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Description

The 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act established thirteen Native corporations in Southeast Alaska. There are twelve "village" corporations and one "regional" corporation (Sealaska Corporation). The Native corporations were entitled to select approximately 550,000 acres of land out of the Tongrass National Forest, about 90 percent of which have been conveyed. This study reviews Native corporation timber resources, harvests to date, and projected future harvest levels. Publicly available data on the volume of timber conveyed to Native corporations are subject to a wide margin of error. Estimates based on Forest Service data suggest that economic volume at conveyance was between 4.0 and 7.8 billion board feet. About 56 percent of this timber volume was on village corporation lands, with the remainder on Sealaska lands. Native corporation timber harvests began in 1979 and grew rapidly to almost 400 million board feet in FY 1988, despite depressed timber markets in the period 1981-1986. Since 1983, more than half of the timber harvests in Southeast Alaska have occurred on Native lands. More than 2 billion board feet had been harvested by 1988. Most of the timber is exported as round logs, primarily to Japan. Most of the village corporations will have harvested all of their merchantable timber by 1991. If current market conditions continue, Native harvest will decline sharply over the next three years as most village corporation harvests end. Approximately 10 to 15 years from now, harvest will again decline after Sealaska Corporation completes logging on most of its lands.

Publication Date

10-17-1989

Keywords

Native Alaskan, Timber, Natural Resources

Handle

http://hdl.handle.net/11122/14344

Native Timber Harvests in Southeast Alaska

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