The federal subsistence management program aims to protect rural Alaskans’ subsistence lifestyle while maintaining healthy fish and wildlife populations on federal lands. However, this multi-agency governmental apparatus can be daunting for rural residents to navigate. Representatives of the Wrangell Cooperative Association, U.S. Forest Service and Sitka Conservation Society are partnering to bring a workshop to the community, intended to empower residents to engage with the complexities of the Federal Subsistence Board process.
Attendees will learn about state and federal regulations, how to write a proposal to the board that regulates fish and game on federal lands and waters in Alaska, how to raise concerns regarding subsistence resources in their communities and more.
“There aren’t a lot of opportunities for folks to be able to learn these systems,” said Ashley Bolwerk, subsistence fish biologist for the Forest Service. “A lot of folks find this process very intimidating. The intimidation factor is the biggest barrier we’re trying to break down.”
The workshop will be held 1:30 to 5:30 p.m. April 2 in the Nolan Center. Bolwerk and Heather Bauscher of the Sitka Conservation Society will host the event. Attendance is free and no registration is required.
Before the workshop begins, there will be a potluck meal at 1 p.m., so people planning to attend the potluck should bring a dish to share.
The first hour will be a presentation that outlines “the nuts and bolts of the process,” said Bolwerk. “If you can only come to one hour, come to this one.” The remaining three hours will give attendees the opportunity to ask questions and build their skills while participating in a variety of activities. This time will be informal, interactive and discussion-based. “Four hours of presentations would kill anybody,” she said.
Bolwerk and Bauscher encourage residents to drop in and out of the workshop at their convenience — attendees are not obligated to attend for the full four hours.
The management process is a “wonder of inter-agency cooperation,” Bauscher said. When she attended her first Federal Subsistence Board meeting seven years ago, she was amazed at the opportunity to see change happening in real time. “I don’t think there’s anywhere else in the country where an individual can have this much say about how resources are managed.”
Alaska residents have tremendous power, she explained, but they have to know how to harness it. That’s where the workshops come in — the goal is to drive public participation and give Southeast residents the tools to make their voices heard.
The pair already presented the workshop in Sitka in February and will visit other Southeast communities including Petersburg and Kake before their presentation in Wrangell next month.
At the Sitka workshop, they received positive feedback from members of the federal regional advisory council and local Alaska Department of Fish and Game advisory committee who were “really excited for the opportunity for lots of communities all over Southeast to be able to engage.”
The Federal Subsistence Board process was set up after the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. This legislation represented a new approach to federal Indian policy. It eliminated Alaska Native land claims in the state, paying almost $1 billion and authorizing the transfer of 45 million acres of federal lands to newly created for-profit regional and village corporations that Native people would hold shares in.
The act “effectively removed fishing and harvest rights of tribes,” said Bolwerk, but “there was this understanding that subsistence as a way of life would be provided for in that agreement.”
Subsequent legislation set up the federal subsistence management program to ensure that subsistence rights are protected, particularly when fish and game resources are limited and harvests need to be reduced. The program was designed to “make sure that folks who are practicing subsistence and live in rural communities have access to these resources,” she said. “Rural communities rely on this way of life.”
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