126 



exceptions, state and federal regulations require that the skull of 

 a brown bear be brought back to the village to be sealed and tagged 

 — yet the custom in many Eskimo and Indian villages is that the 

 skull is to be left in the field as a sign of respect for the bear. 

 Other restrictions impair the efficiency of Native hunters to no 

 apparent purpose. Efficiency is a key element of subsistence 

 hunting. The rule prohibiting a hunter from shooting a caribou 

 from a snowmachine makes little sense to the hunter in deep snow 

 who wants to use the handlebar as a gun rest. 



The Canadian government has faced similar issues with respect 

 to Native take in northern Canada. The Canadians' response has 

 been to create mechanisms that incorporate traditional knowledge 

 and Native ways into the regulation-making process, with Natives 

 participating as decision-makers, rather than as interest groups 

 commenting on government proposals. My own observations confirm 

 that the Canadian's co-management approach generally has been quite 

 successful there. 



Co-management has also been tried, to a lesser degree, here in 

 the United States. Two notable examples are the work done with the 

 Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission and with migratory bird hunters on 

 the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. The federal government and the AEWC 

 have entered into an agreement which basically provides that the 

 AEWC will have the primary responsibility for regulating whale 

 hunting and for enforcing the regulations — the government's role 

 is to step in and enforce the law if someone violates the AEWC's 

 enforcement orders. The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta Goose Management 

 Plan is a landmark agreement, by which the federal government 

 agreed not to enforce the prohibition on spring and summer hunting 

 of migratory birds, if Native hunters agreed not to hunt certain 

 species of birds. The Plan contains a variety of provisions 

 setting out how enforcement will be carried out, including joint 

 efforts at implementation and notification to the villages of 

 possible violations. 



These approaches have been very successful, but they 

 unfortunately are exceptions to the general approach in Alaska. 

 Alaska Natives have been told that the phrase "co-management" is 

 not acceptable to federal officials in Alaska, and that the term 

 "cooperative management" is to be used instead. The Native 

 experience is that this really means: "We manage and you 

 cooperate." That is, the Native role largely is confined to one of 

 consultation with federal agencies, with little actual authority 

 being recognized or granted to Native villages or organizations. 

 And when Natives attempt to present their traditional knowledge to 

 federal agencies, that information usually is dismissed as 

 "anecdotal" and hence not as reliable as that provided by 

 university-trained scientists. 



The Alaska Native community believes that the federal 

 government needs to be more receptive to the validity of 

 traditional knowledge, and the value of co-management as a means of 

 assuring better information about and management of fish and 

 wildlife resources in Alaska. Meaningful Native involvement in 



10 



