nAppendix xiin Additional Information About Alaska The Alaska Regions are divided into 12 Management
Indian Affairs (BIA), Alaska Regional Office. Native allotments administered by the BIA Alaska Regional Office are “restricted” lands because the titles to these parcels are held by individual Alaska Natives with restrictions affecting the title defined by federal regulations. The restrictions are against alienation and taxation and the title is restricted and requires the Secretary’s review and approval usually delegated to the Regional Director. For all other purposes, Native allotments are managed by the U.S. Federal Government as “trust” Indian land and those lands assigned to individuals are referred to as individually owned Native allotments, and the individual owners are referred to as “allottees.” Management of these allotments is performed through P.L. 93-638 self-governance compacts with the U.S. Department of the Interior. This compact funding has provided the base support for the Forestry Programs. Today 7 of the 12 Management Units within the Alaska Region have compacted the forestry trust responsibilities. Out of the 5 remaining Management Units, 4 have forested allotments with the trust responsibility held by the BIA in the forestry program. The Aleut Management Unit does not have forested allotment acres. Also, tribes can decide to have their Forestry TPA held by the BIA and receive direct trust services from the Alaska Regional Office instead of the local non-profit service provider. Northway Village is a tribe that receives direct forestry trust services from the Alaska Regional Office. Services can be provided by the BIA as direct services and by the local non-profit service providers which has the possibility of changing from year to year. On an annual basis, a tribe could “pull” their Forestry TPA funding from a regional service provider and either retain the funds and perform the trust services themselves for the allotments associated with their tribe, or “return” it back to the BIA to receive direct trust services from the Regional Office. Northway Village as an example is one tribe that has their funding at the BIA and receives direct services from the Alaska Regional Office. The BIA does not provide services to the Regional or Village for profit corporations and only to the Native allotments. The Forestry TPA funding amount for a service provider, or tribe, was determined on a formula that took a per forested allotment acre of the base amount allocated for the Alaska Region, and then multiplied by the forested allotment acres associated with their tribe. When tribes compact their Forestry TPA funds with either themselves or
Units whose boundaries are analogous to the ANCSA (Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act) Regional Corporation boundaries. The local and regional ANCSA Corporations, non-profit tribal organizations, and federally recognized and non- recognized tribal governments are not structured equally both within and across the Management Units. The Forestry Tribal Priority Allocation (TPA) base funding was originally calculated by the forested allotment acres. Since then, some allotments have been sold out of trust and fewer numbers of new allotments have been added into trust (Veteran Allotments). Native allotments are associated with a tribe based on the original allotment applicant tribal membership. This tribal association determines the Forestry TPA amount for a tribe based on the forested allotment acres they are associated with in each region. The federally recognized trust lands (primarily individual allotments) in Alaska are served by nonprofit service organizations and these nonprofits serve significantly large areas. These governance structures provide leadership and direction through delegates from the member tribes. Typically, a smaller group is selected to serve on an executive board. These boards provide leadership which is elected by the tribal delegates. These service organizations provide programs which include health services, housing, employment, training, and community planning. Depending on the number of forested acres, the service organizations may also include a forestry program. The tribes themselves rarely own or directly manage their lands; the bulk of “Native” lands in the regions are owned by the corporations established through ANCSA. In some cases, a tribal/village corporation exists within the same geographic footprint as a tribe. In this case there is a tribal council and a village corporation board, which exist separately, but might overlap in membership. Member shareholders own these corporations, most of whom are tribal members, and the lands they manage are fee- simple private lands, not subject to trust oversight by the federal government. The most important land manager to the tribes is the local ANCSA village corporation. The important Native land status in Alaska is the individually owned Native allotments, which are technically “restricted” lands, and managed as trust lands by the federal government. Native allotments are under the jurisdiction of the US Bureau of
A-84 Assessment of Indian Forests and Forest Management in the United States
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