Alaska Native leaders brought a unified salmon co-management demand to NCAI

Alaska Native leaders presented a unified demand for Tribal co-management of Alaska salmon to the National Congress of American Indians on June 16, bringing years of severe salmon collapses on the Arctic, Yukon, and Kuskokwim systems to a national Indigenous audience. The panel — "One People, One Voice: Standing Up for Alaska's Salmon and Our Way of Life" — was part of NCAI's Mid-Year Convention in Memphis, June 14-17.

The panel included representatives from the Tanana Chiefs Conference, the Association of Village Council Presidents, the Alaska Federation of Natives, the Craig Tribal Association, the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, and The Tatitlek Corporation. Panelists framed declining Chinook and chum runs as a compounding emergency intensified by federal and state management frameworks that, in their view, have sidelined Tribal voices.

"This is not only a fisheries issue; it is a food security crisis, a cultural crisis, and an equity issue," said Angela Totemoff of The Tatitlek Corporation and Chair of the AFN Subsistence Committee.

"Across Alaska, families have made extraordinary sacrifices in the name of conservation," said Tanana Chiefs Conference Chief/Chair Sharon Hildebrand. "Many of our communities have gone years without the opportunity to harvest the salmon that have sustained them for generations. Yet the burden of conservation continues to fall disproportionately on subsistence users."

"Alaska Tribes have largely been excluded from co-management frameworks despite our inherent sovereignty, stewardship responsibilities, and deep cultural and subsistence reliance on salmon," said AVCP CEO Vivian Korthuis.

The delegation called for increased investment in Tribal co-management, meaningful Tribal participation in fisheries decision-making, federal policy reforms treating subsistence as a primary management priority, and ecosystem-based approaches.

The structural context: Alaska salmon management runs through multiple jurisdictions — the Federal Subsistence Board (under ANILCA, which established a rural rather than specifically Tribal priority), the gubernatorially appointed Alaska Board of Fisheries, and the Pacific Salmon Treaty (governing U.S.-Canada Chinook allocation on the Yukon). None currently treats Alaska Tribes as co-management partners with binding decision authority, though specific structures like the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission have moved in that direction. The Alaska delegation's NCAI call is for structural expansion of that role.

No federal agency or state response was included in the source materials.