Mr. LEGGETT. The contract is a little bit less, is that correct? Mr. LEGGETT. OK. Your statement will be included in our record, George, as though you delivered every word. Mr. ALLEN. Thank you very much, I'd like to identify my organization, the rural Alaska community action program is the poverty program for rural Alaska, it's board of directors consists of public sector representatives, private sector representatives, and target area representatives of rural Alaska. What I've presented to you are three things first is the same testimony that I presented before the Seiberling committee in Washington in late April of 1977, attached to it also is our, the position of the board of directors of the rural Alaska community action program on the issue of subsistence and an explanation of this position. My job with the organization is that of subsistence advocacy. I think it's unfortunate, Mr. Chairman, that your committee only has a chance to visit Juneau, Anchorage, and Fairbanks Mr. LEGGETT. We've been out to rural Alaska. Mr. ALLEN. Good, because the people that are impacted by this national lands legislation and other similar legislation, are those voices that should be heard. In the development of this position, it was developed in an ad hoc group of people, about 20 people representing villages in different parts of Alaska, it was quite a learning process on their part and quite a learning process on mine. They developed this position on subsistence and presented it to the Ruralcap board of directors who adopted it as their policy. I'd like to tell you and your staff, perhaps it would enlighten you by taking a look at a population dot map of Alaska representing the 1970 census. There you would see the distribution of population in this State and yet you'd be able to see the number of villages that exist in this State and their population relative to that of the major urban centers. The bulletin of Ruralcap is called the "Village Voice" and that, Mr. Chairman, is our constituency Mr. LEGGETT. How many people does that comprise? Mr. ALLEN. I've never went for numbers, I can't tell you. If I could go back to my shop I'm sure I could crank out the numbers for you. Mr. LEGGETT. Make a guess. Mr. ALLEN. About 80,000, 70,000 to 80,000. Mr. LEGGETT. How many of those are Natives? Mr. ALLEN. Perhaps 98 percent. Mr. LEGGETT. OK. Mr. ALLEN. I'd like to draw your attention to the way, rural Alaska, at least, is organized. My background has been in urban planning experience in the State of California. There, in the lower 48 at least, counties were the way the States were divided up for general administrative purposes, but when the constitution of this State was drafted, they decided they didn't want the indiscernible found in metropolitan areas where you have overlapping jurisdiction among counties and have to have metropolitan organizations to deal with those. So, there in this State, cities and boroughs and the unorganized borough, outside of the major urban areas of this State, we have what's called the unorganized borough and the legislative body of that unorganized borough is the State legislature. Within this are, and some st comeiding with the land claims boundaries, are nonprofit corpersons which are pseudo-governmental agencies which provide ers ces for health and manpower, economic development and so on. 3 s.sg werks through these nonprofit organizations, some of poveys go through the nonprofits for different purposes, we also are monage of the entire Head Start program in the State and thanks to winters having lodged itself on the east coast of the United > year, we're heavily into the weatherization program. So fgves you an idea of somewhat the way rural Alaska is at and how we relate to it. ..on and the material thus presented to you is such that we Sarai Alaska is not adequately represented, village Alaska is Key represented in the management schemes that go on Single delay you have been advocates for conservation and vo have had advocates for resource use and development, me our society and you find these forces polarized in 1 ss representation of our economy, both of these sie that they want to serve mankind maybe for different oder economy in Alaska which I think that we that are and western oriented, have a hard time understanding. Lasds for 2 years now and I'm just beginning to underFor Usia. Let me put it to you in this way. Before I Cece was an economy in Alaska, we used the term the of a catch-all phrase for this, but there was an PAGive economy and what this was was very simply resources, this served the purpose of having cu a kdg oned, either periodic or permanent, trade routes, bank instructors. That economy has changed, Nec a villages in Alaska. And it has changed difvene regions and even within and between villages in a eng at Mr. Chairman, is that that economy o form or another. Now you say, you know, local esu ves, well what land do they use to, for this purge maps with me, they're on record with the Commission. They essentially show that all of sopie time or another for subsistence purposes a shanges over time and species and seasons and as suca the recent caribou disaster referred, as the portant thing to keep in mind in your ne vinges of Alaska have gone through tremendous sociod of time and the ability to absorb that change , with that change is, has a thin edge. who ive in villages are still very much dependent his original natural resources economy. Now the ey're put in with national interest lands legislation ctn developing the export economy of the State, u this paper, a potential double bind because sub5 it either one of them, with those who are minded von, subsistence people consume wildlife. They . They need it to live. On the other hand, the by don't fit quite well with that either because weld reduce the potential of habitat and range for wildlife. To get out of this double bind, or potential double bind, we feel that the Congress needs to do something other than just address how wildlife is managed and I think it's a disgrace to say that subsistence people, village people, should have preference to wildlife when things become critical. This has been the modus operandi in the State of Alaska for the last several decades, when there's a crisis, all right village people, you can go out and take what's left-this to me is called crisis management where the effects of this poor management, in my estimation, are brought on the people who need the resource the most. I refer to the unorganized boroughs, to relate to what I call the need for participation and to our way of thinking, the way out of this double bind, which is perhaps a reduction in their ability to gain access to wildlife because of endangered characteristic of this species. In addition to that, a potential depletion of habitat and range which in turn would deplete the availability of resources. They need some way to get out of that bind and the way we see it is for greater participation. Our position is such that we feel that Congress ought to consider, as I said, going beyond simply wildlife management or even crisis management in terms of thinking how that economy might be best stabilized and maintained, because consider that it can't really adapt as readily as those of us living in the Western more urban society. We would like to see some form of organization developed. The Udall bill talked about subsistence boards and we said, well, where you would have pieces of land, the D-2 designations, the Udall bill says, OK, there can be subsistence zones if the Secretary so sees fit and if those zones are developed then there can be local boards to call the shots in those zones, essentially. We're saying that's not enough. These are only advisory boards, we think there ought to be some rulemaking authority that's shared at the local level. Now one eminent game biologist in the State of Alaska made a comment about a month ago in Fairbanks by saying we don't want the wolves minding the sheep, he was saying "we don't want local people participating in the management of wildlife" and in a discussion that I had with him on the floor of that conference, was that, you know, I had to agree with him, I certainly couldn't agree with him more, but on the other hand, does it make any sense for the subsistence hunter to be out there shooting and the game biologist to be out there watching and no way in which the two can communicate with one another except when a crisis comes and then the powers that be say well sorry guys, you have to stop. There used to be something in that original natural resource economy whereby people and the land and the species related to one another. Maybe the people starved, maybe the people had to move, but the introduction of the Western welfare State, the Western economy, the values of urbanism that we brought to the State of Alaska are such that that relationship doesn't exist anymore and I think the Congress ought to consider away of reestablishing that. We think that could be reestablished by having some sharing of rulemaking authorities by local people. We'd like to see that, as we've stated in writing, on a regional basis, to build up from the villages, grouping together villages, people that normally use the same terrain, of people that normally fish together. Somehow or another those boundaries are going to coincide with the ANCSA boundaries, the land claims boundaries, frankly because they were well thought out boundaries. We think to go along with this there needs to be two other things, two other ingredients. Essentially, and let me use this as an analogy, what you are considering right at the moment is the partial plan for Alaska. You're saying, of the plan of Alaska, this is the conservation element of this plan. We feel that village people in regions ought to have a planning capability and they ought to have an environmental quality protection capability as well because right now they're unorganized, they don't have a government, they're not ready for government. We would like to see the Congress consider the framework of subsistence, more so than in just a narrow fish and game context. We'd like you to consider in the context of an original economy, of villages, of people that live in villages a little different than the way we live in the United States, in a set up of government that is designed to provide services, but not necessarily to provide some local control over what goes on. There's room for the State in this approach, or this philosophy that I'm laying on you and I think there's room for the Congress. I think the Congress can look at this situation and say, OK, our role is this, your role is that, and lets say even in the narrow framework of wildlife management, as was pointed out today, the track record isn't all that great on either the Federal side during territorial days or on the State side since statehood. And I think if wildlife means as much as it is said to mean in the national interest, that there's also a local interest and that some guidelines have to be established as to, you know, for the management regime as to how this is going to be managed and we would hope that the needs of the people who live in these villages are considered as much as or even more so than the neods of the species. This is what I mean in terms of the relationships, saying the subsistence hunters shooting and the biologist watching is no way to communicate, no way to share mutual needs, mutual interests. I think that can be developed, the mechanisms of participation and perhaps the Congress will have to specify those because this is an unorganized borough, or indicate to the State how they might handle it Mr. LEGGETT. To do that in our fisheries management program for the 200 mile limit law, we had this competition for control between local, State, Federal and as a result we set up a program that provided that this would not have to be quite that structured. It does provido for a regional council made up of Federal representatives of Fh and Wildlife Service, a Federal representative of the National Alavino Maheries Service, the State fish and game people, an environntal porson, commercial people, sport fishery people, and some how They get together with some assistance from the Federal Ciovorament and promulgate plans that inevitably have to be approved by the Secretary lest there might be too much provincialism in a particular plan. Certainly you could work out that same kind of a chos, it would seem to me, for the State of Alaska. You would hourd which would not be made up just of Natives because if ma lit up just of Native local peoples, then you would need a bok, and balances. That might not allow plans to come to but if you had enough input into a local development proy had a board for each identifiable unit then you could have different rules, depending on what the pressures were. The sports hunters could be represented and the Natives would obviously play a dominant part. You could have people from State fish and game and enforcement units, and you could work together and promulgate rules that would be adopted and enforced. If you wanted to blend together to develop management programs, that could all come from this cogitation at the local level which would then circumvent some of the problems you have had with your Constitution. We could then provide for the maximum implementation of State law on fish and game, except to the extent where the plans made changes. Then you would have a situation very much like some of the other States with the subsistence exception. Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman I appreciate your comments on the ways of organizing, as I said, that is our feeling as well and as you have said and has been expressed in testimony before this committee, there are multiple levels of needs and certainly we see mutual and competing levels of need in terms of subsistence. What we'd like to see is some way devised in which local people can be part of the decisionmaking apparatus that's set up for equating the mutual or competing levels of need. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. LEGGETT. Mr. Nils Sara? STATEMENT OF NILS SARA, RÉPRESENTATIVE OF NUNAM KILUTSISTI Mr. SARA. Mr. Chairman, my name is Nils Sara, I represent Nunam Kilutsisti which means Protectors of the Land that's an environmental organization in southwest Alaska and covers the AVCP area, or the Association of Village Council Presidents which is shown on the map there by the line for the Chulista region. Mr. LEGGETT. Could you point that out to me? OK, those are the roads Mr. SARA. Right sir, district 2 villages occupy that area Mr. LEGGETT. Did I talk to you over in Bethel a couple of years ago? Mr. SARA. You talked to someone from Nunam Kilutsisti I believe. And I just wanted to make a few brief remarks regarding subsistence and to submit a piece of writing that was done by someone else who can't be here, he's a doctor Mr. LEGGETT. Well if he's a doctor he must be good. Mr. SARA. But, I wanted to address a couple of things, one of which was the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and its relation to what people regard as subsistence. Now the Native Claims Settlement Act was passed and quite a few thousands per family came down, it's true, but you can't look at it in terms of how many thousands per family was disbursed because that won't indicate what was actually received by the average village shareholder and I would say I represent an average village shareholder of the Chulista Region in terms of the benefits I would receive from the Claims Act and thus far it's been a cash payment of about $410 over a period of about 5 years and, considering the village economy, you have to give that about half the value that you would enjoy from that $400 because of the price differential and so forth, so it could |