ANILCA at 40, Part 2

[Jim Hart]: Welcome to the BLM Alaska Frontiers podcast. I'm Jim Hart. Last time on Frontiers, we spoke with the Alaska regional directors for each of the three land managing agencies in the Department of the Interior. We asked them how the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act affected their missions. Today, we'll ask them what they think is important about ANILCA. Their answers shed light on historic controversy surrounding the law, but also the protections afforded to the state and the legacy left for future generations of Americans.

Chad Padgett is the state director for BLM Alaska. His agency was assigned to complete the environmental impact statements for projects planned in two areas identified in ANILCA, the Road to Ambler and the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. So, what does Chad think is important for people to know about ANILCA? 

[Chad Padgett]: Well, ANILCA was a compromise designed to facilitate the traditional uses of lands in Alaska and really recognized what the people in Alaska used land for. It also allowed for the American public's desire to conserve large areas in their natural state. So really a large compromise. And I think that can't be emphasized enough that this was a compromise between those kinds of uses and then recognized Alaska's need to maintain a robust economy and make allowances for responsible development of the Coastal Plain of ANWR and the Ambler Mining District. So, for BLM within our multiple use mission, it's a good fit because we're balancing those kinds of issues on a daily basis. 

You know, in addition to that, we also have a large conveyance program, and in Title 9, it I can't overstate the importance of Title 9 because without that provision, un-patented, conveyed lands would be more difficult to develop because of the uncertainty of title.

And finally, what's really important is the "no more clause", or section 1326 of ANILCA. Under the no more clause, it means that we cannot put another conservation system within Alaska, at least over five thousand acres, without the consent of Congress. So, Congress really does have to decide if there are going to be more conservation lands in Alaska. It's not something that the agencies can decide. I think sometimes folks forget about that. But it's a really, really important provision for Alaska. 

[Jim Hart]: Joel Hard is the deputy regional director for Region 11 of the National Park Service, among other things, his agency is responsible for managing seven of the 10 largest national parks in the United States, including the biggest of them all, the 13.2 million-acre Wrangell-St. Elias Park and preserve. To Joel, Alaskan's make ANILCA important. 

[Joel Hard]: You know, Alaska is a celebrated place, right? It's got the size, the diversity and the quality of resource that the few other places have. Visitors come to these places, but they also understand that with protections afforded by an ANILCA, that those resources are protected in perpetuity for them. And there are people that get great solace from that. Alaskans view them as their homelands, or places of heritage, or even their backyards. 

They're important to them in terms of continuing their ways of life and supporting the activities that were important to them, whether that's hunting, whether that's mining, whether that's access to their inholding -- all of those things. But I think it's also important to look backwards a little bit and understand there was considerable distrust and misunderstanding at the time of the passage of ANILCA. Conservation's hard for that reason.

Bringing large expanses of land like this into federal management is no easy undertaking. People were offended in some ways because they felt like the resources of Alaska were being taken away and they they were frustrated by that. And some of that persists even today.

Now, 40 years later, I was fortunate to be a superintendent at Lake Clark National Park where Jay Hammond lived and died. And I became quite close with him. He's actually quoted as saying the parks hadn't been locked up, they'd been locked open by the compromise of ANILCA. And I think he was absolutely right. He and others recognized that, you know, parks and other federal lands could become economic engines in a different way for the state. The unique provisions of ANILCA protected that interest and protected the other interests.

And that balance, I think, of thoughtful protection and the opportunities consistent with conservation have worked out in very favorable ways. 

[Jim Hart]: Greg Siekaniec is the regional director for the Alaska region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is the largest federal land manager in Alaska, with approximately 77 million acres under its stewardship. For Greg’s agency, ANILCA made some important changes to how the Fish and Wildlife Service approached their mission.

[Greg Seikeniac]: Well, I think one of the most important things about the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act was this perspective provided on traditional lifestyles — that the visionaries of this act recognized that many, many people, both Alaska Natives and rural residents, live from the land. They live on the land, they live with the land. And they worked hard to ensure that there are provisions within this law that will protect that perspective. And it's generally called subsistence.

Title 8 of the act gives us the guidance that we are to continue to provide that opportunity. And in times of when there is either shortage and or difficulty in obtaining that, we have to we have to, by law, give some preference to the people who are these rural residents of the state. That's certainly to me is one that jumps right out at me that is so different than anywhere else that I've ever worked. And I’ve worked across the refuge system and across the Fish and Wildlife Service in the Lower 48.

I like to tell people, and in particular about ANILCA, that ANILCA is a relatively young law that was passed in 1980 after many, many years of debate and dialogue that followed the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. But it drew on many of the kind of loose ends that the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, and in fact, added an ANILCA amendment. 

But many of the tenets of ANILCA, being a 40 year-young law, are really not tested yet, as was recently evidenced by the Sturgeon decision — all the way to the Supreme Court on navigability and the relationship between the state of Alaska and the federal government in regards to those waters. You know, I think there are many tendencies ... I had maybe mentioned earlier that, you know, we have a purpose of water, sufficient water quality and quantity within national wildlife refuges that I'm not sure anyone's really figured out what that means. And when will that get tested? At some point in time. So, I think that the young, young act... young law is incredibly important, but in many ways, we're still finding our way through what this law really means. 

[Jim Hart]: That concludes this Frontier's podcast, make sure you check out the BLM Alaska Facebook page and join us as we share in celebrating a ANILCA's anniversary.

The Frontiers podcast is a production of the BLM Alaska Office of Communications.