What’s going on with this Nenana land sale anyway?
The State of Alaska is currently auctioning off subsistence lands for industrial agriculture under the inaccurate guise of “food security.” A road construction project has been under way to access the land that did not involve consultation with the Nenana Tribal Council. Public Comment for the road construction is open until Sept. 30. To make a public comment supporting Nenana residents’ demands, click below.
The State opened bidding on the 28 parcels in the Nenana-Totchaket area totalling 2,686 acres on June 1st and closing October 4th. If the objections of local residents aren't addressed before bidding on over 2,000 acres closes on Oct 4th, then the State of Alaska may sell the land to outside interests and continue with their plans to build a road over a generations-old trapline that multiple families are actively using.
Join us in uplifting Alaska Native residents’ visions for regenerative food systems, cultural connection & holistic land stewardship. Not only does the community have a powerful vision for what true "food sovereignty" looks like for their region, they are already hard at work engaging young people in small-scale ecological agriculture along with the hunting, trapping, fishing and gathering that has been practiced on these lands since time immemorial.
Further reading:
Fairbanks Daily Newsminer: Climate groups renew call for halt to Nenana land sale
“The Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition and Alaska Public Interest Research Group (or AKPIRG) issued a letter signed by 70 Alaskans, along with questions they say went unanswered as to why the state was pushing forward with an initial 2,000-acre land sale.
‘Our organizations strongly believe that further study of the land and environmental impacts need to be conducted by the state,’ said AKPIRG executive director Veri di Suvero in a prepared statement. ‘Additionally, based on conversations with the community in the Nenana area, we believe the state has not done the due diligence to consult Nenana area residents on the implications of the sale.’”
KUAC: Nenana-area locals urge state to ‘slow down’ agricultural land sales
“The state held its first auction last month for 2,000 acres in the Nenana-Totchaket Agricultural Project, as part of what state officials call an effort to improve Alaska’s food security. But many area residents say they and their forebears harvested food from the land and its streams long before the project was proposed. And they doubt it will yield more food security. “When I grew up there, it was just bountiful resources. We lived comfortably off the land,” says Eva Burk, who grew up on land that’s now within the ag project. Burk is Dene Athabascan, and she and her family, like many other area residents, spent summers at fish camp and winters working a trapline. But she says fish and wildlife populations have for decades been declining.”
High Country News: Will a Native-led initiative spur an agricultural revolution in rural Alaska?
“When Eva Dawn Burk first saw Calypso Farm and Ecology Center in 2019, she felt enchanted. Calypso is an educational farm tucked away in a boreal forest in Ester, Alaska, near Fairbanks... Calypso reminded Burk, 38, who is Denaakk’e and Lower Tanana Athabascan from the villages of Nenana and Manley Hot Springs, of her family’s traditional fish camp in the Alaskan Interior, where she spent childhood summers... Now Burk is partnering with Calypso to promote local food production and combat food insecurity in Alaska Native communities. The initiative involves building partnerships with tribes to teach local tribal members, particularly youth, about agriculture and traditional knowledge. The project is still in its infancy, but Burk hopes to help spur an agricultural revolution in rural Native villages, where food costs are exorbitant and fresh produce is hard to come by.”
Fairbanks Daily Newsminer: Nenana farmers to state on land sale: ‘slow down’
“When the state opened up 2,000 acres of land in the Nenana-Totchaket Agricultural Project in June, it billed it as a potential stepping stone to solve Alaska’s food insecurity problem. Several locals want the State to slow down, gather more local input and wait for data from a still-ongoing soil analysis.”
Reporting from Alaska: Dunleavy's hurried Nenana agriculture land auction is a campaign stunt, an invitation to bankruptcy for the unprepared
“Just in time for his reelection campaign, Gov. Mike Dunleavy has thrown together an agricultural ‘plan’ for Nenana that would be more accurately described as an invitation for bankruptcy for those who buy undeveloped state land at 5 percent down and dream of an agrarian future... If you want the cartoon version of agricultural development in Alaska, Dunleavy’s trying to sell it.”
Reporting from Alaska: Dunleavy's campaign timeline handicaps Nenana ag plan with conflicting claims
“The time demands of the Dunleavy reelection campaign dictated the decision to start selling lands in the Nenana agricultural area before the state worked out key details about access and electricity. This lack of preparation guarantees that the property is less valuable. It also reflects Dunleavy’s willingness to sacrifice public benefits for the sake of his personal interest.”
