Alaska appeals against a federal court ruling that was a step toward a new “Indian land”

Updated: 11 hours ago Published: 11 hours ago

The State of Alaska continues its efforts to obstruct Alaska Native tribes’ efforts to protect their traditional lands through a federal trust.

On Friday, the Alaska Department of Law filed a notice announcing its intention to ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to review a decision by a U.S. district court in Alaska that overturned decades of precedent: Under certain circumstances, the federal government has the authority to take land into trust on behalf of tribes.

The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 wiped out most of the “Indian Territory” in Alaska. However, Judge Sharon Gleason ruled in favor of the tribes and the federal government, finding that the law did not prevent the federal government from creating new trust lands.

The state of Alaska does not agree with this ruling, Attorney General Treg Taylor said on Friday.

“ANCSA abolished the reservation system in Alaska and left the federal agency with no authority to rebuild that system itself more than 50 years later,” he said in a written statement shortly after the appeal was filed. “The state will not wait for the federal agency to come up with new ways to change the way Alaska operates. We filed this lawsuit so that the courts can resolve this matter with finality. To achieve such finality, the appellate courts must step in.”

Most Alaska Native land is owned by Native corporations governed by state and federal law. Alaska Native tribes, which are sovereign governments and can exercise authority over Indian Territory, have relatively little land under their control.

The case in question concerns a 787 square meter property in Juneau owned by the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.

After the Department of the Interior issued a legal memo stating that it believed it had the authority to place land in trust, the Tlingit and Haida attempted to use the federal process common in the Lower 48 states to place the land under their government control. However, the state filed suit, claiming the federal government was misinterpreting existing law.

In June, Gleason ruled that the process used in the Tlingit and Haida cases was flawed, but it was also crucial that there were legal ways for tribes to transfer land into trust.

Originally published by Alaska Beaconan independent, nonpartisan news organization covering Alaska state government.