When Values Conflict: Political Accommodation of Alaska Native Subsistence

Abstract

Management of subsistence hunting and fishing in Alaska today is caught between federal law and the Alaska constitution. The federal Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 (ANILCA) requires giving Natives and other rural residents subsistence preference-that is, first call on fish and game when they are scarce. But the Alaska Supreme Court~ McDowell decision in 1989 held that a similar state law was unconstitutional, because the state's constitution prohibits granting such preferences based solely on place of residence. As a result, the federal government now manages subsistence on federal lands, the state on state lands, and it appears to some that the two management systems are headed toward an inevitable "horrific collision." This paper argues that although the fundamental value conflict between equal rights and cultural survival cannot be resolved, it can be circumvented and at least partially neutralized. Legislators, judges, and administrators can focus on material or economic problems of resource conservation and allocation, which, unlike value conflicts, are more susceptible to compromise.