Unless you frequent the same activist email listservs I do, you may have no idea that, completely aside from the Trump administration’s assault on public lands, there is a bill quietly making its way through congress that would privatize and clearcut over one hundred thousand acres Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.

Seems like a pretty obvious bill for environmentalists and allied congress people to oppose. But there’s a twist.

The bill, called the Alaska Native Landless Equity Act, or simply the “Landless Bill”, would transfer the land to Alaska Native Corporations, and is being billed as a form of Land Back by Alaska’s congressional delegation.

But is it? Or is this just a disguised form of extractivist colonialism?

I truly did not know what to make of the Landless Bill, so I invited Tlingit elder and activist Wanda Culp and Joshua Wright from the Legacy Forest Defense Coalition to talk me through why they oppose this bill, the short film they made about it, and other attempts to privatize public lands in Alaska.

I would love to hear what you think! The show email is coastrangeradio@gmail.com.

https://www.wlfdc.org/land-less-film

https://www.wlfdc.org/the-landless-bill

https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/target-on-tongass-the-wildest-national-forest-may-soon-lose-its-protections/

https://www.instagram.com/coastrangeradio/