Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Research Articles

Evaluating Potential Impacts of Proposed Industrial Access Road Routes on Wilderness Character in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Alaska

Northern Alaska is home to the largest designated wilderness landscape in the United States and among the world’s largest remaining roadless regions. Under the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a semi-public corporation of the state of Alaska, proposed an industrial road to access the Ambler Mining District that would run approximately 320 km along the southern edge of the western Brooks Range, crossing federal, state, and Native Corporation lands. Two alternative routes are being considered that cross the Kobuk Preserve portion of Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, with the northern route running outside of but adjacent to Gates of the Arctic Wilderness. Both Kobuk Preserve and Gates of the Arctic Wilderness are managed by the National Park Service to preserve wilderness character under existing federal law and agency policy. This study evaluates the potential impacts of both routes on wilderness character in the Kobuk Preserve and adjacent Gates of the Arctic Wilderness. We use a hierarchical conceptual framework to identify spatially explicit measures that show the potential impacts of the road on wilderness character. The impacts from each measure are combined using a weighting scheme to generate a series of maps that quantify the potential impacts of these two proposed routes. Our results show that both routes would degrade wilderness character within the Kobuk Preserve, and that the northern route, which is the state’s preferred alternative for the road corridor, would have a significantly greater impact in terms of degrading wilderness character in the adjacent Gates of the Arctic Wilderness.

"She Likes Fish Camp": Legal History and Alaska Native Subsistence Practices in Diane Lxéis Benson's play River Woman

This essay explores a set of laws concerning land ownership and subsistence rights in Alaska that have come to affect an Alaska Native family in the play River Woman. The drama shows how the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, as well as the Homestead Act string together to break up domestic relations and Indigenous traditions.

Nature’s Burdens: Conservation and American Politics, the Reagan Era to the Present. By Daniel Nelson

Daniel Nelson’s new book is an excellent survey of conservation policy in the United States since 1980. Two aspects of the book are of central significance. First, as the title indicates, Nelson focuses on conservation, encompassing land and resources management, wild animals and plants, and biodiversity more broadly. He does not address issues of pollution and human health. Second, the book is deeply influenced by the rise of conservation biology and how that discipline has shaped the thinking about biodiversity and land management policy. The book is chronologically organized, beginning with an overview of the national agencies and laws focused on conservation in place by 1980. Here and throughout the book, Nelson focuses on the most important federal laws for conservation: the Wilderness Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act, the National Forest Management Act, and the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The chapters that follow trace conservation policy and politics largely by presidential administrations. The increasing partisanship over conservation policy (and environmental policy more generally) during this period led to less action in Congress and more action on other pathways, especially those undertaken in the executive agencies at the behest of the president and his advisors.

What is a Meaningful Role? Accounting for Culture in Fish and Wildlife Management in Rural Alaska

The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 requires federal agencies to provide a meaningful role for rural subsistence harvesters in management of fish and wildlife in Alaska. We constructed an interpretive analysis of qualitative interviews with residents of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Stakeholders’ perceptions of their roles and motivations to participate in collaborative management are linked to unseen and often ignored cultural features and differing worldviews that influence outcomes of collaboration. Agencies need to better understand Yup’ik preferences for working together and change their formats and methods of public engagement. More frequent and higher quality interactions among stakeholders in rural communities will create awareness of cultural differences. Improved awareness will allow managers to design and implement a process that is culturally appropriate and increase the meaningfulness of collaborative management.

A Passion for the Land: John F. Seiberling and the Environmental Movement (review)

Reviewed by: A Passion for the Land: John F. Seiberling and the Environmental Movement Zach Falck A Passion for the Land: John F. Seiberling and the Environmental Movement. By Daniel Nelson. (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2009. 264 pp. Cloth $39.95, ISBN 978-1-60635-036-2.) This book examines the career of John Frederick Seiberling Jr., an eight-term congressman who became “as closely identified with the American wilderness as any other individual” (218). After condensing the Seiberling family’s fortunes and misfortunes and Seiberling’s first five decades of life into a single chapter, Daniel Nelson focuses on Seiberling’s service in the United States House of Representatives from 1971 to 1987. The book details Seiberling’s leadership on land-use policy rather than discusses his positions on all environmental issues from the 1960s through the 1980s. Seiberling supported the expansion of the national park system, [End Page 141] including units in urban areas such as Scranton and Atlanta. He attempted to reform strip mining operations in Appalachia, and he fought against mining operations in western national parks. His tough negotiating helped make the Bureau of Land Management into a more conservation-conscious agency. Nelson, who has written about Alaska, thinks Seiberling’s most important work was his labor on committees that informed and shaped the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. In the 1980s, Seiberling chaired public lands subcommittees that established millions of acres of wilderness from West Virginia west to Washington state. Seiberling’s abilities to devise effective legislation and reach compromises were especially impressive in his last terms, when he dealt with Reagan appointees hostile to environmental protection and regulation. Compared with the wild expanses that Seiberling helped create, the 33,000 acre Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area—Ohio’s sole national park—seems miniscule. Nelson’s presentation of Seiberling’s participation in the movement to preserve open space in the Cleveland-Akron corridor is also a fine illustration of the complexities and contingencies of environmental politics. Seiberling persevered for years in conceptualizing a park, sustaining public interest, overcoming bureaucratic objections, enlisting the support of fellow legislators, and bringing the project to fruition. Most chapters cover one or two congressional terms. Nelson reconstructs them from Seiberling’s office papers and personal papers, published hearings, and the files of environmental organizations. The congressman’s unpublished manuscript memoir and interviews with Seiberling conducted by longtime staff member Loretta Neumann in the 1990s and Nelson in 2006 contain fascinating stories about the nature of politics. They are the basis of Nelson’s view that Seiberling’s rectitude inhibited him from fully exploiting Washington’s power networks. Since the book is about Seiberling’s role in national environmental policy making, local and state issues and politics are treated briskly, often as openings to or transitions within chapters. Nelson relies on the pages of the Akron Beacon Journal and the Cleveland Plain Dealer to handle them. Although the book contains many nice photographs of Seiberling and his family members, it does not include Seiberling’s photographs of the places he worked to save. Seiberling loved photography, and he often took his camera on official and personal travels. He used his 1971 photographs of Belmont County strip mines and his 1975 photographs of Alaska, among others, to persuade congressional colleagues to advance legislation. Reproducing and explaining some of these images would have enriched Nelson’s characterization of Seiberling’s passion for the land. The congressman thought Alaska’s wilderness areas could give Americans, especially young ones, “a sense of the order of the natural world so they don’t feel totally adrift in the chaotic world [End Page 142] of man’s own creation” (133). From an airplane, Seiberling perceived Alaskan landscapes as “abstract designs . . . absolutely beyond the wildest imaginings of Picasso or any other great artist” (137). A Wyoming ridgetop reminded Seiberling “of a Mozart piano concerto” (201). Nelson unearths but writes little about such remarks. Nevertheless, the book presents a clear picture of an independent-minded and thoughtful representative from Ohio devoted to protecting the nation’s public lands. Zach Falck Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Copyright © 2011 The Kent State University Press

Influence of Political Opposition and Compromise on Conservation Outcomes in the Tongass National Forest, Alaska

To understand how a highly contentious policy process influenced a major conservation effort, I examined the origins, compromises, and outcomes of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 (ANILCA) for the Tongass National Forest. Tongass wilderness designation was among the most controversial issues in the ANILCA debate, and it faced strong opposition from influential lawmakers, land managers, and Alaska residents. To investigate the influence of this opposition on Tongass conservation outcomes, I conducted a gap analysis of Tongass reserves and a policy analysis of the ANILCA debate and traced the influence of specific interests through the amendments, negotiations, and resulting compromises needed to enact ANILCA. Overall, I found that Tongass reserves comprise a broadly representative cross-section of ecosystems and species habitats in southeastern Alaska. Redrawn reserve boundaries, industry subsidies, and special access regulations reflected compromises to minimize the impact of wilderness conservation on mining, timber, and local stakeholder interests, respectively. Fragmentation of the Admiralty Island National Monument-the most ecologically valuable and politically controversial reserve-resulted from compromises with Alaskan Native (indigenous peoples of Alaska) corporations and timber interests. Despite language to accommodate "reasonable access" to wilderness reserves, ongoing access limitations highlight the concerns of Alaska residents that opposed ANILCA several decades ago. More broadly, the Tongass case suggests that early and ambitious conservation action may offset strong political opposition; compromises needed to establish key reserves often exacerbate development impacts in unprotected areas; and efforts to minimize social conflicts are needed to safeguard the long-term viability of conservation measures.

A brief history of wood use and forest management in Alaska

The Native peoples of Alaska used wood for fuel, for the construction of shelters, and for a variety of implements. Explorers, fur traders, gold miners, and settlers also relied on Alaska's forest resource. The early 20th century saw the creation of the Tongass and Chugach National Forests in coastal Alaska, where large-scale harvesting began shortly after World War II. By 1955, two 50-year contracts had been signed, committing 13 billion board feet of sawlogs and pulpwood. The commercial forest land base in Alaska has been dramatically reduced by a variety of legislative acts, including the Statehood Act of 1959 and the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980. Key words: forest history, Alaska, aboriginal use of forests, fuelwood, stemwheeled riverboats, gold mining, land classification, National Forests, Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act

Alaska's subsistence management regimes

AbstractAlaskans disagree sharply over the issue of a subsistence priority for hunting and fishing by rural residents, including most Alaskan Eskimos, Aleuts, and Indians. The issue highlights competing visions of Alaska's future; one based upon Euroamerican values and the other on indigenous rights and customary law. Recent political and legal developments, particularly the Alaska Supreme Court's 1989 McDowell decision invalidating the state of Alaska's rural priority, have undermined significantly subsistence protections. Failure of the state to restore this priority led the US federal government to take over subsistence management under provisions of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (PL 96–487). For Alaska's indigenous peoples, these events make clear the limitations of relying solely on state and federal governments for protecting subsistence. Efforts are underway to strengthen tribal governments and assert limited jurisdiction over hunting and fishing. A major goal is to achieve standing for negotiations with state and federal authorities over future co-management of subsistence resources.

Alaska: A Frontier Divided

The superlatives surrounding Alaska are legion. Within the borders of the 49th US state are some of the world's greatest concentrations of waterfowl, bald eagles, fur seals, walrus, sea lions, otters, and the famous Kodiak brown bear. Alaska features the highest peak of North America, the 20,320-foot Mount McKinley, and the longest archipelago of small islands, the Aleutians. The state holds the greatest percentage of protected wilderness per capita in the world. The expanse of some Alaskan glaciers dwarfs entire countries. Like the periodic advance and retreat of its glaciers, Alaska appears with some regularity on the national US agenda. It last achieved prominence when President Jimmy Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980. Since then the conflict between environmental protection and economic development has been played out throughout the state, and Congress is expected to turn to Alaskan issues again in its next sessions.

Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, Inc. v. Watson and the Future of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act

Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, Inc. v. Watson and the Future of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act

International Aspects of Proposed Amendments to the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act

International Aspects of Proposed Amendments to the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act