To save only 15 percent is negligent and 1/2 percent is criminal. The current effort is unacceptable.

Authorized catcher boats are already being released from the rescue effort because Exxon wants everyone to believe that the sea otter emergency has passed. We received word on May 23 that the Seward Otter Center may shut down in 1 month. Jim Styers states, "the rescue effort is phasing out." I.C.E. is totally against reducing the sea otter rescue operation while the situation is escalating.

I.C.E.'s purpose is to preserve, protect, and enhance marine line and to promote Alaska Native rights and interests in environmental issues. We must be prepared with an Alaska Native Emergency Response Team trained in all phases of sea otter capture and rehabilitation techniques in the event of other spills. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service entered into an agreement with I.C.E. to train Alaska Natives as an Emergency Response Team on May 1. To date I.C.E. has worked in cooperation with Fish and Wildlife Service to train 12 volunteers. We need to train many more.

I.C.E. has a program that is working successfully, yet we have received no funding. Our trainees at sea risk their lives daily and are the only ones out of thousands not being paid. Our office help and supplies have all been donated, but I.C.E. must find a way to pay our Alaska Natives. They cannot afford to volunteer. Alaska Natives in the program all have families, rent, mortgages, and bills, the same as everyone else, except that many of us have lost our subsistence way of life. Alaska Natives also have the highest unemployment rate in the State.

The oil spill has been a disaster because the sea has always been our garden and now it is becoming a desert.

I.Č.E. has received calls from many of the villages impacted by the oil spill who want to work but cannot afford to volunteer. Some of our volunteers have quit jobs to train because they see an Emergency Response Team and the saving of our marine mammals as really important. But they, too, cannot afford to volunteer.

I.C.E. respectfully asks that the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs and our Alaska congressional delegation work together to help us to access emergency funding available, as this is a very time-sensitive issue. We request your full support and immediate action to direct appropriate Federal funds to be made available directly to those most impacted, the Alaska Natives, in response to losing their traditional way of life for years to come.

All tribal governments and/or organizations impacted should have the same access to Federal emergency funding sources as other local governments in the State. Your support in helping us access the 311-K funds through the Clean Water Act and/or the Superfund, or any other Federal funds that could be made available on an emergency basis, is essential. If this committee would work with us to help identify a liaison to work with I.C.E. directly, or other tribal organizations, who has the authority to cut through red tape and the contacts to expedite these emergency funds, then the policy of the Marine Mammals Protection Act could be fulfilled. We have the right to harvest these marine mammals but with proper funding we can help to save them.

I would like to take a moment to specially thank Mr. Walter Stieglitz, Regional Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,

and Chief Keith Bayha, Agent in charge of Operation Sea Otter Rescue, for their full support and guidance in helping to develop a qualified Emergency Response Team made up of Alaska Natives. I also want to thank the many volunteers who have supported I.C.E. in accomplishing these goals.

Your full support can ensure the success of Alaska Natives working with the Federal Government in a positive manner to help save our sea otters.

In conclusion, these otters belong to all of us. To wipe out one species affects the whole balance of a sensitive ecosystem. None of us wants to see whole populations die.

I thank you for your time and I pray that you will listen and help us.

The CHAIRMAN. As you may know, I will be spending most of the day of tomorrow in the Native villages of Chenega and Tatitlek to further pursue this matter. I will be conveying your application for funding to the proper authorities.

Mr. BAHR. May I also include here that this oil spill has now hit below Kodiak Island, so Port Graham, Port Lyons, Kodiak itself, a about eight or nine more villages that are directly affected. They've been told not to eat anything from the ocean. It is kind of like losing your grocery store all of a sudden-one day you have it and the next day you don't. This is going to go on for years. This is not a one year situation.

I thank you again for your time.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Our final witness is Mr. Bart Garber, Member of the Council of the Native Village of Tyonek.

STATEMENT OF BART GARBER, COUNCIL MEMBER, NATIVE

VILLAGE OF TYONEK

Mr. GARBER. Thank you Senator Inouye, and thank you for the opportunity to speak here today. My name is Bart Garber. I am a member of the Native village of Tyonek and a staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund. My remarks today are my own or, where attributed, those of the Native village of Tyonek, for whom I serve as a Member of the Tribal Council, and not those of our village clients around the State. Some of my comments also concern activities I began while I served as a professor and Director of the Alaska Native Program at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.

Tyonek is a Athabascan village on the west side of Cook Inlet, with a population between 200 and 300, depending on the time of year, and enrollment of more than 300. It is in excess of 95 to 99 percent Dena'Ina Athabascans.

The matters of which you are concerned with on this committee in terms of suicide, unemployment rates, economic development, the oil spill are not alien to us. But my comments will be narrower than that. Indeed, I would like to take the opportunity to at least credit my village-with an unemployment rate of 80 percent, they are presently taking subsistence Kings and are contributing upwards of 10 percent of their catch to the Native villages of English

Bay and Port Graham since they can't take fish. We can and ours are clean.

My comments today, however, address the AFN report on "The Status of Alaska Natives-A Call for Action" and fall into two areas of concern-the need to develop an accurate and complete record before attempting any significant policy changes in Alaska Native programs, and the need to remain sensitive to the needs of Native population resident in Alaska villages when balancing their interests against those Natives who move away.

The first point is more a matter of notice. It is something that I was interested in. I do concur that we shouldn't take too exorbitant a period of time to study these matters which are of immediate concern. I can testify to that based on my own village's experience. However, a rich opportunity is available to you to supplement the Native program policy data base, if you will, in the form of the 1990 United States decennial census. For the first time, one out of two households in rural Alaska will be asked to respond to the census questionnaire versus one in six in the past. Done well, the 1990 census could result in the most representative demographic profile of Alaska Natives yet produced. Standard and special tabulations of this data will be invaluable in assessing the objective situation of Alaska Natives in areas such as age and sex, households and families, marital status, fertility and mortality, migration, education, labor force participation, occupation, and income and poverty. Indeed, what we believe is the first comprehensive monograph of the demographic history of Alaska Natives just now nears completion. I might add, however, that your most valuable contributors will be Native people as you've heard today, and I do recommend that you continue these hearings to acquire more of that information.

In terms of this monograph, Doctor Michael Leadman, a small population demographer at the Bureau of Census-and I might add for your interest, he is an expert in South Pacific populations and that's where he does most of his work-and myself, with the help of the State of Alaska, the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, and the Bureau of Census have worked for over a year, and Michael has been on and off this project for over three years, and we have nearly completed a final draft monograph which is presently being reviewed. The monograph covers demographic change among Alaska Natives from the first decennial census in 1880 to the most recent 1980 census. The monograph is intended to provide a broad overview of the demographic, social, and economic situation of Alaska Natives in Alaska rather than a detailed analysis of any one issue or community. I believe it will be invaluable to your effort in determining future policy for Alaska Natives.

Data for 1990 census can easily be incorporated into and compared with the data in the historical monograph. Special tabulations and more particular indicators and intra-census surveys, such as, for instances, subsistence activity-since data on subsistence are not collected in State questionnaires, they are collected, however, in territories and possessions so that examples are availablewould contribute even more information critical to matters before your committee. I would suggest that if that type of special census

surveys are called for that money might be made available to the Bureau together with Native organizations in the State to conduct those surveys.

To the more important matters, however, that I wanted to talk about-Village residents and their communities. The AFN report includes preliminary findings and recommendations based upon research by the Institute of Social and Economic Research. The Native village of Tyonek concurs with some of the particular and some of the broader observations but beg to differ with other critical inferences which could be drawn from the findings and recommendations. Although the number of Natives residing in urban areas continues to increase, the majority of Alaska Natives will remain in the villages. This is our experience and one which will require a continued emphasis on the needs of Natives residing in those villages.

We differ with the broader inference the AFN study gives credence to that but for the plethora of government assistance in rural areas, Natives would be moving to urban areas in droves and that village economies are buoyed by an artificially high level of Federal and State aid, which in the long run is not sustainable. We know there are more substantial personal, family, and cultural reasons why Natives remain in their communities or desire to do so. Second, the level of State and Federal aid to communities should not be the main criteria for determining which economies are “sustainable" and, by extension, where most people should live. Based on these criteria, the committee could be forced to expand its mission and consider why every urban and rural community in Alaska, with the exception of North Slope, Kenaika, TyonekBuloga areas, those communities with petroleum resources, should not relocate to Los Angeles. In a State where both the Federal and State governments have opted to retain, and I believe properly so, large blocks of public land, redistribution of government proceeds from those properties to local communities has been and will continue to be a fact of life.

We agree that much work remains to facilitate self-help in villages and to improve mechanisms for rural Natives, their families and communities to influence and guide social and economic change in their communities. This will require, however, significant adjustments in present policy. For example, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act emphasized a settlement scheme based on individual rights and as some originally commented-not today, but historically-the right to travel. Since its passage demographic trends together with the fact that Native corporations are largely controlled by a diminishing number of Natives who happened to be alive in 1971 has left land use and tenure decisions in the hands of Natives who more and more live outside the village. Realignment of land ownership in the villages and renewed emphasis on local regulation must be supported by Federal policy, otherwise people actually residing in the villages won't have a whole lot to say about what happens in their local areas.

Native residents of rural villages demand more flexibility in determining the appropriate relationship between tribal governments and ANCSA corporations. We have embarked on cooperative plans for economic development and local service delivery in Tyonek. We

have growing number of relationships between our tribal government and our local borough together with our local village corporation. The social engineering experiments, however, of distant bureaucrats are not much appreciated in a community like Tyonek, where our eighth recorded traditional Chief only died in the late 1950's and where our reorganized tribal council has delivered most local services and managed thousands of acres of land around the village from 1939 to the present.

The Native village of Tyonek supports the efforts of this committee to adjust Federal policies to better meet the realistic goals and expectations of Native people. We hope this work does not merely result in flipping the proverbial Indian policy pancake without any meaningful change in the batter. We do not need a rehashed urban relocation program. We can use innovative programs to meet the needs of Alaska Natives who voluntarily chose to live in the village or move to the city or, as more normally is the case, those who move back and forth.

I thank you for this opportunity. I hope that you have some concluding comments, Senator, because traditionally the last place is left for our elders and I'm not exactly that yet. [Laughter.]

[Prepared statement of Mr. Garber appears in the appendix.] The CHAIRMAN. You did very well, sir. I believe Albert Kaloa-Mr. GARBER. He's my uncle and he raised me.

The CHAIRMAN. In his blood flows the blood of proud Hawaiians and the Athabascan people. He was a member of your village.

Mr. GARBER. I plead guilty. I am the eldest grandchild of that family and Albert raised me.

The CHAIRMAN. We are happy to know that we Hawaiians did something to help you. [Laughter.]

As I stated when this meeting was called to order, much as I would like to remain here throughout the evening, Í have prior commitments to keep and other meetings to attend. Therefore, I will have to adjourn at this point. But I would like to advise all of you who wish to testify that the record will be kept open for two weeks and during that time if you wish you may submit your written statements. I can assure you those statements will be made part of the record.

For the record, I have been advised that the following had wished to testify this afternoon: Helen Belio, Gordon Pulah, Linda Henrikson, Gary Harrison, Perry Mendenhal, Juliet Hartwick, Mr. Frank of Hydaburg, and Hank Protrosky. Are there any others who want their names for the record?

Yes, your name?

Mr. NAKIUP. My name is Alan Nakiup.

Mr. KATCHATAG. My name is Stanton Katchatag. I am the Chairperson for Western Alaska Tribal Council.

Mr. ALEXANDER. My name is Clarence Alexander. I am the Chairman of the Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments.

Ms. SALLEE. I am Jaclyn Sallee. I am also a member of the Alaska Native Communications Society.

Mr. OWENS. I am Philip Owens. I am with Alaska Native Cultural Arts Exchange.

The CHAIRMAN. So that we won't make any mistakes, will you tell the clerk the proper spelling of all your names.