Frank Katchatag, Chairman, Bering Sea Interior Tribal Commission

The BLM Public Lands Rule is Important for Tribes and Should NOT Be Undone

As Chairman of the Bering Sea Interior Tribal Commission (Tribal Commission) and its forty member Tribes, I write today to communicate the Tribal Commission's strong opposition to the recension of the Public Lands Rule, also known as BLM's Conservation and Landscape Health Rule.

The rule provides measures that significantly improve the Bureau of Land Management's (Bureau's) ability to manage its public lands. The provisions of the proposed rule providing a meaningful role for Tribes in decision making and management of public lands, promoting the designation and protection of areas of critical environmental concern, and placing conservation on equal footing with other uses in the multiple use framework are key elements the Tribal Commission supports that should be retained.

The Tribal Commission is a consortium of forty federally recognized Alaska Tribes working in unity to protect our traditional ways of life by advocating for land use planning processes and natural resource management decisions that reflect our voices and values. The Tribal Commission and our member Tribes have extensively engaged in the Bureau's planning processes for the Bering Sea-Western Interior and Central Yukon planning areas. Between the two planning areas, the Bureau manages over twenty-six million acres of land encompassing our member Tribes' traditional homelands and areas that continue to sustain our subsistence-based ways of life.

There must be a meaningful role for Alaska's 229 Tribes in decision making and management of public lands in our state. The Bureau, like all federal agencies, has a trust responsibility to Tribes and must engage in meaningful government-to-government consultation when making decisions that may affect Tribal interests. The Bureau must manage public lands in a manner that fulfills this trust obligation and is consistent with the Nation-to-Nation relationship between Tribes and the United States. The Tribal Commission was encouraged to see provisions in the proposed Public Lands Rule that further the fulfilment of the Bureau's trust obligation and provide a meaningful role for Tribes in the management of public lands.

The Tribal Commission believes the rule's provisions requiring meaningful Tribal consultation and the incorporation of Indigenous knowledge in the Bureau's decision making is an essential element that should be continued. Additionally, the Rule's requirement that Indigenous knowledge be on equal footing with other forms of information is also an essential element to preserve. The rule requires the Bureau to meaningfully consult with Tribes when a management action may impact Tribes and should recognize that each Tribe has special expertise and is uniquely qualified to determine what effects a decision may have on the Tribe and its citizens.

Tribal co-stewardship, a pathway for the Bureau to fulfill its trust obligation to Tribes in the management of public lands, is a concept that should also be retained. The rule requires the Bureau to consider whether the agency "can identify opportunities for co-stewardship with Tribes" when identifying lands to be put to conservation use.

The Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) defines the Bureau's land management authority and requires that the agency "give priority to the designation and protection of areas of critical environmental concern" when developing and revising resource management plans. The statute also directs that "regulations and plans for the protection of public land areas of critical environmental concern be promptly developed." The Public Lands Rule is consistent with FLPMA's mandates that areas of critical environmental concern (ACECs) be "the principal designation for protecting important natural, cultural, and scenic resources." The Tribal Commission strongly encourages the Bureau to retain these provisions. The Commission encourages Alaska's Tribes to write to the Bureau asking for this important rule to be retained.

The Tribal Commission strongly opposes the proposal to rescind the Public Lands Rule and encourages the agency to retain the rule to meet its trust responsibility with Tribes and other essential lawful FLPMA requirements.