Clear-cut logging in Yakutat, Alaska's northern portion of the Tongass Rainforest is causing the desecration and destruction of Tlingit historic sites, traditional Tlingit food and medicine gathering areas, Tlingit sacred sites, and the ecosystems our Tlingit Peoples have depended on for millennia.

Yakutat's village corporation (Yak-tat Kwaan) and its subsidiary (Yak Timber) are clear cut logging with practices not seen since the 1980's.  Logging has fallen out of favor quickly as other tribes and Southeast Alaska communities have recognized the damaging and unsustainable nature of these practices to Tlingit culture. 

In 2018, Yak-tat Kwaan transferred multiple dozens of land timber rights to Yak Timber. Then, without the knowledge of shareholders, Yak Timber, through Yak-tat Kwaan, mortgaged hundreds of acres that included village sites, burial areas, traditional hunting and fishing lands, traditional medicine gathering areas, food gathering areas, sacred places and known historic sites to begin logging operations. Soon after, many miles of coastline (from mean high tide inland 500') was used as collateral to purchase new logging equipment. Now, Yak Timber leadership asserts, that clear cut logging had to continue or they would default on the loans. In the past, elders stopped logging when it came near our sacred places. Shareholders are finding out that the unthinkable has happened. The elders who once stood up to greed and profit over our Tlingit culture are now gone and we must act.

Yakutat Tlingit Tribe (YTT) has approved Resolution 2021-10: Authorizing Yakutat Tlingit Tribe to Act in Protection of our Tribe's Historic Sites and Sacred Places for Our People and Our Grandchildren. The State of Alaska Office of History and Archaeology (File No: 3130-4R/2021-01009) has notified the President of Yak Timber that the state considers lands near Humpy Creek to contain resources of historic and traditional importance to the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe. Yak-tat Kwaan continues to insist they will log, writing the following in their September 2021 newsletter: "The logging that had been done by Koncor (previous 1980's logging company) would have already destroyed any potential historical and sacred sites that may have previously been there." This is patently untrue as previously published studies and inquiries have attested.

In the path of Yakutat logging today are potentially hundreds of culturally significant sites to our Yakutat Tlingit People. Current logging practices destroy the land and disturbs/destroys bear dens, eagle nests, traditional medicine sites, food sources, game trails, and more. Yak-Timber nor Yak-Tat Kwaan provide solutions, but rather insist they will continue to log.

Please share this to bring attention to what is happening in Yakutat. Secrecy hurts our people and aids the efforts of Yak Timber and Yak-Tat Kwaan. We invite the scrutiny of the public and public officials before the places our elders have told us about are gone. Corporations, native or non-native, should not have the option to destroy historic and sacred places, diminish food sovereignty, and end cultural practices. Doing so wipes the history of our ancestors out of existence. It makes study of our ancestors impossible if large machinery viciously destroys the land.

Gunalchéesh, Thank you

#LANDBACK #DEFENDYAKUTAT #SAVETHETONGASS