Watch Land Less Today: A new film exposing the biggest old growth logging bill in a decade.

The film from award-winning director, Alexi Liotti, is available free until May 22.

WATCH THE FILM

Last year, LFDC made the decision to expand our work to Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. We did this because an unprecedented number of threats are converging on America’s largest remaining old-growth forest. You’ve likely heard about the repeal of the Roadless Rule—but you may not know that nearly 100,000 acres of public land, including many areas once protected by that rule, have already been removed from the national forest over the past 15 years.

Two major land privatizations took place in 2014 and 2017, and now the largest privatization effort of the century is poised to pass the U.S. House of Representatives. Senator Lisa Murkowski’s “Unrecognized Southeast Alaska Native Communities Recognition and Compensation Act”—often referred to as the “landless bill” or the “five new corporations bill”—would amend the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) to enable a large-scale timber transfer from the national forest.

Tell Congress to Oppose House Bill 41 (Senate Bill 2554)

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The bill targets 115,000 acres of publicly owned national forest land, including roughly 80,000 acres of old-growth forests and 60,000 acres of roadless areas, spread across more than 100 cherry-picked parcels in Southeast Alaska. These parcels include thousands of acres of ancient trees in intact watersheds that have never been industrially logged.

Lands removed from the Tongass and given to the Alaska Mental Health Trust in 2017

While this bill is often perceived as Land Back, it's anything but. The bill would establish five shareholder owned native corporations under ANCSA, and transfer 23,040 acres apiece to each new corporation. These corporations would not be controlled by tribal governments, but rather would be governed with the soul mandate to maximize shareholder value.

Last year, award-winning filmmaker Alexi Liotti accompanied LFDC’s Joshua Wright to Southeast Alaska to document the lands that would be transferred to new corporations if this legislation passes. That trip resulted in Land Less—a cinematic 19-minute short film that explores the complexities of Native corporate logging and land privatization in Southeast Alaska. The film features Indigenous Tlingit activist Wanda Culp, an original shareholder of ANCSA and a longtime, outspoken critic of Native corporate logging in the region.

We’ve recently learned that Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives has, alarmingly, decided to support the so-called “Landless Bill.” It has already advanced out of committee and could pass in the coming weeks. In response, Alexi Liotti has given us permission to release Land Less for free for one month, starting today—Earth Day. He is making this film available for free despite his sunk costs in the project so please consider making a donation if you appreciate the film.

TAKE ACTION

Call the Congressional switchboard number at (202) 224-3121 to tell BOTH of your senators and your representative to oppose the "Unrecognized Southeast Alaska Native Communities Recognition and Compensation Act" and the large scale, privatization and industrialization of old growth forests that it would enable. Learn more about the bill here.

CALL SCRIPT:

Hello, my name is [your name], and I’m a constituent calling to ask [your senator or representative] to oppose Senate Bill S. 2554 (House Bill HR.41) the "Unrecognized Southeast Alaska Native Communities Recognition and Compensation Act"

This bill would use the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act as a backdoor to transfer over 115,000 acres of public lands from the Tongass National Forest to five new for profit native corporations. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act already resolved land claims decades ago, granting 44 million acres of land and about $1 billion to Native corporations. Residents of these communities were not left out — they became shareholders in Sealaska Corporation, which already owns about 365,000 acres and distributes millions of dollars in dividends. 

This bill would reopen what was meant to be a final settlement and transfer public lands owned by all Americans into private ownership. 60,000 acres of these land selections include lands protected by the roadless rule, and these land selections include some of the last intact old-growth forests in the country. Once these lands are privatized they will likely be logged or mined without oversight or environmental protections.

If there are any remaining equity concerns under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, they should be addressed financially within the existing Sealaska system, not by giving away public lands.

Please do everything that you can to stop this privatization of our public land.

Thank you,

[Name]