Opinion: State can balance Alaska Native rights, development

Monday, June 20, 2011  

"The State of Alaska doesn't need to end its role in coastal zone management, but all parties will benefit if it will substantively change and limit that role, and acknowledge the primary right of Alaska's rural people and communities to make local decisions on issues impacting subsistence and adaptation to climate change.

No one appreciates the need for economic development more than rural Alaskans do. They have worked cooperatively and successfully with development interests for a long time when they've been included "at the table" in a meaningful way. There is ample evidence over many years they and developers can be good, mutually beneficial neighbors. Rural communities and elders have frequently provided relevant local information that state or private sector planners did not possess; and they have shown they can be trusted to make sound choices when provided clear, well-grounded information, and empowered to make those choices.

Rural coastal management and development would not be damaged -- in fact they would be significantly helped -- if the state were to let go of current practices, and instead spent a year or so on two critical coastal management tasks."

Get the Story:
Clay McDowall: We balanced development, Native rights once before (The Anchorage Daily News 6/18)