**6. Discussion and Conclusions**

Alaska Natives have been racialized, experienced and continue to experience horrific acts of colonization and racism, and are still not included in the land management over lands they depend on for their food security and cultural survival through subsistence in meaningful ways. This all continues even though research has shown that Native people are more successful at stewarding land sustainably [43]. Ninilchik community members understand sustainability as an integrated part of their lifestyle that allows for future generations to flourish and continue the same cultural subsistence practices as have been practiced in the area for millennia. Ecological sustainability is one of three areas of sustainability that was important to the participants; this also includes social and economic aspects. Participants identified the Tribe as playing an important role in stewarding the land and water and fish and wildlife populations to maintain sustainable use for generations of children and grandchildren to continue cultural subsistence practices in years to come. As explained by participants in Ninilchik, the role of local and Indigenous Knowledge in land management is critical and without it, fish and wildlife populations will continue to be harvested unsustainably and lost to users as the razor clam population was [19]. With the state choosing not to regulate salmon populations in ways participants deem sustainable, Ninilchik residents fear a loss of the king salmon population and emphasize the need for the Tribe to be leading stewardship for food security and cultural continuity. This form of stewardship worked for millennia as salmon were sustainably harvested by Indigenous Peoples prior to colonization [76].

Currently, commercial and sport fishing lobbies have a lot of sway on the way things are managed, and the state of Alaska has a history of promoting commercial and sport fishing and ignoring Indigenous rights, including not recognizing the Indigenous Tribal Nations in Alaska as sovereign entities. Examples of court cases include the Katie John series of cases over Alaska Native subsistence rights which began in 1984 when Katie John and Doris Charles requested the Alaska State Board of Fisheries to open Batzulnetas for subsistence fishing and were denied even though downstream sport and commercial uses were taking hundreds of thousands of salmon [77]. *Kenaitze Indian Tribe v. State of Alaska* in 1988 is another example of a subsistence fishing case where the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska Judge Kozinski wrote in their opinion that:

"This is a case involving a clash of lifestyles and a dispute over who gets to fish. Congress, using clear language [through passing ANILCA in 19080], has resolved this dispute in favor of the Kenaitze who choose to pursue the traditional subsistence way of life by giving them priority in federal waters. The state has attempted to take away what Congress has given, adopting a creative redefinition of the word rural, a redefinition whose transparent purpose is to protect commercial and sport fishing interests" [78].

With the State government having a history of not recognizing Tribal sovereignty with a government-to-government relationship, this limits the role NVT can have in practicing their subsistence rights and stewarding their traditional lands [18]. Without the rights to steward the land or at least being meaningfully included in management, Alaska Native communities will continue to struggle with food sovereignty issues leading to not only food insecurity but loss of culture as well due to the relational aspect and utilization of the natural world [14]. As is explained above, ongoing racism by the state of Alaska, majority non-Native state legislature, and state and federal land and water management bodies continue to hurt Alaska Native Peoples. The Alaska legislative majority enacts policies that ignore the importance of subsistence to Alaska Natives and have the effect of forcing Alaska Natives to assimilate, continuing colonial practices [79]. Racism is systemic in Alaska through past and ongoing colonization, land claims, and present land and water management practices.

Anti-racism seeks to actively oppose racism and change not only behaviors and beliefs but racist policies. Even though race has been proven to not be a biological difference, in Alaska, racism and colonization are prevalent in both state and federal management practices as explained above. Decolonization of land management practices, to create a space for Indigenous Peoples in Alaska to steward the land and build resilience around subsistence, is the main avenue through which this paper explores anti-racism. This includes Indigenous-led stewardship and acknowledging the problems of co-management in Alaska [80]. This addresses issues of food security and culture being lost as subsistence rights are taken away following a history of land being taken away. Giving the land back to the Indigenous Peoples is an even greater form of decolonization that would lead to Indigenous stewardship of the land and water they use and practice subsistence on.

In a very recent article in Indian Country Today titled "Can Indigenous subsistence rights still be protected in Alaska?", decolonization of both land management and land ownership is recommended by Alaska Natives as a way forward for subsistence rights [80]. These include (1) amending ANCSA to reinstate Aboriginal fishing and hunting rights; (2) amend ANILCA to give Alaska Natives subsistence priority in addition to rural residents; (3) implement co-management that is more successful than current models and provides greater Alaska Native influence over federal and state subsistence laws. I would provide a fourth option which would be to return federal and state claimed land to the Tribes in regard to both ownership and stewardship as is being proposed about federal national parks land [81,82].

All four of these options are not easily accomplished as the racism they are working against is systemically imbedded into federal and state laws which remove Indigenous control of subsistence. An estimated \$20 million USD has been spent thus far by Alaska Natives to protect their subsistence rights which would mean that any of these four options would likely be expensive legal battles that the many small Tribes lack funding to fight, requiring the involvement of the regional for-profit Native corporations [80]. These options all seek to truly create sustainable stewardship practices that maintain food security and food sovereignty through drawing on local and Indigenous Knowledge. Legal scholar Robert Anderson explained that under both the Indian and general commerce clauses, Congress has the power to create a Native subsistence priority on all lands and waters in Alaska, including Alaska Native corporation, state, and federal lands which is seen in the MMPA which has a Native exemption [82]. Yet nothing in this regard is being done to amend ANCSA or ANILCA.

Alaska Natives have been racialized since first colonization which colonizers used as justification for their actions, including forced boarding schools, taking land, creating blood quantum, and controlling land management, impacting Alaska Native subsistence. Through this paper, I have sought to demonstrate the current systemic racism extending through both federal and Alaska state legislation that has removed land ownership and stewardship from Alaska Natives. Racist approaches to Indigenous land stewardship claim that Indigenous Peoples cannot manage land. Without rights to land management, Alaska Natives do not have priority to practice subsistence on federally or state managed land that allows them to maintain their cultures and food security. Rural preference puts at risk the rights of the large number of Natives who have moved to urban Anchorage to travel home to practice and sustain their cultures.

NVT provides an example of subsistence loss due to lack of Indigenous exclusion in management, the razor clam population, as well as examples of having to fight through the courts for their rights to fish salmon through a rural subsistence priority. Interviewees explained how they feel left out of management and explained the key role local and Indigenous Knowledge should play in management decisions. This paper is a call for an anti-racist response, a call to decolonize the history of land taking and land management in Alaska so that Indigenous children and future generations can still have food security and practice their cultures. This paper implies that by the state and federal governments engaging in antiracism and decolonization as a multistep process, Alaska Native's can steward their lands more successfully than they are currently being managed and have subsistence rights. This can be done through the state and federal governments: (1) acknowledging and respecting Tribal sovereignty and self-determination; (2), respecting Indigenous Knowledge and creating space for Indigenous-led stewardship of the land, waters, plants, and animals; and (3), giving the land back to the Alaska Native Tribal Nations through respecting their sovereignty and letting them steward it themselves to have their subsistence rights.

**Funding:** This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant PLR 1759130, National Science Foundation under Grant PLR 1338850, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Alaska Fairbanks (protocol 1090657, approved 5 September 2017).

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study. Consent was obtained from the Ninilchik Village Tribe to utilize the project we partnered on as the case study in this paper from the Executive Director of the Tribe Ivan Z. Encelewski.

**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.

**Acknowledgments:** I acknowledge the support of my family (mother), (grandmother), and (husband); my dissertation advisors; and the incredible support of the Ninilchik Village Tribe and the community members of Ninilchik through our research partnership.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.
