Homestead Elementary school was the site of my first act of political outrage. "Down the drain with the Carter campaign!", I yelled at the top of my voice to the voters making their way to the polls. I know, but hey, I was only a kid. My concern with Carter was that he would lock up Alaska.
Concern realized. On December 2, 1980, President Carter designated 10 new national parks, nine refuges, and two national monuments in Alaska- doubling the total acreage of national parks in the US.
The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) set aside more than 100 million acres of federal land under the pretense of public use. 100 million acres. That is a scant four million acres less than what the State of Alaska owns. The Natives of Alaska were only given 44 million in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Seems backwards.
Hmmm, how many states can we puzzle together to come up with 100 MILLION acres of park? States that are peopled by folks who FAILED to keep their lands pristine. Alaska's people managed their lands successfully for tens of thousands of years, now these Johnny-come-lately-do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do's are going to tell us how to go about the business of keeping Alaska the Great Land.
No, I am not bitter. Nor am I buying it. President Jimmy Carter signed the law 25 years ago, touting the legislation as the single greatest piece of conservation in the world. I would have gone about it a different way. Close our borders and set up a rigid training program for those wanting to tour Alaska's wilderness. Talk to them about littering. Inform them that whaling is a year-long activity even though the whale-hunting season is short. Introduce them to the honey bucket, the expedient latrine used in rural Alaska, literally a bucket. Give them a taste of what the wilds are really like.
Don't get me wrong, I am all for parks. I'm for state and local parks, where Alaskans decide what to do with their land. For Big Brother to come in the way Carter did was morally offensive. Alaska's congressman, Don Young, declared the Act "criminal."
The Act's restrictions on road access are appalling. People who have been driving on a road for 60 years, a road they put in with their own sweat, now need permits and are restricted on how many trips they can make a year. Trips to acquire necessities such as food, heating fuel and medical assistance are limited. Private landowners are landlocked, an offense most Planning and Zoning Commissions would be up in arms about.
The pretense of public use is also offensive. Most of the 165 MILLION acres of federal land in Alaska is accessible only on foot. So if you are young, healthy, and athletic - not the average American - you can enjoy the beauty of Alaska.
Everyone else can take a bus to the edge and wish they could experience the majesty. If you are handicapped, forget it. That notion flies in the face of the disability-empowered society that we have worked so hard to foster.
ANILCA is also insulting to Alaska Natives. There was the hope, with so many acres to manage, that the Federal Government would hire a large Native workforce - people who had intrinsic knowledge about the land and its resources and who had successfully managed it for generations.
Despite thousands of Alaska Natives in dozens of villages available, making up 16 percent of the State's population, they only account for 7% of the National Park Service/US Fish and Wildlife Service's 1,613 person workforce. The number of Natives selected under the local hire provision is a measly 5%.
Representative Don Young has been steadfastly promoting Alaskans being employed in the management of federal lands in the state. In 2002 he introduced a bill that would have required the Department of Interior to let six Native organizations manage a portion of Alaska's federal lands. The bill didn't pass.
Instead of allowing Alaska Natives to manage their ancestral lands, most are managed by outside interests. A failure for ANILCA, which was supposed to revolutionize the spirit of public land management by introducing the concept that people were as much a part of the ecosystems as plants and animals...protecting the ecologies and the people who rely on them.
Inherently, Alaska Natives bring more to the task than outsiders. They know the land and the interdependent relationships of the environment. Natives get the Big Picture of how Alaska works. Without that traditional knowledge the Feds are stumbling in the dark in a land that is fragile, with a balance of nature that is delicate. How do you explain that to a peanut farmer from Georgia?
2 comments:
Very nice, well done and interesting.
Actually quite fun.
Your public undoubtedly is delighted that you've gone to such trouble on it's behalf.
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