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Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you, Mr. Schlender. 

 Mr. Poynter. 



STATEMENT OF KEN POYNTER 



Mr. Poynter. Good morning. 



My name is Ken Poynter, and I'm an enrolled member of the 

 Passamaquoddy Tribe of Maine, and Executive Director of the Na- 

 tive American Fish & Wildlife Society. 



The Society is a national tribal organization established to sup- 

 port the development of Indian tribal fish and wildlife management 

 capabilities within a professional framework, and to promote infor- 

 mation about Indian rights regarding their use of natural re- 

 sources. 



The Society has evolved over the past 11 years into an organiza- 

 tion of 1,000 professional biologists, managers and technicians, rep- 

 resenting all aspects of tribal fish and wildlife management and 

 conservation enforcement. 



The Society has obtained formal memberships from 70 tribal gov- 

 ernments and 8 tribal organizational memberships. 



Our board of directors is comprised of 14 Native American people 

 who represent all geographic regions of the United States. 



The federally recognized Indian tribes within the United States 

 have jurisdiction over a reservation land base of over 52 million 

 acres, or 81,250 square miles. 



Tribes also exercise jurisdictional authority over natural re- 

 sources outside of reservations due to federal court decisions and 

 voluntary cooperative agreements that mandate a co-management 

 status between tribes and states in the Northwest and Great Lakes 

 areas. 



Tribal lands coupled with the Ceded and Usual and Accustomed 

 areas (over 38 million acres for which tribes maintain co-manage- 

 ment jurisdiction for fisheries and wildlife management and utili- 

 zation) total a natural resource base of over 140,625 square miles, 

 containing more than a million acres of lakes and impoundments, 

 and thousands of miles of streams and rivers. 



Combined reservation lands would constitute the fifth largest 

 state in the United States. Adding the off-reservation areas would 

 constitute a land mass comparable to the State of Montana. 



The State of Alaska alone has 45 million acres of land which sup- 

 ports native subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering. The mem- 

 agement of this subsistence resource, the source of life for the in- 

 digenous people of Alaska, is in complete disarray, with these peo- 

 ple precluded in the management of the very resources which sus- 

 tain them. 



It is essential that the magnitude of the resource base under 

 tribal jurisdiction be fully understood in order to imderscore the ne- 

 cessity for support of tribal resource management activities. 



Tribal land bases now contribute significantly toward meeting 

 the demand for fisheries and wildlife recreational opportunities. 



Unfortunately, fisheries and wildlife funding options open to 

 tribes have not kept pace with the expanding responsibilities for 

 management, authority, or the demand for recreational opportuni- 

 ties by the tribal and non-tribal user. 



