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Good afternoon Mr. Chairman. I am Joe Wilson, President and 

 Chief Executive Officer of Goldbelt, Incorporated, the urban 

 Native Corporation for Juneau, Alaska. I am accompanied today by 

 Josephine Armstrong, Chairman of our Board of Directors. Both 

 Josephine and I are shareholders as well as officers of Goldbelt. 

 We appreciate the opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee 

 to present Goldbelt's views on H.R. 987, which designates vast 

 new wilderness areas in the Tongass National Forest. 



Before I discuss the House bill and its effects upon us, I 

 would like to tell you a little bit about Goldbelt and its 

 history. Goldbelt is one of the four urban Native Corporations 

 created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 

 ("ANCSA") . Most of our 2,700 Tlingit and Haida shareholders 

 reside in Juneau and other parts of Alaska, as well as Oregon and 

 Washington. Based on our number of shareholders we are the 

 eleventh largest of all of the Native Corporations in Alaska 

 created under ANCSA. 



Unlike the more than 200 regional and village Native 

 Corporations originally created under ANCSA, Goldbelt received no 

 cash distributions from the Alaska Native Fund. We did receive 

 the right to select timberlands from within the Tongass National 

 Forest in settlement of the aboriginal claims of our 

 shareholders. 



