Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act Compliance & Nonsubsistence Areas: How Can Alaska Thaw Out Rural & Alaska Native Subsistence Rights?

• Main Author: Strong, Miranda
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Duke University School of Law 2013
• Subjects: Law; Alaska law review; Alaska
• Online Access: https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/alr/vol30/iss1/3; https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1350&context=alr

The Alaska Constitution prevents the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act's (ANILCA) rural subsistence priority from being enforced. The Federal Government currently manages subsistence on federal lands in Alaska and Alaska can only resume management if it becomes ANILCA compliant. The current federal management system does not sufficiently protect rural and Alaska Natives' subsistence rights. Alaska's Legislature must overcome the rural-urban divide to amend its constitution to become ANILCA compliant again by providing a modified rural priority that includes urban Alaska Natives. The Alaska Legislature should repeal the nonsubsistence zones statute because it denies federally defined rural areas the state's subsistence priority.