Palin's opposition to Native rights

[struggle4progress]

LLOYD MILLER AND HEATHER KENDALL MILLER

October 13, 2008 at 12:54PM AKST


Perhaps no issue is of greater importance to Alaska Native peoples as the right to hunt and fish according to ancient customary and traditional practices, and to carry on the subsistence way of life for future generations. These rights are not just a matter of custom, they are a matter of necessity in a state where Native villages are spread across a largely roadless area covering 375 million acres, and where subsistence foods are still fully 60 percent of the local diet.

But Gov.Sarah Palin has consistently opposed those essential and fundamental rights.

As soon as Palin was sworn in as governor she set a firm course against Native subsistence rights. One of her very first decisions was to continue litigation that seeks to overturn every subsistence fishing determination the federal government has ever made in Alaska. The goal of Palin’s lawsuit (now known as Alaska v. Kempthorne) is to invalidate all the subsistence fishing regulations the federal government has ever issued to protect Alaska Native fishing in navigable waters. If successful, Palin’s attack would move every subsistence issue into the courts and thus tie up Alaska Native subsistence for generations. The reason is no secret: to diminish subsistence fishing rights in order to expand sport and commercial fishing.

As it turns out, last year the federal court in Alaska rejected Palin’s main challenge. The court held that in 1980 Congress had unequivocally granted the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture joint authority to regulate and protect Alaska Native (and even non-Native) subsistence fishing activities in most navigable waters. But that defeat has not deterred Palin ...

http://thecordovatimes.com/news/show/3512