buzzz worthy. . .
President Obama to Announce New Steps to Enhance Administration Collaboration with Alaska Natives, the State of Alaska, and Local Communities
President Obama to Announce New Steps to Enhance Administration Collaboration with Alaska Natives, the State of Alaska, and Local Communities
Tomorrow
in Anchorage, President Obama will meet with leaders from the Alaska
Native community along with Governor Bill Walker, Lt. Governor Byron
Mallott, and Senator Lisa Murkowski to
discuss ways to strengthen cooperation between the Federal Government
and Alaska Native tribes, including by furthering progress in developing
cooperative management strategies for fish and wildlife. The President
will also announce that the Federal Government
has officially restored the Koyukon Athabascan name of Denali to
the tallest mountain in North America, previously known as Mt.
McKinley. This designation recognizes the sacred status of Denali to
generations of Alaska Natives.
Climate
change threatens the way of life of Alaska Natives across the state,
from the North Slope to Bristol Bay. The Arctic is warming twice as fast
as the rest of the world, and is experiencing
the consequences. Higher average temperatures are diminishing the range
of winter sea ice, allowing heavy storm surges that sea ice once kept
at bay to batter the Alaskan coastline, and interrupting the winter
hunting season for Alaska Natives. The northernmost
reaches of the state are losing slightly more than a football field’s
worth of land a day to coastal erosion and sea level rise. Rising ocean
temperatures and increasing acidity are affecting marine life, including
the fish, shellfish, and marine mammals on
which generations of Alaska Natives have depended. And due in part to
climate change, earlier this summer, hundreds of wildfires scorched more
than 5 million acres of land–an area approximately the size of
Massachusetts, damaging homes and threatening communities.
2014 was the hottest year globally on record and 2015 so far has been
breaking records as well.
Throughout
his time in office, President Obama has sought greater engagement and
collaboration with Native American tribes. Each year, the President has
hosted a White House Tribal Nations
Conference, bringing together tribal leaders from across the country.
In 2014, the President made his first visit to Indian Country when he
traveled to Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. He took his
second trip to Indian Country in July when he visited
the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. The President’s recently-launched
Generation Indigenous initiative (Gen-I) seeks to improve the lives of
Native youth through new investments and increased engagement. Today’s
announcements builds on that record of accomplishment
by addressing issues of concern for Alaska Native tribes.
Renaming the tallest mountain in North America to reflect the heritage of Alaska Natives.
In 1896, a prospector emerged from
exploring the mountains of central Alaska and received news that
William McKinley had been nominated as a candidate for President of the
United States. In a show of support, the prospector declared the tallest
peak of the Alaska Range as “Mt. McKinley”—and
the name stuck.
McKinley
became our 25th President, and was tragically assassinated just six
months into his second term. But he never set foot in Alaska—and for
centuries, the mountain that rises some
20,000 feet above sea level, the tallest on the North American
continent, had been known by another name—Denali. Generally believed to
be central to the Athabascan creation story, Denali is a site of
significant cultural importance to many Alaska Natives.
The name “Denali” has been used for many years and is widely used
across the state today.
Today,
finalizing a process initiated by the State of Alaska in 1975,
President Obama is announcing that the Secretary of the Interior Sally
Jewell used her authority to rename the mountain
as “Denali.”
Announcing next steps on fish and wildlife cooperative management.
In
October 2014, the Department of the Interior (DOI) announced plans to
develop a demonstration project to promote tribal cooperative management
of fisheries within the Kuskokwim River drainage and
provide subsistence participants direct input into the decision-making
process for in-season fisheries management of Chinook salmon stocks, an
essential resource for the tribal economic, nutritional, cultural and
spiritual way of life and which have experienced
a steep decline over more than a decade.
Today,
the Obama Administration is building on that program by announcing DOI
will provide $375,000 in funding for the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal
Fish Commission and the Yukon River Inter-tribal
Fish Commission. These funds will help build capacity in the
Commissions. Both Commissions have a critical need for administrative
support, biologists, social scientists, and legal consultants to ensure
that they have the capacity to fully engage in the historic
tribal salmon management opportunities available and to ensure that
tribal traditional knowledge is meaningfully employed in the
conservation and re-building of Chinook salmon stocks.
Investing in neighborhood revitalization in Anchorage.
The
Administration welcomes ArtPlace America’s announcement of its $3
million investment in the Cook Inlet Housing Authority (CIHA), a tribal
housing authority in Anchorage, AK, that works in close partnership
with the Department of Housing and Urban Development to create
empowered communities of opportunity. ArtPlace is a partnership among 15
foundations, including Rasmuson, Bloomberg, Ford, Kinght, Kresge and
Rockefeller, eight federal agencies, and six banks
that works to position art and culture as a core sector of community
planning and development. The ArtPlace grant will enable CIHA to
incorporate artists and designers neighborhood revitalization planning
and development in Anchorage, which is part of $18
million in investments in place-based organizations across the country.
Launching a youth engagement program to promote an Arctic way of life. The
Administration is announcing that under the leadership
of DOI, it will launch a youth exchange program meant to bring together
Alaskan youth from both urban and rural areas, including Alaska
Natives, to share their perspectives, learn together, and prepare to
become young stewards of the Arctic way of life. These
youth will participate in a program that includes rural field
exploration to understand the challenges of a changing Arctic and the
potential for local solutions against the impacts of climate change,
elder engagement to gather traditional knowledge, and participation
in science seminars with scientists and decision-makers. The youth will
participate in a leadership academy that will allow them to present
their learning and insights to influential Arctic leaders, including
Arctic Council representatives and diplomats. The
youth will also engage internationally more broadly through virtual
exchanges and pro-active social media engagement. This will allow
Alaskan youth to share their experiences in the American Arctic while
simultaneously learning about other parts of the Arctic
and identifying areas of potential international collaboration.
Bridging the gap between native communities, conservation science, and natural resource management.
The U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation,
the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program (ANSEP) at the
University of Alaska Anchorage, and Rasmuson Foundation
are announcing $1,035,200 in collaborative funding to support advisor
positions at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, also known as "Refuge
Information Technicians." The collaboration also funds internships for
young Alaska residents attending ANSEP with
the hope of opening the door for rural village residents to obtain, and
for students to aspire to, professional careers in fish and wildlife
management in Alaska and nationally. The net result of this system
change would be a win-win for the federal government
and for local communities. While this particular project is relatively
modest in scale, it could prove to be a catalyst for the next generation
of natural resource managers in Alaska. The initiative supports the
Administration's Generation Indigenous initiative,
which focuses on improving the lives of Native youth through new
investments and increased engagement.