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So here's a solution (that I hope isn't coming too late!):
Let's all read the first section, "Part 1: To 1980"; everyone will also read the "Epilogue" and "Five Years After: An Update." Let's then divide and conquer.
Chelsea, Florence, Alex, Brittney, Blake, Leah, Sarah, and Michael will read "Part II: 1980-1990." While Ellen, Gina, Phil, Carty, Chris, Ariel, Nick, and Jesse will read Part III: After 1990." The project in class, then, will be to have each group report back on the key points of each section, so please take some notes and be ready to help your classmates through the section they didn't read. If this presents problems--like maybe you've already read the entire book!--just drop me an e-mail.
Remember, also, to bring your research question for your final paper to class. You won't be wedded to the idea you suggest, but the more refined your question, the the more help you'll be able to get, so spend a bit of time thinking about the direction of your final paper this week, too. I have office hours on Tuesday from 3-4:30 if you want to talk about your project.
Until Wednesday,
Kevin
Where was the Wilderness Act philosophy?
ReplyDeleteIt is well known that there is always a delay for Alaska to receive the beta of the lower 48. However the Forest Service Multiple Use Plan’s theory of clearing an old growth forest in favor of faster growing second growth is fascinating logic. It may be presumptuous to think the Forest Service is intending on preserving a sustainable yield for the greater good of the public.
I suppose my biggest issue with the multiple use plan is its implementation year coinciding with that of the Wilderness Act in 1964. The lower 48 was having a substantial attitude adjustment whereas, unsustainable logging continued well into the 90s with terrible environmental awareness. The same frontier logic that decimated the Northwest went relatively unchecked for much of Alaska’s statehood.
In addition, the state’s isolation appeared to allow pro-development politicians to muscle out any opposition for an unbelievably long period of time.
Why do people hate SEACC?
ReplyDeleteEveryone around town has seen those bumper stickers with Calvin peeing on SEACC, which is something I’ve never understood. Why is there such a hate for an organization that seems to be trying to do good? I guess the bigger question here is why are people so vehemently opposed to conservation. I understand that there are a lot of loggers in AK who don’t want their jobs jeopardized. However, logging really didn’t generate a lot of jobs because employees were hired from outside of Alaska. The treatment of employees went even more downhill after 1976 when the pulp companies started monopolizing things and the big bosses where thousands of miles away and there was a big disconnect. It seems like things like this would persuade people to support SEACC and what they’re trying to do and the chaos behind closed doors that they were trying to expose.
Yet in spite of all of this, people still hate SEACC and what it stands for. Perhaps I am just uneducated on the negatives of the situation. Is it just politicians wanting more money and promising people that they will get more money if we allow the pulp monopolies to continue? Is it a lack of education on the matter? Is it faulty bills like the one that encouraged natives to fail in their pulp transactions so they could collect the loss? Perhaps it is a mix of all of these things. Perhaps it is our inclination to view ‘wilderness’ as a commodity that is there for us to buy and sell and use for our benefit, and people are angry that SEACC is getting in the way of that. I really am baffled why people would be so opposed to this. Maybe people in class with differing opinions will be able to open my mind on the issue.
Sweeping a Timber past under the rug?
ReplyDeleteReading about the Tongass from the 1980's on was like reading a horror novel in fast forward. The idea that the forest service was acting as little more than a logging subsidiary is very revealing and eye opening. To think, that a government agency responsible for managing the forests believed that to log it was the best way for Alaska to grow. What caused this American idea that resource development equals wealth? Or is it that the more resources are harvested, the more developed a place becomes? It seems to be backward logic. At some point, the ideal turned on itself and the forest became much more valuable totally undeveloped rather than logged. I haven't pinpointed an exact moment for that...but you dont see loggers flocking to Southeast anymore and I am glad for that. To me, there is a vast improvement in the Forest Services' Conservation strategies compared to the previous utilitarian or Reagan-esque strategies of land and resource management.
The wood pulp companies are evil because as they operate in Southeast, they pollute the landscapes around them. They can change the topography of the land, the biodiversity and the appeal of our state. But so can the mines, so can mass tourism, and the book about the Tongass is well-done in that it seeks to draw a historical precedent that begins in the Pulp companies and ends in our relatively new but exploding tourism industry. To me, it seems like the timber industry in the Tongass is a well kept secret from outsiders. Something to be admitted only in the dark and only away from prying ears in a soft whisper. Tourists and even residents are not able to see the huge fields of tree trunks, even though they may be right around the next bend,
What happened to the laws that come with logging in this time period?
ReplyDeleteMy father has spent most of his life as a logger and during my summers I spent a lot of time in the woods with him. Logging in Vermont comes with so many rules and regulations you have to follow for example a forester has to come to every lot you plan to cut and mark where you can cut and where you can't and a very detailed inspection is done after you have cut the piece of land. I understand that native organizations have different rules to follow with good reasoning behind these exemptions but I can't help but feel that there are certain rules and regulations everyone should have to follow no matter what. Reading things like this gives loggers a bad name. Well I disagree as I said my dad owned a small logging company in north eastern Vermont he sold locally and cared deeply about the land. Never bent the rules and people view him like some sort of backwoods redneck. Logging is a respectable job that is ruined when it becomes corporations and long term bullshit contracts that involve the government and multiple big time companies that don't care at all about the land they are working on. I also think the last portion of part 2 is bullcrap. Why should the native corporations be bought out when they broke lots of environmental laws and regulations clear cut tons of land and caused a bunch of landslides. I am all for equal rights and I know what has happened to the Native alaskans can never be fully forgiven but destroying land and getting paid for it seems wrong.
Did Alaska Natives really benefit from the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act? I want to explore this question, but at the same time I'm well aware that I'm treading into dangerously ignorant waters. I would really need to do a lot more research, and more importantly, communication with many, many people to hope to answer this question accurately. But, speaking from a limited viewpoint, did Alaska Natives truly survive this settlement. The way the book phrased it, it seemed like more more instance of "killing the savage to save the man" in American history. The Tlingit klans in Southeast Alaska mostly just wanted to be left alone; to return to what they had been doing before outsiders disrupted everything. To do this, they had to learn how to fight in the invader's terms. Those that started the battle had gotten their start at Sheldon Jackson college, but even that school has a history of whitewashing.
ReplyDeleteWhat did they end up winning? Rather than the ability to get on as they had before, they were dumped into categories, corporations. They were given an ultimatum to turn a profit for the good of their people, or waive their entitlements (I'm not sure if this is entirely accurate, but this is how it seemed from the reading). To do this, it seems like the only course of action was to do exactly what outside interests had wanted to do in the first place: exploit and develop their land.
To me, this seems like pleading with the executioner to save a person, only to be told, "OK, I won't kill him. You have to."
The Conservationists didn't exactly see eye to eye with the newly formed corporations either. Rather than working together to preserve traditional rights, they were (for the most part) still looking to exclude Native Alaskans' rights, only this time to set it aside rather than develop. This seems like the lesser of two evils, but it still seems like if they had worked side by side, traditional subsistence lifestyle would keep the Tongass from being exploited better than even the words of the Wilderness Act would have.
Tongass vs. the Pulp Mills: David against Goliath?
ReplyDeleteWhen I read about the years and years of clear-logging that have gone on in the Tongass, it seemed almost incredible to me that so many times people had objected to what the big Pulpmill companies were doing but that it could still not be stopped.
The means the pulpmill companies used to achieve power and control of timber over whole Southeast Alaska I came to think of it as a mafia: You have to have a lot of capital, know the right people (politicans...) and threaten the „small“ people who don’t really know what is going on farther away than their own town – and you’ll have all the power to turn the laws to your favor and make opponents shut their mouth.
I often aks myself if such people don’t have a conscience – what does drive them to do such things? Is it the dollars only?
Anyway, it was impressive to read that early from the 70’s on; hunters, locals, biologist and even a lot of loggers have seen and tried to make public the destastrous consequences clear-cutting has on the landscape and habitat – for some it was almost a battle of a lifetime – but that they still were so powerless.
Leah, I was just talking to a friend about this while reading the book. Have you seen the guy with the Calvin sticker that also has the license plate that says "logger?" My friend compared the fight against the two parties to congress. Pretty fitting I think.
ReplyDeleteWhat would the fate of the Tongass be if the timber mining depression never took place?
My ideas on this touch somewhat on what Leah brought up in her response. We know that like so many other mining and land exploitation practices that the promise of jobs is a huge push although that’s hardly ever the case. Most jobs that were created were given to non-Alaskans and that the timber went over seas to Asian countries. I would like to believe that considering this factor and also considering the consequences to native subsistence practices and spiritual connection with the land, and the idea that workers who came up had an idea of living out the “dream of a frontier lifestyle” would fade out. I guess, I could speculate all I would like about what our forest would look like without the timber mining depression and hope that it would be similar to current day but we’ll never know. This book opened my eyes up so much about the history of the Tongass and I have to say although it was at most times hard to read, it makes me thankful for its current state.
Is it fair to address the Tongass, and the actions of Native Corporations, without a deeper look into history and culture?
ReplyDeleteMy main concern in this book is that it doesn’t seem to me that Durbin understands Alaskan history nearly well enough. I know I’m biased, but her perspective and understanding of the situation seems flawed. On page 16 she makes the claim that ANB/ANS were reflective of their education at Sheldon Jackson, and reflective of Sheldon Jackson himself. This in and of itself is a flawed foundation for understanding the actions of the founders. I imagine she may have gotten this perspective from the north, where writers like William Hensley are too shortsighted to realize he, and they, came to the fight late. A year before the foundation of ANB, the students at Sheldon Jackson started publishing articles questioning the treatment of natives in Alaska. From the beginning of the school, Tlingit’s had shown a vigilance in checking the actions of Sheldon Jackson, and even taking him to court. Many of the founders of ANB and ANS were Tlingit speaking men and women who were doing what they felt was best to continue their way of life, not simply ‘assimilation’.
I also must question any writer who tries to write about native land claims without focusing on William Paul and the Tee-Hit-Ton case. Stephan Haycox has written extensively about both, and seems to understand the situation much better than Durbin.
Another thing that I question is how well one can understand the actions of Alaska Native Corporations without consideration to their changing lifestyle. Entire ways of life were/are being threatened in the past 200 years. Languages, histories, political organizations, spirituality, artwork, dancing, subsistence, education, and the very notion of survival were shifting. At times this has meant that (some) natives have been open to using western economic models and integration, in order to survive. To what extent these actions should be accepted is unclear, and I definitely think they should be open to questioning and changing. but the perspective of conservation and preservation by outside sources (I admit, this is reductive) is a continuation of imperialistic intervention.
The quote from Gambel highlights this well: “We’re not environmentalists, we’re not preservationists, we’re here for one reason and one reason only.’ We told them our fight hadn’t been for only forty years but from time immemorial. It had been going on for ten thousand years (57).”
Also of note, as I leave Fairbanks, is that I saw Hensley this weekend during the Youth and Elders Conference. AFN starts today, but unfortunately I have to come back to Juneau for work...
What is the future plan for logging in the "Alaskan Rain Forest?" Will there continue to be high harvest rates while areas for logging become scarce to find and ultimately use?
ReplyDeleteAs simple as it may be to balance resources it never ends up being that way. Similar to the need for oil, is there a way to slow down our need and use of these such resources. Can we survive without major logging as an industry? We are best known for discovering new resources to our problems once one runs out so why can't we run away from our problems here?
Besides potable drinking water and edible food, trees are our if not our third most valuable resource, one of our top 5. So, why do we still let overharvest and improper management of our forests and trees go without being unseen. There are many different sides, views, opinions, and people in charge who make up the outcome for end result.
It will be interesting to see if we can come to a uniform management of our forests. If we can then we can still have the many wilderness places we call "wilderness" and at the same time be able to harvest enough trees to support the needs of millions of people who live in the United States and the rest of the world who are dependent on our resources as well.