October 2, 2023 — Alaska’s largest Native organization has sided with the federal government in its dispute with the state over salmon management in the Kuskokwim River, saying that the state’s position is attacking its interests and those of its members.
On Sept. 26, the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit filed by the federal government over management of fishing in the Kuskokwim River, a place where salmon scarcities have produced hardships.
The lawsuit, filed on May 17, 2022, was aimed at stopping state-authorized fishing in the part of the Kuskokwim River that flows through the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge.
Federal officials had allowed only rural residents to engage in subsistence fishing there, in accordance with the rural preference rule embedded in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. But the state opened subsistence fishing there to all Alaska residents.