Tribal leaders from across the state met in Anchorage on Wednesday for the Alaska Tribal Unity Gathering.
At a session on subsistence rights, Native Peoples Action Executive Director Andrea Burgess said working together is imperative.
“Things are literally shifting from beneath our feet, beneath our waters, that mindset shift that's going to require that we as Native people stop fighting amongst our own entities,” Burgess said. “We don't have any time to spare to be in disagreement amongst our own selves.”
The four-person panel discussed issues like the Katie John case, which established a rural subsistence priority to fish in navigable waters on federal land. A federal appeals court recently upheld the ruling that underpins Alaska’s current subsistence fishing program.
One thing tribes can start doing now, Burgess said, is support students through college so they can bring Indigenous voices to the legal process.
“When we send our young people off to go be lawyers and attorneys, to get your education, we need to make sure they have a position and they are respected when they return, so that they can follow the mission that their elders put them on,” Burgess said.
Panelist Nellie Unangiq Jimmie said Indigenous voices deserve to be in the legislative process, too.
“We need more representation, and not people who come and move here for three years and say, ‘Hey, I'm ready to...' They say, ‘We're gonna fix you,'" Jimmie said. “But they don't know our needs, our way of life.”
Jimmie urged the audience to vote for candidates that match their priorities.
“As Indigenous people, we are voters, we know we have numbers, but what's going on is people are trying to discourage us from voting, fighting amongst ourselves,” Jimmie said. “We need to change the culture in incorporating that into politics, into voting. We need to talk with our families, our communities and bring them together.”
The Alaska Tribal Unity Gathering convenes each year before the Alaska Federation of Natives convention The convention begins Thursday at Anchorage’s Dena’ina Center and runs through Saturday.