Keep Public Forests Public & Protected Forests Protected.
Take action to stop Bill S.1889/H.R. 4748 from becoming law—prevent an environmental catastrophe.
If passed, this legislation would cause the largest privatization of public lands within the Pacific Temperate Rainforest in decades.
This scheme would privatize 115,200 acres of the Tongass National Forest including 60,000 acres of irreplaceable old growth forests currently protected by the 2001 Roadless Rule.
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Bill S.1889 has advanced out of committee. A vote could be held in the US Senate any day.
Proponents of S.1889/H.R. 4748 are well-funded by timber interests. They are manipulating pubic opinion with an Astroturfed campaign.
The Sealaska Corporation has logged more than any other private entity in Southeast Alaska. The corporation has given $500,000 to the proponents of this legislation who have used this money to greenwash this bill and frame it as an environmental justice initiative. They’ve created a petition with 3,000 signatures and have an orchestrated social media presence to present themselves as a “grassroots” movement of the people instead of the corporations they are.
This Bill is trumped-up. It is not Land Back.
S.1889/H.R. 4748 “Unrecognized Southeast Alaska Native Communities Recognition and Compensation Act” alleges that five communities in Tenakee, Haines, Ketchikan, Petersburg and Wrangell were not fully compensated under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) which privatized 44,000,000 acres across the State of Alaska.
It’s a payoff.
The Bill will give lands in compensation for extinguishing any further native claims. It’s a payoff.
For three decades these five “landless”communities have received profitable shareholders dividends as “at-large” members of Sealaska earning far more than those paid by the regional corporations to village shareholders. They were not left out of ANCSA.
Old growth forests are not protected by corporations.
The Bill would create five new “urban" corporations. Each of the five corporations would receive 23,040 acres of cherry-picked land from the Tongass National Forest to compensate for an end to aboriginal claims. The lands will be managed by corporations to produce revenue from logging and mining.
ANCSA’s basic eligibility criteria were not met by the five communities, they weren’t “left out."
In 1971, the proposed five "landless" communities met none of the criteria for corporate recognition, that is, having a majority Native population, and not being modern or urban in character. None of the five has a Native majority and four out of the five are modern and urban in character. Tenakee Springs, now with only 116 permanent residents is not urban and 96% are nonnative (Census 2020). But natives from those communities were not overlooked and received lucrative “At-Large” biannual shareholder dividends.
This is a corporatization bill—not a return of land to tribal governments.
This Bill is not land back. The lands would not be transferred to tribal governments. Instead, corporations will manage these lands to make a profit. The priority is on logging revenue not traditional use. That’s why the selected lands to be gifted have the highest logging potential and highest profit margins.
“Today, the ‘landless' is politically converted to five village communities for Alaska Congressional puppetry… ‘landless’ communities who formalized their grassroots solution have been blatantly ignored. Adding to the complications of this Bill is the mapping of landless claims within our traditional use area in Hoonah!”
- Wanda Culp, Hoonah-Glacier Bay Tribal Member and Shareholder
Astroturfing:
Organized activity that is intended to create a false impression of a widespread, spontaneously arising, grassroots movement in support of or in opposition to something (such as a political policy) but that is in reality initiated and controlled by a concealed group or organization (such as a corporation).
- Merriam Webster
Image: Sealaska Logging in Election Creek, this land was privatized in 2014
“You can’t take logging off the table”
-Richard Rinehart,
Spokesperson for the “landless” bill, and board member of Sealaska Corporation
Political give and take.
Bill S.1889/H.R. 4748 was introduced by Senator Lisa Murkowski, as she’s done many times before. She’s been a champion for the logging industry in the Tongass for decades. This Bill is another big favor for timber interests. It’s 2014 all over again…
Ten years ago Murkowski gave Sealaska Corp 70,000 acres of Tongass National Forest. Almost all of these lands were clear-cut with the most destructive harvesting practices in North America.
Sealaska is the largest logging corporation in Alaska.
Based on Sealaska’s corporate record of logging in the Tongass, if this Bill succeeds, we can expect the clearcutting of the very best old growth in Alaska, possibly the world. Alaska would lose the best of its irreplaceable old growth forests—period.
Some of Sealaska’s clear cuts are over 5,000 acres.
A Senate vote for Bill S. 1889 could be brought to the floor as early as January 2024. The stakes are too high for this legislation to go unopposed.
Join us. Tell Congress to keep public lands public and protected lands protected.
TAKE ACTION to STOP BILL S.1889/H.R. 4748
