaining food and shelter was from the land. We are in a modern world where modern equipment is needed to survive. We cannot be pushed into a living museum where the western culture have created in order to satisfy his ego. It would be like, living in an imaginary western movie." Congressional Record, July 23, 1980, S 9598.

¹² Sen. Ted Stevens press release, October 16, 1990, in "Press Releases thru FY 93" folder, AKSO-RS.

¹³ Lou Waller (December 20, 2000 interview) notes that parks augmented the funds from Stevens' allotment with additional funds that had been authorized for SRC use but not expended. The various SRC charters authorized a $10,000 annual expenditure, but as Appendix 5 notes, several SRCs spent less than their annual allotment.

¹⁴ GAAR SRC minutes, November 14-15, 1990, 10; CAKR SRC minutes, March 12, 1991, 1.

¹⁵ Clarence Summers interview, December 19, 2000; Lou Waller interview, December 20, 2000; Joe Fowler email, January 7, 2001; Jim Hannah interview, January 9, 2001. Individuals who assumed responsibility for park subsistence activities included Susan Savage, ANIA/KATM; Ken Adkisson, BELA; Hollis Twitchell, DENA; Steve Ulvi, GAAR; Lee Fink, LACL; Lois Dalle-Malle, NWAK; Jay Wells, WRST; and Cary Brown, YUCH. Savage, Twitchell, Ulvi, and Dalle-Molle were hired to be subsistence coordinators, Adkisson became a subsistence coordinator after a previous stint as chief ranger, and Fink was hired as a resource management specialist and subsistence coordinator after serving as a local-hire pilot. At WRST, district ranger Jim Hannah incorporated subsistence protection duties into his job. Finally, Mike Sharp was hired as a subsistence ranger pilot under a two-park cooperative agreement; he was located in Yakutat and dealt with subsistence issues both at WRST (Malaspina Forelands) and GLBA (Dry Bay). Superintendents at WRST and YUCH opted to spend their subsistence funds on equipment for the subsistence program; subsistence concerns at these units were handled by existing staff.

¹⁶ Hollis Twitchell was hired as DENA's subsistence specialist in July 1991 (Twitchell to Waller, July 24, 1991, in "Federal Subsistence Permits" folder, AKSO-RS Collection), but Lee Fink (Ralph Tingey interview, December 20, 2000) did not assume LACL's subsistence duties until late 1992. See Chief, Subsistence Division to Subsistence Coordinators, July 24, 1991, in ANIA and DENA SRC folders.

¹⁷ Steve Ulvi and Hollis Twitchell, who began working as park subsistence coordinators in 1991, noted that regional subsistence specialists during this period were dead set against any expansion of subsistence eligibility that was not specified in the regulations. When either suggested a relaxation of eligibility requirements, the regional officials' stock response was, "We think you're giving away the farm." Ulvi interview, April 6, 1999; Twitchell interview, March 22, 1999.

¹⁸ Jennifer A. Salisbury to Bill Ellis, July 14, 1992, in WRST SRC files.

¹⁹ Recommendation #1 reaffirmed the legitimacy of the existing, community-based resident zone system. Recommendation #2 was in two parts; one advocated the legality of subsistence hunters to fly between resident zone communities, while the other supported the recent, four-party agreement regarding ATV use in the Anaktuvuk Pass area. Recommendation #3 asked that "the entire park be generally classified as a traditional use area." GAAR SRC, "Subsistence Hunting Plan," February 25, 1992, in SRC files.

²⁰ Superintendent, GAAR to Chief, Subsistence Division, Alaska Region, May 13, 1992, in GAAR SRC files. The letter, to a large extent, was written by the park's Subsistence Coordinator, Steve Ulvi. The specifics regarding the three issues with which the SRC was concerned are discussed in greater detail later in this chapter.

²¹ Superintendent, GAAR to Regional Director, July 13, 1992, in GAAR SRC files.

²² Jennifer A. Salisbury to Raymond Paneak, December 3, 1992, "SRC Hunting Plan Responses" file, AKSO-RS. As noted later in this chapter, this "proposed regulation" was never implemented.

²³ Superintendent GAAR to Chief, Subsistence Division, December 11, 1992, in GAAR SRC files; Steve Ulvi, email to the author, November 17, 2000. "Subsistence superintendents," as used here, include the superintendents of all park units in which subsistence is a legally-authorized activity.

²⁴ Superintendent GAAR to Chief, Subsistence Division, December 11, 1992, in GAAR SRC files.

²⁵ John Morehead (in an April 23, 2001 interview) indicated that one of the most restive superintendents was Russ Berry (DENA), and several sources have noted that Karen Wade (WRST) was also active in expressing her frustrations with the existing NPS subsistence management system.

²⁶ Hollis Twitchell interview, March 22, 1999; Steve Ulvi interview, April 6, 1999.

²⁷ Alaska Superintendents to Jack Morehead, January 21, 1993, in Paul Anderson files; NPS, Gates of the Arctic SRC Newsletter, February 9, 1993, in GAAR SRC files; John Morehead interview, April 23, 2001.

²⁸ The conference was held at the Holy Spirit Retreat House, in the Upper Hillside section of Anchorage.

²⁹ Steve Ulvi interview, April 17, 2001; Bill Brown interview, April 18, 2001; Paul Anderson interview, April 30, 2001.

³⁰ "Notes — Subsistence Workshop, 3/22-26/93," Ray Bane personal files; Waller to the author, December 20, 2001.

³¹ This statement remained in draft form until April 1997, when it was slightly modified at an NPS subsistence workshop. It emerged as the NPS Subsistence Mission Statement, which was published as part of the August 1997 Subsistence Management Program.

³² See John M. Morehead to Jack Hession letter, June 1, 1993, in WRST SRC files.

³³ GAAR SRC minutes, April 13-15, 1993, 2.

³⁴ Bob Gerhard to Regional Director, ARO memo, June 29, 1993, in Gerhard files; GAAR SRC minutes, June 18, 1993, 2.

³⁵ John M. Morehead interview, April 23, 2001.

³⁶ Glen Alsworth to Manuel Lujan, August 17, 1992; John H. Davis to Alsworth, October 1, 1992; both in LACL SRC files; John Morehead interview, April 23, 2001.

³⁷ Lois Dalle-Molle to Betty Barlond, October 5, 1993; Bob Gerhard to Jack (Morehead) and Paul (Anderson), December 22, 1993; both in CAKR SRC files.

³⁸ Pete Schaeffer to Bruce Babbitt, June 13, 1994, in Cape Krusenstern SRC file; Walter Sampson to Babbitt, June 13, 1994, in Kobuk Valley SRC file.

³⁹ GAAR SRC minutes, May 10-11, 1994, 2-4; Paul Hunter to Lou Waller email, May 31, 1995, in DENA SRC file; Hollis Twitchell interview, April 6, 1999; Paul Anderson interview, April 30, 2001.

⁴⁰ Ralph Tingey interview, January 11, 2001; Paul Anderson interview, April 30, 2001.

⁴¹ NPS, AKSO, Natural Resources Program Review, "Reinventing Natural Resources Management," February 1996, 2-4, 15. The team consisted of two Alaskan NPS managers (Jon Jarvis of WRST and Judy Gottlieb of AFO), a non-Alaska NPS employee (John Varley from the Yellowstone Center for Resources), and an Outside biologist unaffiliated with the NPS (Gerry Wright from the National Biological Service).

⁴² NPS, Natural Resources Program Review, 2, 4, 14-15.

⁴³ AKSO telephone lists, March 7, 1996 and June 21, 1996.

⁴⁴ Jon Jarvis to Lou Waller, February 26, 1996 email, WRST SRC files; GAAR SRC Minutes, November 13-14, 1996, 10.

⁴⁵ Ralph Tingey interview, January 11, 2001; Bob Gerhard to author, email, January 11, 2001; Gerhard to author note, October 1, 2001.

⁴⁶ DENA SRC, April 29, 1996 and August 9, 1996; GAAR SRC, May 14-16, 1996, 2; November 13-14, 1996, 15, 21; WRST SRC, February 25-27, 1997, 8; John Vale to Bob Barbee, March 8, 1997, in WRST SRC files.

⁴⁷ NPS, Subsistence Management Program, editions of July 3, 1997 and August 18, 1997. The April 1997 workshop was held at Grace Hall on the Alaska Pacific University campus; see "Background Materials for Use at the Subsistence Workshop, April 14-15, 1997," Janis Meldrum collection, NPS.

⁴⁸ WRST SRC minutes, February 25-26, 1997, 2, 8; November 3-4, 1997, 3; November 17-18, 1998, 5. Since 1998, the SMP has been augmented as needed in response to various agency and SRC actions.

⁴⁹ Hollis Twitchell to author, email, January 16, 2001; Janis Meldrum interview, January 12, 2001.

⁵⁰ Steve Ulvi email, January 11, 2001; Mary McBurney interview, January 12, 2001; McBurney to author, email, April 8, 2002.

⁵¹ Janis Meldrum to author, email, January 12, 2001 and August 23, 2001.

⁵² Since June 1996, meetings of the SRC chairs have taken place on the following dates: August 25, 1997; October 13, 1998; October 19, 1999; October 17, 2000, and October 23, 2001. All of these meetings have been held in Anchorage.

⁵³ NPS, "Update from the Subsistence Committee of the Alaska Cluster of Superintendents," January 6, 1997, in "Management Plan, Summer 97" file, author's collection.

⁵⁴ Bob Gerhard to the author, email, June 3, 1997.

⁵⁵ "Park Subsistence Coordinators Meeting, February 17-19, 1999" (agenda), author's files.

⁵⁶ Catton, Land Reborn, 303-05; Alaska Legislative Resolve 89 (1990); Paul F. Haertel to Director NPS, June 21, 1990, in "R Correspondence, 1989-90" file, AKSO-RS collection.

⁵⁷ Catton, Land Reborn, 305; Stan Leaphart to James M. Ridenour, April 10, 1990; Haertel to Director NPS, June 21, 1990; both in "R Correspondence, 1989-90" file.

⁵⁸ Catton, Land Reborn, 287-88. The proposed rule, however, brought such a storm of protest that the original October 4 comment deadline was later extended to November 3. Because of circumstances described in a endnote below, no final rule was ever issued. See the Federal Register 56 (August 5, 1991), 37262-65, and Federal Register 56 (September 13, 1991), 46589.

⁵⁹ Catton, Land Reborn, 312-13; "Park May Be Opened to Commercial Fishing," National Parks 66 (September/October 1992), p. 9; Mary Grisco, "Regional Report/Alaska," National Parks 66 (November/December 1992), p. 22. Rep. Young submitted two bills—H.R. 3156 and H.R. 3158—on July 31, 1991, while Sen. Murkowski submitted S. 1624 on August 2.

⁶⁰ Chip Dennerlein, "Regional Report/Alaska," National Parks 67 (September/October 1993), p. 24; Anchorage Daily News, April 29, 1993, E1; May 13, 1993, B1. In a March 1993 briefing statement for newly-appointed Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, the NPS noted that while it "does not agree with the subsistence portion of the bills [which were H.R. 704 and S. 291], we could assist in drafting a more narrow and appropriate alternative for Native fishing and gathering."

⁶¹ Catton, Land Reborn, 313.

⁶² NPS Press Release, December 9, 1993; Federal Register 59 (March 29, 1994), 14565; Federal Register 61 (July 5, 1996), 35134.

⁶³ Federal Register 59 (March 29, 1994, 14564-66; Federal Register 60 (December 5, 1995), 62233-36.

⁶⁴ Federal Register 61 (July 5, 1996), 35133-37. The ticklish ownership issue, which (as Catton notes on p. 278 and elsewhere) had been considered off and on by both state and federal lawyers since the early 1980s, lay dormant until March 1999, when Alaska Attorney General Bruce Botelho announced the state's intention to sue the federal government in the matter. The state filed such a suit that November; it included many other southeastern Alaska submerged lands in addition to those in Glacier Bay. The case is still unresolved; a final decision in the case is not expected for several years.

⁶⁵ Wayne Howell to author, December 11, 2001; Anchorage Daily News, December 18, 1997, F4; John Quinley interview, October 13, 2000.

⁶⁶ Anchorage Daily News, April 10, 1997, E4; October 3, 1997, B1; April 14, 1998, F1. Murkowski inserted Section 12 into S. 967 on June 26, 1997, but by the time the bill emerged from markup, on October 29, the provision had been removed.

⁶⁷ NPS, Glacier Bay Update 1 (August/September 1999), 1-2, 5; Anchorage Daily News, October 22, 1998, A-1.

⁶⁸ NPS, Glacier Bay Update, 1-2; Anchorage Daily News, February 27, 1999, E1; March 24, 1999, D1; June 14, 1999, B1; May 13, 1999, A1; June 18, 1999, B1. Young's bill, H.R. 947, went nowhere, but Murkowski's bill, S. 501, was the subject of a July 29 report and was amended on November 19.

⁶⁹ Federal Register 64 (August 2, 1999), 41854; Federal Register 64 (October 20, 1999), 56455-64.

⁷⁰ NPS, Glacier Bay Update, 2; Anchorage Daily News, October 15, 1998, B7; September 20, 1999, B1; October 4, 1999, B1.

⁷¹ The agreement, at this stage of negotiations, would also have abolished Anaktuvuk Pass as a resident zone community and replaced it with a roster system; that is, a list of eligible subsistence users. The community had asked for this change "to protect [residents] from new people moving in." GAAR SRC minutes, January 27-29, 1990, 8-9. But in the fall of 1991, the roster-system idea was dropped after the NPS held a series of meetings in Anaktuvuk Pass on the matter, and it was not included in any of the various Congressional land-exchange bills. GAAR SRC meeting, September 11, 1991; Roger Siglin to John T. Shively, September 27, 1991, in SRC file.

⁷² GAAR SRC minutes, November 16-17, 1989, 4; January 27-29, 1990, 6-7; November 14-15, 1990, 6; Raymond Paneak to Secretary of the Interior, January 31, 1990; Paul Haertel to Paneak, February 22, 1990; all in SRC file.

⁷³ GAAR SRC minutes, November 14-15, 1990, 4.

⁷⁴ NPS, Draft Legislative Environmental Impact Statement, All-Terrain Vehicles for Subsistence Use, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Alaska (Anchorage, the author, January 1991), 3, 41.

⁷⁵ Meetings were held on March 19 in Anaktuvuk Pass, on March 20 in Fairbanks, and on March 21 in Anchorage. NPS Press Release, February 25, 1991.

⁷⁶ NPS, Final Legislative Environmental Impact Statement, All-Terrain Vehicles for Subsistence Use, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Alaska (Anchorage, the author, February 1992), cover letter, 62; NPS Press Release, April 28, 1992.

⁷⁷ NPS, Record of Decision, Final Legislative Environmental Impact Statement, All-Terrain Vehicles for Subsistence Use, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Alaska (Anchorage, the author, October 20, 1992), 1-2, 4; NPS Press Release, October 30, 1992; Anchorage Daily News, December 11, 1992, A-11.

⁷⁸ The three non-federal signatories were ASRC President Dick Adams, Mark Morry of the Nunamiut Corporation, and Anaktuvuk Pass mayor Reed Nay. GAAR SRC minutes, April 13-15, 1993, 6.

⁷⁹ Anchorage Daily News, June 22, 1994, A1; July 14, 1994, B1.

⁸⁰ Congressional Record 140 (February 1, 1994), pp. 26033-34 and the Congressional Record website (www.access.gpo.su_docs/aces/aaces002.html); Anchorage Daily News, September 22, 1994, B1; October 11, 1994, B1. Also see House Report 103-769 (October 3, 1994) and Senate Report 103-424 (November 30, 1994).

⁸¹ Anchorage Daily News, January 19, 1995, B3; Congressional Record 141 (February 1, 1995), 3262-65; also see House Report 104-8 (January 27, 1995), p. H 839.

⁸² Congressional Record 141 (June 30, 1995), pp. S 9561, S 9592-95. Also see Senate Report 104-44 (April 7, 1995), p. S 5546.

⁸³ Anchorage Daily News, May 3, 1996, B5; November 13, 1996, A1.

⁸⁴ GAAR SRC minutes, November 13, 1996, 2.

⁸⁵ As noted in Table 5-1, the regulations listed a total of 53 communities, of which four—Ambler, Kobuk, Kotzebue, and Shungnak—served as resident communities for two different park units.

⁸⁶ ANIA SRC minutes, January 11, 1990, 2; Susan Savage to ANIA SRC Chairman, etc., April 28, 1992, 4; GSA, Form T-820-H (1997) for DENA SRC; DENA Subsistence Management Plan, August 18, 2000, 2:5.

⁸⁷ Bill Ellis to Secretary of the Interior, December 2, 1991; Jennifer A. Salisbury to Ellis, July 14, 1992; both in WRST SRC files.

⁸⁸ WRST SRC minutes for November 3-4, 1997, 3-4; November 17-18, 1998, 4-5; GSA, Form T-820-H (1996) for WRST SRC; Tom Carpenter to Jon Jarvis, March 23, 1998; WRST Press Release, August 30, 1999; all in WRST SRC files.

⁸⁹ Federal Register 66 (June 14, 2001), 32282-84; Federal Register 67 (February 25, 2002), 8481-84. The implementation of this regulation marked the first time, in the 18-year history of the NPS's subsistence resource commissions, that an SRC recommendation—with the exception of so-called "subpart D" regulations—has resulted in a new or modified regulation.

⁹⁰ Florence Collins to Russell Berry, June 9, 1994, in NPS, Denali National Park and Preserve Subsistence Management Plan, August 18, 2000, 2:42-45. These boundaries were established even though, according to the SRC chair, "people from ... Nikolai and Telida do not use park lands for subsistence." Collins to Harold Huntington, December 1, 1993, in DENA SRC files.

⁹¹ Annette Burroughs to GAAR SRC, August 11, 1991; GAAR SRC minutes, September 11, 1991, 3; February 25-26, 1992, 3-4. As noted in the minutes, the NPS approved the newly-established boundaries "as long as the community understands that the Service retains the option of reducing the limits of the resident zone or eliminating the resident zone and going to a permit system in the future if a lot of changes take place within the community. The commission agreed with the Park Service's plan."

⁹² John M. Morehead to Jack Hession, June 1, 1993, in WRST SRC files.

⁹³ Lou Waller and John Hiscock to Jay Wells and Clarence Summers, facsimile, June 17, 1992; Karen Wade to Jack Morehead, email, December 2, 1992; Wade to Bill Ellis, January 4, 1993; all in WRST SRC files.

⁹⁴ NPS, "Summary of Actions Taken at the April 7-8 SRC Meeting," n.d.; GSA, Form T-820-H (1995) for WRST SRC; both in WRST SRC files.

⁹⁵ WRST SRC minutes, November 17-18, 1998, 3-4.

⁹⁶ WRST SRC minutes, November 3-4, 1997, 3-4.

⁹⁷ NPS, Draft Review of Subsistence Law and NPS Regulations, September 26, 1995, as revised by the NWAK Working Group, April 18, 1996, 5:23-31.

⁹⁸ Bob Gerhard to Ron McCoy, July 23, 1996; George T. Frampton, Jr. to Pete Schaeffer, September 25, 1996; both in CAKR SRC files; Bob Gerhard interview, October 23, 2000.

⁹⁹ Ken Adkisson to author, email, January 16, 2001; Clarence Summers interview, April 4, 2002.

¹⁰⁰ Jennifer A. Salisbury to Bill Ellis, July 14, 1992, in WRST SRC files; NPS, Gates of the Arctic SRC Newsletter, July 7, 1993.

¹⁰¹ NPS, GAAR SRC minutes, November 13-14, 1996, 19; John Vale to Robert Barbee, March 8, 1997, in WRST SRC files; NPS, Subsistence Management Program, August 1997, 9.

¹⁰² John M. Morehead to Director, NPS, July 5, 1991; DENA SRC minutes, May 28, 1992, 1; Glen Alsworth to Sec. Manuel Lujan, August 17, 1992; John H. Davis to Alsworth, October 1, 1992; all in DENA SRC files.

¹⁰³ John M. Morehead to Director, NPS, July 9, 1993, in DENA SRC files.

¹⁰⁴ Collins to Babbitt, February 17, 1995, in DENA SRC files. The bold type is as in Ms. Collins's letter.

¹⁰⁵ Robert D. Barbee to Wallace A. Cole, April 11, 1995; Barbee to Collins, June 6, 1995; both in DENA SRC files.

¹⁰⁶ Paul Hunter to Lou Waller, email, May 31, 1995, in DENA SRC files; Barbee to Lisa Natwick, July 13, 1995, in LACL SRC files.

¹⁰⁷ DENA SRC minutes, August 9, 1996, 8.

¹⁰⁸ NPS, Lake Clark National Park and Preserve Subsistence Plan (October 5, 2000), 2:4-5.

¹⁰⁹ ANIA SRC minutes, March 24-25, 1992, 35; Harry Kalmakoff, Jr. to Sec. Bruce Babbitt, October 14, 1998; Robert D. Barbee to Kalmakoff, November 23, 1998; all in ANIA SRC files; NPS, Lake Clark National Park and Preserve Subsistence Plan (October 5, 2000), 2:5. As noted in Appendix 5, no Aniakchak SRC meetings between November 1992 and February 1997 were able to attract a quorum of their membership.

¹¹⁰ GAAR SRC, "Subsistence Management Program," May 8, 1991, in GAAR SRC files.

¹¹¹ GAAR SRC, "Subsistence Management Program," February 25, 1992; Annette Burroughs to the SRC, August 11, 1991; both in GAAR SRC files.

¹¹² Federal Register, June 17, 1981, 31849.

¹¹³ GAAR SRC minutes, November 16-17, 1989, 6, 11-12; November 14-15, 1990, 5.

¹¹⁴ John Vale to Robert Barbee, March 8, 1997, in WRST SRC files.

¹¹⁵ John Vale to Gov. Tony Knowles, November 4, 1997, in WRST SRC files.

¹¹⁶ NPS, Lake Clark National Park and Preserve Subsistence Plan (October 5, 2000), 2:28-29. The Aniakchak, Lake Clark, and Wrangell-St. Elias SRCs have gone on record as being in favor of a residency requirement, while the Denali and Gates of the Arctic SRCs have professed little interest in implementing it.

¹¹⁷ Jim Pepper to Richard Stenmark, October 17, 1986; Roger Siglin to Ray Smith, August 16, 1988; GAAR SRC minutes, May 25, 1990, 2; Siglin to Rick Reakoff, July 13, 1990; all in GAAR SRC files.

¹¹⁸ Lee R. Adler to Jon Jarvis, February 7, 1998; John Vale to Robert Barbee, March 8, 1997; both in WRST SRC files; Susan Savage to ANIA SRC chair, April 28, 1992, 3, in ANIA SRC files.

¹¹⁹ Benjamin P. Nageak to Donald Hodel, May 6, 1987; Susan Reece to Nageak, May 18, 1988; both in GAAR SRC files.

¹²⁰ GAAR SRC minutes for November 16-17, 1989, 11; January 27-29, 1990, 6; November 14-15, 1990, 5-6; GAAR SRC, "Subsistence Management Program," May 8, 1991, 3; February 25, 1992, 2; Jennifer A. Salisbury to Raymond Paneak, December 3, 1992; all in GAAR SRC files.

¹²¹ GAAR SRC minutes, May 5-6, 1992, 5.

¹²² Roger Siglin to Jeff Poor, August 3, 1992; Steve Ulvi to Jeff and Cheryl Poor, June 7, 1993, both in GAAR SRC files; Steve Ulvi to the author, email, November 17, 2000.

¹²³ Susan Savage to ANIA SRC, April 28, 1992, 3, in ANIA SRC files.

¹²⁴ Pete Schaeffer to Bruce Babbitt, August 24, 1993; George T. Frampton, Jr. to Schaeffer, September 25, 1996; both in CAKR SRC files.

¹²⁵ DENA SRC minutes, March 6, 1992, 3; May 28, 1992, 5.

¹²⁶ DENA SRC minutes, June 28, 1993, 3; Clarence Summers, telephone conversation record, November 5, 1993; both in DENA SRC files; NPS, Denali National Park and Preserve Subsistence Management Plan, August 18, 2000, 5:5-6. Other sources have indicated that the earliest ORV use along Windy Creek was in 1950.

¹²⁷ NPS, DENA Subsistence Management Plan, August 2000, 5:6; Hollis Twitchell interview, January 18, 2001.

¹²⁸ DENA SRC minutes, August 9, 1996; GSA, Form T-820-H (1997) for DENA.

¹²⁹ ANIA SRC Recommendation 92-7 (November 6, 1992); Robert D. Barbee to Harry Kalmakoff, Jr., November 23, 1998, both in ANIA SRC files; GSA, Form T-820-H (1991) for CAKR; CAKR SRC Hunting Plan Recommendation 2A, August 24, 1993; George T. Frampton, Jr. to Pete Schaeffer, September 23, 1996, both in CAKR SRC files; Lois Dalle-Malle to author, email, January 18, 2001; Mary McBurney to author, email, January 19, 2001.

¹³⁰ Bill Ellis to Secretary Lujan, December 2, 1991; Jennifer A. Salisbury to Ellis, July 14, 1992; both in WRST SRC files.

¹³¹ NPS, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve Resource Management Plan, August 1993, Study #S100.01 (14:1-3); Terry L. Haynes to Paul Anderson, January 12, 1994; both in WRST SRC files.

¹³² G. Ray Bane to Lou Waller, January 25, 1994; Roy Ewan to Bruce Babbitt, April 18, 1994; George T. Frampton to Roy Ewan, September 12, 1994; Frank Rue to "Dear Reader," November 29, 1995; WRST SRC minutes, November 3-4, 1997, 4. The state's June 1994 report, written by ADF&G's ANILCA Program Office, was called Documentation of Traditional and Subsistence Access in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve: A Review of Existing Source Materials, while the November 1995 study, by Terry Haynes and Stan Walker, was entitled Pilot Project; Documenting Traditional and Subsistence Access in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve.

¹³³ Orville Lind to Randy Briggs, November 10, 1992; DENA SRC minutes, August 9, 1996; CAKR SRC, Recommendation 3, August 24, 1993. ANIA SRC Recommendation 92-1, passed in November 1992, stated that "Trapping was customary and traditional in all drainages of the Monument." This was a marked departure from the SRC's April 1987 recommendation, which identified particular drainages where historical trapping had taken place.

¹³⁴ Susan Reece to Benjamin Nageak, May 18, 1988, in GAAR SRC files.

¹³⁵ GAAR SRC minutes, November 14-15, 1990, 6; GAAR SRC, "Subsistence Hunting Plan" for May 8, 1991 and February 25, 1992; Jennifer A. Salisbury to Paneak, December 3, 1992; all in GAAR SRC files.

¹³⁶ GAAR SRC, "Draft Recommendation #9—Gates of the Arctic National Park Traditional Use Area," November 9, 1993. Tracks in the Wildland; A Portrayal of Koyukon and Nunamiut Subsistence (Cooperative Park Studies Unit, University of Alaska, 1982) was written by Richard K. Nelson, Kathleen H. Mautner, and G. Ray Bane; it was an excellent compendium of subsistence lifeways in and around Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve.

¹³⁷ GAAR SRC minutes, May 10-11, 1994, 9.

¹³⁸ Martin to Waller, email, May 18, 1994; Martin, "Briefing Statement (Draft)," July 21, 1994; both in GAAR SRC files. The quote is excerpted from the Congressional Record 126 (November 12, 1980), p. 29280 (H 10547). Martin's subsistence coordinator, Steve Ulvi, helped draft both the May email and the July briefing statement.

¹³⁹ Ray Bane to Mike Finley, July 22, 1994; Jack Hession, "Five Latent Traditional National Parks in Alaska," June 23, 1994; both in GAAR SRC files.

¹⁴⁰ George T. Frampton to Raymond Paneak (draft), September 28 and October 13, 1994; GAAR SRC minutes, May 14-16, 1996, 34-35; Paneak to Bruce Babbitt, June 3, 1996; Robert D. Barbee to Paneak, June 24, 1996; all in GAAR SRC files.

¹⁴¹ DENA SRC, August 9, 1996; GAAR SRC, November 13-14, 1996, 17; NPS, Subsistence Management Program, August 1997, 6-7.

¹⁴² WRST SRC minutes, November 17-18, 1998, 3-4; Robert D. Barbee to Harry Kalmakoff, Jr., November 23, 1998, in ANIA SRC files.

¹⁴³ GAAR SRC minutes, January 14-15, 1998, 24-26; NPS, GAAR Subsistence Management Plan (draft), January 25, 2000, 12:6-7; Don Callaway interview, January 19, 2001; NPS, Traditional Subsistence Use Areas; Information Necessary for Making a Determination for Gates of the Arctic National Park (draft), April 18, 1999, in GAAR SRC files. The report was written by Don Callaway, Paul Hunter, and Steve Ulvi.

¹⁴⁴ Jack Hession to Robert D. Barbee, May 6, 1999; Hession to Barbee, June 6, 1999; Barbee to Hession, July 8, 1999; NPS, DENA Subsistence Management Plan (August 18, 2000), 12:1.

¹⁴⁵ GAAR SRC minutes, January 27-29, 1990, 2.

¹⁴⁶ GAAR SRC minutes, May 7-8, 1991, 3, 20, 26.

¹⁴⁷ GAAR SRC minutes, September 11, 1991, 2; February 25-26, 1992, 5.

¹⁴⁸ WRST SRC minutes, November 13-14, 1991, 1; Bill Ellis to Curtis McVee, November 14, 1991; Lujan to Ellis, February 21, 1992; all in WRST SRC files; John Morehead interview, April 23, 2001.

¹⁴⁹ ANIA SRC minutes, March 24-25, 1992, 36; DENA SRC minutes, May 28, 1992, 4-5; GSA, Form T-820-H (1992) for LACL.

¹⁵⁰ ANIA SRC minutes, November 5-6, 1992, 3.

¹⁵¹ Denali staff reacted to the Interior Secretary's directive with an April 7 letter that fully supported the SRC, and on August 17, the Federal Subsistence Board adopted the SRC's recommendation. At Aniakchak, the Interior Secretary made no equivalent ruling because that SRC—plagued as it was by poor meeting attendance—did not forward its moose-season recommendation to the Interior Secretary until 1998. Denali SRC minutes, June 28, 1993, 4; Florence Collins to Bruce Babbitt, October 18, 1993; George T. Frampton, Jr. to Collins, January 10, 1994; Russell W. Berry, Jr. to Chief, Subsistence Division, April 7, 1994; William L. Hensley to Collins, September 29, 1994, all in DENA SRC files.

¹⁵² Florence Collins to Federal Subsistence Board, February 17, 1995, in DENA SRC files; Raymond Paneak to Fenton Rexford, January 20, 1995, in GAAR SRC files; John Vale to Lee Titus, February 29, 1996, in WRST SRC files; GSA, Form T-820-H (1996) for LACL.

¹⁵³ John Vale to Bruce Babbitt, February 29, 1996; Jay Wells to Judy Gottlieb, email, July 17, 1996; Chick Fagan to Clarence Summers, August 2, 1996; George T. Frampton, Jr. to Vale, August 30, 1996; NPS, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve Subsistence Plan (September 30, 1999), 1:11; Bob Gerhard interview, August 22, 2001.

¹⁵⁴ Federal Register 55 (October 30, 1990), 45663; Federal Register 59 (November 15, 1994), 58804.

¹⁵⁵ Federal Register 59 (November 15, 1994), 58804.

¹⁵⁶ Federal Register 60 (April 14, 1995), 19011-12.

¹⁵⁷ Raymond Paneak to Robert D. Barbee, February 9, 1995, in GAAR SRC files; Florence Collins to Barbee, June 16, 1995, in DENA SRC files. The GAAR letter was written largely at the behest of SRC member Jack Reakoff.

¹⁵⁸ Federal Register 60 (April 14, 1995), 19011; Office of the Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, Title 36, Chapter 1, §13.21 (1998), 180; Paul Hunter interview, January 24, 2001. The regulations terminology was modified by the elimination, between the proposed and final rules, of the phrase "under State or Federal hunting laws and regulations" in paragraph (a)(4) of §13.21.

¹⁵⁹ WRST SRC minutes, February 25-26, 1997, 8; John Vale to Robert Barbee, March 8, 1997, in WRST SRC files; GSA, Form T-820-H (1997) for DENA; NPS, Subsistence Management Program, August 1997, 25-26.

¹⁶⁰ Judy Gottlieb to Florence Collins, May 17, 1999, in Denali SMP (August 18, 2000), 1:11-12; Gottlieb to Collins, February 4, 2000, in Denali SMP (August 18, 2000), B:3; Gottlieb to Harry Kalmakoff, Jr., February 8, 2001, in ANIA SRC files.

¹⁶¹ GAAR SRC minutes, April 20-21, 1999, 4; Florence Collins to Judy Gottlieb, February 14, 2000, in DENA SRC files.

¹⁶² Lou Waller to author, December 20, 2001.

¹⁶³ Bill Ellis to Manuel Lujan, November 14, 1991; Lujan to Ellis, February 21, 1992; both in WRST SRC files. In 1990, a Gates of the Arctic SRC member, Charlie Brower, voiced his "concerns that the ... Park Service and not the Secretary of the Interior" commented on the various park hunting plan recommendations. NPS officials, however, quickly reassured him that the park's recommendations "did go to the Secretary of the Interior's office for approval" and that "the person rejecting the previous hunting plan was the Secretary of the Interior's assistant and was not the 'Park Service.'" GAAR SRC minutes, November 14-15, 1990.

¹⁶⁴ NPS, Subsistence Management Program (August 1997), 5; Judy Gottlieb to John Vale, May 17, 1999.

¹⁶⁵ Robert Barbee to Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, July 28, 1999; Bill Pierce to NPS-Alaska Region, fax, September 20, 1999; Judith C. Gottlieb to Glen Alsworth, February 4, 2000, in NPS, Lake Clark National Park and Preserve Subsistence Plan (October 5, 2000), 1:13.

¹⁶⁶ GAAR SRC, "Subsistence Hunting Plan," February 25, 1992; Roger Siglin to Chief, Subsistence Division, May 13, 1992; Jennifer A. Salisbury to Raymond Paneak, December 3, 1992; all in GAAR SRC files.

¹⁶⁷ GAAR SRC minutes, June 18, 1993, 2; NPS, GAAR SRC Newsletter, July 7, 1993, 3. The NPS's Mentasta Caribou Herd Cooperative Management Plan, June 1995, p. 3, stated that "For the purpose of managing this herd, the agencies agree to interpret 'natural' to mean, in part, free from human manipulation for the express purpose of maximizing yield for humans. Rather, humans will be considered an integral component of the predator/prey system and will share with predators the naturally occurring production of caribou."

¹⁶⁸ GAAR SRC minutes, May 10-11, 1994, 2; Supts. WRST, DENA, and GAAR to Deputy Field Director, Alaska, September 8, 1995; David Spirtes to Subsistence Workgroup, February 6, 1996; both in Jon Jarvis, comp., "Natural and Healthy" folder, WRST.

¹⁶⁹ NPS, Subsistence Management Plan, August 1997, 2.

¹⁷⁰ Natural Resources Advisory Council [NPS], "A Definition of Natural and Healthy as Used in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act," February 26, 1998; Dave Spirtes to Jon Jarvis, email, April 23, 1998; [Dave Spirtes,] "Natural and Healthy" (draft), July 1, 1998; [Spirtes,] "An NPS Interpretation of Natural and Healthy," July 22, 1998; Steve Martin to Spirtes, August 31, 1998; all in Jon Jarvis, comp., "Natural and Healthy" folder, WRST.

¹⁷¹ [Jon Jarvis] to Steve Ulvi, etc., email, c. December 15, 1998; Kyran Kunkel, Harry Bader, and Steve Ulvi, "A Suggested Legal and Biological Framework for Managing Natural and Healthy Fish and Wildlife Populations in National Park System Units in Alaska," February 3, 1999; Dave Mills to Gary Candelaria, email, January 11, 2000; [Dave Spirtes,] "Legal and Biological Framework for Managing Natural and Healthy Populations of Fish and Wildlife Under ANILCA," c. January 2001.

¹⁷² WRST SRC minutes, November 3-4, 1997, 2; GAAR SRC minutes, January 14-15, 1998, 15; NPS, GAAR SMP (January 25, 2000), 7:4. Also see NPS, DENA SMP (August 18, 2000), Introduction:7 and NPS, ANIA SMP (January 3, 2001), 9:8.

¹⁷³ Florence Collins to Robert Barbee, August 29, 1996, in NPS, DENA SMP (August 18, 2000), B:2; John Vale to Robert Barbee, March 8, 1997, in WRST SRC files; NPS, Subsistence Management Program, August 1997, 27.

¹⁷⁴ Carl Morgan to Robert Barbee, January 21, 1998; Paul R. Anderson to Morgan, August 24, 1998; in NPS, DENA SMP (August 18, 2000), 9:5-7; Anderson to Harry Kalmakoff, Jr., December 2, 1998, in WRST SRC files; Anderson to Florence Collins, December 2, 1998, in NPS, DENA SMP (August 18, 2000), 9:7. The January 1998 WIRAC letter also mentioned that "trade in the sense of cash exchange" has long "included handicrafts made from ... various plant materials." But because plant materials were not included in the Council's policy recommendation, the NPS did not address the issue at that time.

¹⁷⁵ Judith C. Gottlieb to Glen Alsworth, February 4, 2000, in NPS, LACL SMP (October 5, 2000), 1:12.

¹⁷⁶ Florence Collins to Judy Gottlieb, February 14, 2000, in NPS, DENA SMP (August 18, 2000), 9:4, B:5; NPS, ANIA SMP (January 3, 2001), 11:5; Judith C. Gottlieb to Harry Kalmakoff, Jr., February 8, 2001, in ANIA SRC file.

¹⁷⁷ Taylor Brelsford to author, January 18, 2002; Janis Meldrum to author, March 5, 2002.

¹⁷⁸ During the 1993-94 round of proposal analysis, agencies that were most affected by specific subsistence proposals were given broad latitude to make analyses and recommendations as they saw fit; thus F&WS staff, for example, were allowed predominant consideration on proposals that primarily affected Alaska's national wildlife refuges. This agency deference still exists today, though to a lesser extent than before.

¹⁷⁹ Taylor Brelsford to author, January 18, 2002.

¹⁸⁰ GAAR SRC minutes, May 10-11, 1994, 8; Taylor Brelsford to author, January 18, 2002. Part of the reason for these reversals was traceable to a lack of funding; the OSM, that first year, was unable to provide travel funds for regional council representatives to attend the April 1994 Federal Subsistence Board meeting in Anchorage. Janis Meldrum to author, March 5, 2002.

¹⁸¹ Janis Meldrum interview, January 30, 2001; Sandy Rabinowitch interview, February 8, 2001.

¹⁸² Members of this committee included Bob Gerhard and Janis Meldrum (NPS), Helen Armstrong (OSM), John Borbridge (BIA), Rod Kuhn and Steve Zemke (USFS), and others.

¹⁸³ Taylor Brelsford, in a January 18, 2002 note to the author, noted that the OSM management at the time—Dick Pospahala, Jim Kurth, Dick Marshall, and Peggy Fox—imposed this new, cooperative model over the objections of many staff members.

¹⁸⁴ Sandy Rabinowitch interview, January 31, 2001.

¹⁸⁵ This trend, however, is by no means universal. Members of some regional advisory councils, particularly those situated away from the road system, appear to strongly prefer the federal program, while members of other regional councils have long supported an active state management regime. Terry Haynes interview, May 15, 2002.

¹⁸⁶ Terry Haynes interview, April 7, 1999.

¹⁸⁷ Terry Haynes to author, email, February 6, 2001; Don Callaway interview, February 13, 2001.

¹⁸⁸ Bob Gerhard interview, January 31, 2001.

¹⁸⁹ Paul Anderson interview, April 30, 2001; Sandy Rabinowitch to author, email, May 2, 2001.

¹⁹⁰ Bob Gerhard interview, January 31, 2001; Mitch Demientieff to Roy Ewan, May 28, 1996, in NPS, DENA SMP (August 18, 2000), 12:19; Paul Anderson interview, April 30, 2001.

¹⁹¹ Sandy Rabinowitch interview, January 31, 2001.

¹⁹² The regional advisory councils have continued to have two meetings per year. The Federal Subsistence Board, which had met four to six times per year during the mid-1990s, has gradually increased its workload over the years, and since the federal fisheries assumption in October 1999, Board meetings have been held about once per month. Perhaps half to three-quarters of those meetings have been open to the public; the remainder have been work sessions with OSM and agency staff. Regional council meetings, which are organized by the various regional council coordinators, are typically advertised in rural newspapers, on local radio stations, and in public buildings where the meetings will take place. Federal Subsistence Board meetings, which are publicized by OSM's Statewide Support Division, typically involve advertisements in Alaska's urban and rural newspapers as well as the official government channels. Sandy Rabinowitch interview, January 31, 2001 and February 5, 2001; Karen Laubenstein to author, email, February 5, 2001.

¹⁹³ Sandy Rabinowitch interview, February 5, 2001. Federal agencies other than the NPS have typically assigned either one or two people to their federal subsistence program support efforts; at the BIA, for example, staff involvement has usually been limited to the agency's staff committee representative, while at several other agencies, a staff assistant or other support person has augmented the staff committee representative's efforts.

¹⁹⁴ Sandy Rabinowitch to subsistence staff, email, April 13, 2001; Bob Gerhard interview, April 27, 2001.

¹⁹⁵ Taylor Brelsford to author, January 18, 2002.

¹⁹⁶ FSB, Final Environmental Impact Statement, Subsistence Management for Federal Public Lands in Alaska (February 1992), II-15 plus maps 7, 9, and 10; FSB, Record of Decision, Subsistence Management for Federal Public Lands in Alaska (April 1992), 9-11.

¹⁹⁷ GAAR SRC minutes, May 10-11, 1994, 5-6; Raymond Paneak to "To whom it may concern," January 11, 1995; Don Callaway interview, February 2, 2001; Steve Ulvi interview, February 2, 2001.

¹⁹⁸ DENA SRC minutes, May 28, 1992, 4; Russell Berry, Jr. to Regional Director, Alaska, May 29, 1992, in DENA SRC files; NPS, DENA SMP (August 18, 2000), 1:17-19 and Appendix G.

¹⁹⁹ GAAR SRC, Resolution 93-03 (October 18, 1993), in GAAR SRC files; Raymond Paneak to Bruce Babbitt, January 26, 1995; NPS, GAAR SMP (January 25, 2000), 1:7.

²⁰⁰ Public Law 96-487 (December 2, 1980), Sec. 102(3); Federal Register 55 (June 29, 1990), 27115, 27122; Federal Register 57 (May 29, 1992), 22942, 22951-52.

²⁰¹ Federal Register 60 (February 2, 1995), 6466-67; Federal Register 61 (April 4, 1996), 15014; Alaska Senate Bill History, 1995-1996, Senate Joint Resolution 19; Florence Collins to Federal Subsistence Board, February 17, 1995, in DENA SRC files. The petitioners also included the Stevens Village Council, Kawerak, Inc., Copper River Native Association, Alaska Federation of Natives, Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, RuralCAP, and the Dinyee Corporation.

²⁰² Federal Register 61 (April 4, 1996), pp. 15016.

²⁰³ DENA SRC minutes, August 9, 1996, 7; GAAR SRC minutes, November 13-14, 1996, 11, 16-17.

²⁰⁴ NPS, Subsistence Management Program, August 1997, 6-7.

²⁰⁵ Federal Register 62 (December 17, 1997), 66217, 66223; Federal Register 64 (January 8, 1999), 1280, 1287-88; ANILCA, Sec. 102(4); NPS, DENA SMP, August 18, 2000, 1:20.

²⁰⁶ http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/16/703.text.html; http://www.fws.gov/~r9mbmo/intrnltr/intreat.html. According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, "the framers of the [1916] Convention were [apparently] aware of subsistence activity but unaware of the extent to which it was needed and practiced by far northern rural peoples. Thus, the Convention provides inadequately for subsistence uses." Federal Register 58 (August 13, 1993), 43119.

²⁰⁷ Claus-M. Naske and Herman E. Slotnick, Alaska; A History of the 49th State (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1979), 207.

²⁰⁸ Federal Register 52 (December 31, 1987), 49450.

²⁰⁹ http://laws.fws.gov/lawsdigest/treaty.html; ANILCA, Sec. 815(4).

²¹⁰ Federal Register for the following dates: May 19, 1986, 19349-50; July 18, 1986, 26029; and December 31, 1987, 49449-50; Taylor Brelsford to author, January 18, 2002.

²¹¹ Federal Register for the following dates: December 31, 1987, 49449-50; August 13, 1993, 43119-20; August 31, 1993, 45915; March 7, 1994, 10654-55; July 7, 1994, 34859-60.

²¹² http://laws.fws.gov/lawsdigest/treaty.html; http://www.fws.gov/~r9mbmo/intrnltr/intreat.html; http://www.gaiabooks.co.uk/environment/migratorytreaty.html; Bob Stevens interview, May 22, 2001.

²¹³ ANIA SRC minutes, November 5-6, 1992, 3; Roy Ewan to Bruce Babbitt, April 18, 1994; George T. Frampton, Jr. to Roy Ewan, September 12, 1994; both in WRST SRC files.

²¹⁴ John Vale to Lee Titus, February 29, 1996; Vale to Bruce Babbitt, December 6, 1996; both in WRST SRC files.

²¹⁵ Chris Bockmon (IOS) to Clarence Summers, email, June 10, 1998, in Summers email file; WRST SRC minutes, November 17-18, 1998, 6. Also see GAAR SRC minutes, April 20-21, 1999, 3.

²¹⁶ Judith C. Gottlieb to Florence Collins, May 17, 1999, in NPS, DENA SMP (August 18, 2000), 1:11.

²¹⁷ Pollock Simon, Sr. to WRST SRC, May 12, 1999, in GAAR SRC files.

²¹⁸ Bockmon to Summers, June 10, 1998; Mimi Hogan (Migratory Birds Division, F&WS) to Clarence Summers, proposed email, February 24, 1997, in Summers email file; Judith C. Gottlieb to Glen Alsworth, February 4, 2000, in NPS, LACL SMP (October 5, 2000), 1:14.

²¹⁹ Robert D. Barbee to Ray Sensmeier, May 16, 2000, in NPS, WRST SMP (November 3, 2000), 6:17; Judith C. Gottlieb to Harry Kalmakoff, Jr., February 8, 2001, in ANIA SRC file.

²²⁰ Florence Collins to ADF&G, June 18, 1988; Beth Stewart to Collins, July 12, 1988; Collins to ADF&G, December 14, 1989; all in NPS, DENA SMP (August 18, 2000), 4:4-5.

²²¹ Dennis R. Kogl, etc. to "Subsistence Board," December 3, 1990; John M. Morehead to Lee Basner, September 30, 1991; both in DENA SRC files.

²²² DENA SRC minutes, May 28, 1992, 3; June 28, 1993, 4; Lee Titus to Ron McCoy, November 23, 1993, in NPS, DENA SMP (August 18, 2000), 4:7. EIRAC's 1993 letter mentioned the prominent role that McKinley Village resident Pat O'Connor was already playing; specifically, it noted that "this problem has been 'in resolution' for an unreasonably long time despite all the time and effort that Mr. O'Connor in particular has devoted to it."

²²³ NPS, DENA SMP (August 18, 2000), 4:2-3.

²²⁴ Florence Collins to Steve Martin, February 17, 1995; Collins to FSB, June 16, 1995; both in DENA SRC files; Federal Register 57 (May 29, 1992), 22948.

²²⁵ NPS, DENA SMP (August 18, 2000), 4:3, 9, 10.

²²⁶ Florence Collins to Chair, Federal Subsistence Board, March 29, 1997, in DENA SRC files; Sandy Rabinowitch interview, February 13, 2001.

²²⁷ NPS, WRST SMP (November 3, 2000), 9:8.

²²⁸ Florence Collins to FSB, February 13, 1998, in DENA SRC files; [Janis Meldrum], "Staff Analysis" (P99-9/11), in FSB proposal files; WRST SRC minutes, November 17-18, 1998, 7. The NPS's August 1997 issues paper (p. 8) noted that "federal regulations provide for C&T determinations to be made on an individual basis for NPS areas, but to date no individual determinations have been made."

²²⁹ NPS, WRST SMP (November 3, 2000), 9:8-9. All parties sought to avoid listing the names of individual C&T holders in the subsistence regulations. The wildlife regulations that were issued on July 1, 1999, therefore, showed no change in the affected GMUs from those that had been issued a year earlier. What was added, however, was a new clause in the final corrected federal fish and wildlife regulations. That clause noted the Board's broad acceptance of the individual C&T concept. It also noted that "the Fish and Wildlife Service and the local National Park Service superintendent will maintain the list of individuals having customary and traditional use on National Parks and Monuments;" the names would not be listed in the regulations themselves. Federal Register 64 (July 1, 1999), 35781-85, 35823.