I admit that I have not read the proposed Sealaska Lands Bill, but when I am told that it apparently has selected strips of land 25 feet wide and miles long, it looks like the "devil is in the details."
If the bill contains such selections, for the life of me I can't understand why. They can't be for subsistence like moose hunting or berry picking, nor for commercial development unless to build a road.

Also in the details ...or lacking ... is the fact that stream buffers to protect fish habitat is only for 5 years, and as stated here, no guarantee of access and use is specifically spelled out in the legislation for these lands that have been used by the public. Permits for guide hunters will be continued for a limited time only, then not renewed. Businesses that have developed on use of public lands will be out of luck in about 10 years. Sealaska won't put it in the legislation that they will sell the timber from th second growth to the local mills, even though the taxpayers have paid for all the thinning and stand improvements on the second growth areas for years.

It seems like the pro-Sealaska folk have run out of sound bite answers in response to all the facts that point out the negative impacts of this legislation. The facts are overwhelmingly in opposition, and the many letters , from many diverse sources, shows just how divisive an issue this is. Even though Sealaska has tried to say it has support for this legislation, that is far from the truth.

It would be better if this legislation just went away rather than getting any amendments or changes. Sealaska can take the original selections and if they want to do piecemeal land exchanges where there is some actual public process of some kind, fine. It's obvious that any legislation that makes changes to the management of the Tongass is fundamentally tainted by the parties involved - the clearcut obsessed delegation, Sealaska's corporate management, the back room negotiations at the Roundtable with all the horse trading and it just needs to stop. The federal laws governing public forests are not perfect but this legislation clearly shows that anything else is sure to be a lot worse.

Email Senators Murkowski and Begich right now. Tell Murky to withdraw her bill. Tell Begich not to support it if it advances:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?State=AK

Look up the definition of the word colonialism and think about it. The centuries the European and American governments invaded and occupied weaker countries to enable their freebooters and corporations to steal their natural resources and lands for colonization. With the enslavement, murder and genocide of the indigenous inhabitants. Theft and Murder.
ANCSA was rammed down the indigenous throats by the cheaply bought off politicians and government officials who are yanked around by puppet strings by their neo conservative masters, with whom they had worked for or will work for, or were just plain bribed.
The descendants of the European immigrants who stole the indigenous lands in order to steal the natural resources refuse to realize their policies of colonialism are nothing but theft and murder. To do so they'll be forced to admit their government panders to thieves and murderers and are ultimately responsible for the murder of 3,000 Americans on 9/11.
I mention that because the theft of Indigenous lands and resources are still going on as well as the policies of depopulating indigenous lands in order for the neo conservative owned corporations to steal them.
It is kind of sweet justice to see the lands and resources stolen from the indigenous, to see them stolen again from the stealers by the foreign owned entities who bought off the politicians.

Begich is the only member of the Alaska delegation ever to move his office out of the neutral location of the federal building and into the Sealaska building.

seinerak is right - just send your comments to Bingaman. The Washington Post needs to go after the pathetically sold out Murkowski. Your public hunting and fishing areas are being sold out for money/payback.

Senate House and Energy Resources Chair - Jeff Bingaman
email address: senator_bingaman@bingaman.senate.gov

Nobody who opposes the bill is playing revisionist history on the land claims issue. Many of us sincerely want the best for Sealaska's shareholders even though we oppose the efforts of your corporation which seems to want to play Russian roulette with the Endangered Species Act as Regelin says and with the health of key fishery habitat.

Yes, Alaska's natives were treated unfairly and especially the Tlingits and Haidas who were repeatedly refused access to the courts to deal with the fact that the feds were stealing their forests before and during the pulp mill contracts before settling the claims, but two wrongs (the bad historical treatment and now this bill) do not make a right.

ANCSA undercapitalized the native corporations to begin with and to make matters worse condemned them to bad economic models - like the large scale clearcut industry. In fact, ANCSA was a purposeful attempt to take native lands out of native hands as suggested by Curt J. above. Initially, Congress wanted to make it so that the corporate shares could be sold out of native hands within a short period of time. Congress wanted to give Alaska's natives corporations in the hope that they would lose them. It's in the record - Senator Jackson's aide (Douglas Fairbanks) said as much. The ANCSA corporate model itself was a resource grab.

As is S.730. The problem is Alaska's congressional delegation continuing to use the ANCSA claims as a timber industry bailout with the complicity of Sealaska's corporate management who continue to reap the benefits of a money losing industry while failing to share with the shareholders. Who really benefits from this bill? Senator Murkowski's campaign funds? You have previously seemed willing to accept the idea of a buyout put into a dividend program for shareholders. I'd like for you to think about that again.

Keeping in mind that your timber operations lose money while the small dividend received is Arctic Slope 7(i) revenue sharing and not timber, I would like you think about how much the state's Permanent Fund has grown over the same time frame versus the timber economy (which is why Murkowski and Begich are pushing the bill - for more clearcuts). Wouldn't you, and indeed the whole economy through the ripple effects of the additional spending, been better off?

Why aren't Murkowski and Begich offering such a solution now? Why didn't their predecessors offer such a solution when it was clear in the 1980s that clearcutting was a bad economic model? The native land claims here are being used the same way that the federal agencies used their control over native american resources in the lower 48 - to take the water rights and poison the reservations through uranium mining and other activities even worse than Alaska law sanctioned clearcutting all the while defrauding the sovereign tribes of their mineral and other receipts.

A buyout for the existing claims to be distributed directly to shareholders would not be so controversial.

Defunding government to the point of incapability, privatization of public resources for shareholder profit taking, deregulation of environmental protections, corporate outsourcing of governmental functions... there's little more to Senator Lisa Murkowski's agenda than the standard neoliberal plan which was imposed by her daddy Frank.

Thru S.730, Sealaska board members understand there's little to gain from departing from the neoliberal model Congress and Lisa have prescribed for them.

As long as natives and other members of the public (as indentured servants to predatory corporatism and the false promises of "trickle down economics") forfeit their rights to effect change -- there will be no change.

Change will only occur by first understanding they like all Americans, are mere pawns in the neoliberal game, and secondly, VOTE to change their predicament.

Only then will they and their families be assured of not being on the corporate menu (whose appetite is insatiable).