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BBNC supports moose hunter in supreme court case

The Supreme Court is set to consider a case about a moose hunter and his hovercraft – and just how much authority congress intended to give federal managers when it ANILCA became law in 1980.

Bristol Bay Native Corporation signed on to a friend of the court brief in a Supreme Court case set to be heard January 20, backing a moose hunter who used a hovercraft in the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve.

BBNC Associate General Counsel Daniel Cheyette said the corporation believes the park service doesn’t have the authority to enforce some regulations in Alaska.

“We believe that ANILCA was pretty specific that lands within conservation system units within Alaska that are privately owned, meaning ANC lands, are not regulated as part of the CSUs, so the park service or the refuge service or whomever can’t regulate those lands,” Cheyette said.

As a regional corporation, BBNC has subsurface rights on some land and full title to other parcels that it believes are at risk.

“Just kind of back of the envelope calculations, about 1.3 million acres of BBNC lands are potentially within conservation system units that are impacted by the ruling,” Cheyette said.

BBNC and others believe that congress didn’t intend to take any rights away from private landholders when it agreed to protect adjacent acreage when the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act became law in 1980. Cheyette said that BBNC’s ability to use its land as it sees fit is at stake.

“We want to make sure that those lands remain available to us, for subsistence, for potential development should that ever become a possibility or feasible, or whatever other issues that we believe is appropriate as the landowner,” he said. "...Congress was very careful to include language...That the private landowners would still have full use and ownership of those lands, and that’s what we’re seeking to protect."

The Alaska Superior Court and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals ruled against John Sturgeon, the man who says the Park Service prohibition against Hovercraft shouldn’t apply in Alaska. Doyon, the regional native corporation in Interior Alaska, initiated the brief supporting Sturgeon, which was signed by BBNC and other Alaska Native Corporations.

Cheyette said the fact that the Supreme Court accepted the case was a good sign.

"Obviously they think there’s something about the decisions below that should be heard," he said.

The state of Alaska has also supported Sturgeon. Some subsistence users, however, have said they’re concerned that if the court sides with Sturgeon, it could impact a federal subsistence priority.