Placing lands into trust is a way for Alaska Native tribes to permanently protect them, but it’s not the only means of exercising control. That was the message during opening day discussions Monday at a Tribal Leaders Summit in Fairbanks. Washington DC based Native American rights attorney, Lael Echo-Hawk said placing tribal lands into trust with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an option that re-opened to Alaska tribes this summer following a lengthy court battle, carries definite advantages.
“It’s being able to say no. You cannot have an ease of way or right of way across our land,” Echo-Hawk said. “Or if you do come and you want to work on our land, than you have to pay us a tax. It’s saying, we get to decide.”
Echo-Hawk, who grew up in Fairbanks and Delta Junction, has helped lower 48 tribes apply for trust status and notes it’s a long and complicated process, that can be contentious at some locations.
“The ones that I think are going to raise more eyebrows and cause a little more contention or opposition are gonna be the ones closer to urban areas,” Echo-Hawk said. “Those areas that do have a property tax. Those municipalities or boroughs that think they might be losing something by seeing this lad go into federal trust.”
Echo-Hawk cautioned that placing land into trust also brings management responsibilities and can require working with adjoining state and private landowners.
“And do memorandums of agreement and inter-governmental agreements so that you’re sharing a resource. You’re protecting all of the citizens in a responsible way,” Echo-Hawk said.
“To the extent that there are concerns about states’ soverignty, those can easily be negotiated,” Native American Rights attorney Lloyd Miller said.
Miller maintains that a shift toward increased local control does not require Native lands be put into trust, and believes the climate is right to expedite federal legislation to empower tribes to manage their own communities.
“I think this is a watershed moment for fashioning a solution by Alaskans, for Alaskans which could be enacted by Congress,” Miller said. “We have senators and a congressman, led in particular by Senator Murkowski, who are highly sensitive to the need for civil society in Alaska villages. The kind of civil society that the state of Alaska has never been able to provide those villages and which the state of Alaska is even less able to provide in a declining revenue environment.”
Miller noted that Alaska’s Congressional delegation and Governor Bill Walker’s administration are sympathetic to crafting a solution, important given that the state has proven inadequate at addressing village issues, a situation likely to get worse due to budget deficits.
Dan Bross is a reporter at KUAC in Fairbanks.
