United on Policy, While Holding Our Differences

In April 2023, Tesla Cox, Katie Riley, and Marina Anderson traveled roughly 3,500 miles from their homes in rural Southeast Alaska to the US capitol with a thank you. Usually, policymakers in Washington, D.C. are overwhelmed with criticism about what they are doing wrong, or what they aren’t doing enough of. While it is rare for federal legislators and agencies to receive in-person praise for a policy that’s already been enacted, these women are not afraid to challenge norms– especially when they aren’t serving the communities they care deeply about. Representing a for-profit Alaska Native corporation, a grassroots conservation organization, and a collective impact network directed by a previous tribal administrator, Cox, Riley, and Anderson work for organizations that were historically at odds. Today, these individuals and organizations represent a growing shift in the Tongass National Forest within the Sustainable Southeast Partnership (SSP) that is moving away from polarization and fighting, toward collaboration and building common ground– including in the policy arena.

SSP is a collective impact network that, for the last decade, helped bridge divides while cultivating understanding, healing, and momentum towards a common vision. SSP, which includes partners of many different ideological, geographical, and disciplinary backgrounds, came together to build programs that mattered to Southeast Alaskan communities, while building trust and healing relationships. A portion of this work includes influencing federal policies that have an outsized impact on this region, considering that 17 million acres is federally managed as the Tongass National Forest. SSP operates on traditional values creating sustainable, healthy futures for all generations through youth programing like the Alaska Youth Stewards (AYS) to supporting regional policies like the Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy (SASS), a $25 million United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) investment focusing on community-driven priorities and ground-up solutions. Marina Anderson, a Haida and Tlingit solutions-based strategist from Prince of Wales Island and who once served as the Tribal Administrator for the Organized Village of Kasaan, became the director of SSP in 2023.

“We started SSP by talking about what we had in common, rather than diving into the thorny issues right away,” says Katie Riley, Deputy Director of Sitka Conservation Society—one of the founding partners of the network. “Through this process, we built trust, and we were able to engage in harder and harder conversations over time, and eventually we found ourselves collaborating on policy as we advocated together on issues that mattered to all of us.” For the first seven years, SSP partners intentionally left politics at the door for fear it might divide and hinder the growing collective impact network from building trust and common ground. It took time, but SSP partners are increasingly understanding the power in pursuing a common vision while still holding political differences fostering a reciprocal transformation between institutions.

Distraught by the polarization she sees as a policy expert at the federal level and inspired by the impacts she’s seen SSP have at the community and regional level, Riley cracked the idea for this advocacy trip. Riley, as well as Cox and Anderson, all acknowledged how important it was for their organizations to show up for our youth and communities and how powerful it would be for the three of them to show up together. “We’re there for our organizations, but really on behalf of the SSP network as a whole and representing the strength of that collaboration” says Cox, who is the Senior Director of Shareholder Development with Sealaska—a regional Alaska Native Corporation.

Each proudly dressed in attire representative of who they are and where they come from, including earrings and regalia, the trio advocated together for SASS, meeting with Senator Lisa Murkowski, Senator Dan Sullivan, Representative Mary Peltola, and more. The SASS was developed to lean-into decades worth of work by local changemakers such as SSP. SASS looks to community priorities and local solutions to improve how federal land management and community development work for the people of Southeast Alaska. Beyond this, the USDA’s commitment to SASS also demonstrates the agency’s intent and desire to repair relationships where past harm was done. For example, the USDA Forest Service (USFS) harmed tribal communities through the dispossession of land and the burning of traditional smokehouses. Though these acts had widespread and lasting impacts which still affect communities today, SASS is a step toward healing. The strategy and other related efforts are placing an added emphasis on the USFS working closely with Tribal Governments and Alaska Native corporations, strengthening tribal consultation, locally hiring more Tribal Relations positions within the USFS, and supporting tribal-led ‘community forest partnerships’—three of which exist in Hoonah, Kake, and Prince of Wales Island.

Cox, Riley and Anderson, prepared with a gift of smoked salmon and herring eggs, walked into Peltola’s office, which was adorned with traditional Yup’ik dance fans. The sharing of traditional foods was a show of respect and care before entering the conversation. They were there to show both Peltola and Murkowski that progress is being made under SASS, and invite them, Dan Sullivan, and their staffers, to experience the youth program’s place-based learning strategy SASS supports for themselves showing them how decision-making over 3000 miles away truly impacts Southeast Alaskans.

The group discussed how community-driven projects that have community buy-in are what ultimately fosters a healthier future. “When you invest in communities coming up with and implementing their own solutions, we have a lot at stake in their success, and that’s how you make long-term solutions,” says Riley. This is because there are a lot that communities want to do, but the funding requirements don’t always line up with communities’ interests, goals, or even their available resources. This is something that Anderson experienced as a tribal administrator. It is important to fund community-driven projects because “coming in with outside ideas of what a community needs, or should do, not only wastes the community’s time, but it also chips away at any trust that you might have with the community because it shows you’re not listening to their needs,” Anderson shares. If a project isn’t community-driven, these communities won’t allocate their resources. Anderson emphasizes that it also must be at their speed, some communities lack the workforce/resources to make projects happen quickly and need holistic
support building that capacity.

Due to the collaborative nature of SSP and SASS, there is no gatekeeping, these communities and youth programs are sharing information, resources, and mentorship. Each accomplishment made by one community inspires another. As Cox says, “None of us can do it alone, but when we all work together, we can use each other’s strengths and fill in gaps for each other.”

In the rooms of Murkowski, Peltola, and Sullivan, the trio opened their hearts to discussing the importance of developing local career pathways, Indigenous co-stewardship, and policies like SASS for ensuring federal actions support regional economies, community resilience, and conserve the natural resources in Southeast Alaska for culture, sustenance, economic use and beyond. Cox said, “I think it was powerful that we were really there to say, ‘thank you for SASS,’ and ‘this is working and here’s how, and let’s build on that.’ And we used some of that funding to develop projects, and then shared that back with them.” They expressed gratitude and shared the results of SASS in a way that aligns with the traditional values of Southeast Alaska: respect of all things and sharing– values that those in AYS are learning. By investing in SASS and following each community’s lead, policy makers are funding a healthier future for generations of Southeast Alaskans in our people, lands, and waters.

THE ALASKA YOUTH STEWARDS

To give policy makers a better understanding and ground the significance of what the trio were advocating for, they shared stories from the AYS program in action talking about their management of culturally significant resources, contributions to community feasts, and more. AYS, hosted by Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, are rooted in traditional values, instilling pride and healthy practices in the arts, resource management, habitat/stream restoration, recreation, community involvement, and cultural practice for Indigenous youth.

What is so unique and effective about AYS is they start with the self, developing their values and skills, and educate youth into young adults who ask themselves what they can do for their communities and home state. AYS also gives youth access to healthy mentors, enabling them with the skills to become healthy mentors themselves, building a generational impact in our communities. AYS also allows youth to build stronger relationships with their community and local lands and waters, while introducing them to careers that allow them to stay in our communities by showing that we have good opportunities that are economically stable and let them live their traditional lifestyle. In discussing why career paths produced by these programs work, Cox said, “I always use the Malcolm Gladwell saying, you’ve done something for 10,000 hours so you’re an expert. What have our people just naturally been doing for 10,000 hours? Where are they experts? How can that translate to career skills? I always think about what are we already great at, like we’re already out in our forests and harvesting and navigating and how do we translate that into tangible careers?” The Alaska Youth Stewards are doing just that, translating these youth’s experiences in their traditional and outdoor lifestyle into career skills and opportunities.

To Anderson, the exposure these programs provide to youth hits home. She reflected, “I remember being in school knowing that I wanted to live here forever. And when people would ask, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ I was like, Well, you know, we don’t have doctors, we don’t have a hospital. So, I don’t want to do that. I saw the same couple of nurse practitioners my entire life… [I remember] thinking ‘oh my god, I might not have a job. I don’t know what I’m gonna do’ because there’s nothing to do because those jobs are already taken, and they’re taken in my childhood brain forever. I really just thought, Okay, I’m going to be nothing. But I know I’m not going to leave here. These kids now though, they know they can be whatever they want.” These programs are so much more than a summer job, as participants get to see the work they do directly impact their homelands, while getting exposure to career pathways in their communities they may not have otherwise thought of. They gain a better understanding of the value of everything beyond monetary value, and how things were traditionally used and interacted with. This is holistic workforce development, and these are skills that benefit an individual and a community far beyond the workplace providing an opportunity to live a lifestyle in-sync with traditional values.

AYS is founded on the backs of the SSP supported by a variety of partners from the USFS to Tlingit & Haida to Spruce Root, a community economic development institution in Southeast Alaska. It is this partnership that allows the youth to explore such a wide variety of career paths and establish a network of support. In the process of supporting AYS, SSP partners are supporting values-based community needs and initiatives led by these youth crews that will create generational impacts.

BACK IN THE TONGASS

Influencing policy is ultimately about the impression you make on policymakers. It is about getting them to feel, see, smell, hear, and truly understand the impact they are making, which is why Anderson, Riley, and Cox invited Policymakers back to Southeast Alaska to meet and work with the Prince of Wales AYS crew. This is especially true for Southeast Alaskans who get few chances to advocate for what they want and care about because they are located in a rural region of less than 70,000 people nearly 3,500 miles away in a sphere where bigger/urban needs are often prioritized.

In planning the DC trip, the trio acknowledged how youth development and advocacy in many ways are the same. Months after the DC trip in summer, policymakers arrived in Prince of Wales Island. With the goal to build power in relationships through shared experiences, they came to see how AYS are coring and monitoring cedar trees that are important for cultural uses such as totem poles and dugout canoes, so that they can understand why a long-term conservation plan is needed to create generational stability and opportunity. They learned how policy shapes and is shaped by community wants and needs, generationally, through the lasting impressions these experiences create and as communities learn and grow.

In Southeast Alaska, this community-led and driven initiative is key to a healthier future for us all, and as Anderson says “We’re only as healthy as the rest of our regions and communities. If our region is healthy, then we’re able to expand and assist other regions in the state and along the coast and become a healthier part of the world. By engaging in healing from the conflict that our own region has experienced, we’ll actually be able to help heal other parts in the future.” Ultimately, the SSP and SASS are a model for moving forward and creating generational impacts in our society through the power of collaboration, investing in community priorities, and healing. This is the trifecta of building long-lasting solutions because they invest in the people who know these lands and waters best and produce a reciprocal transformation across divides in partnership.

If you are inspired by this article, please call your politicians and tell them what you and your communities need, what is working for them, and what politicians should be representing for us all.