A bill in congress would
privatize 115,200 acres of the Tongass National Forest
to for-profit corporations.
Photo by Alexi Liotti
The Landless Bill Explained
The landless legislation threatens to upend decades of settled law by creating land claims for five new corporations under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). Passed in 1971, ANCSA was billed as a settlement of indigenous land claims in Alaska, transferring 44 million acres of public land to for-profit native corporations. Contrary to appearances, ANCSA did not return land to tribal governments. Instead, it established shareholder-owned corporations, led by a small cadre of highly compensated executives, whose mandate has been the extraction and liquidation of natural resources on these lands.
These corporations are legally obligated to maximize shareholder dividends, not to manage land sustainably, protect ecosystems, or preserve indigenous cultural access. Wanda Culp, a Tlingit elder and outspoken advocate for the Tongass, has called ANCSA “an industrial-rooted tool of Congress, created to exterminate Indigenous land use and streamline the liquidation of ‘natural resources’ in our ancient ancestral homelands.”
The consequences are stark in Southeast Alaska. Sealaska, the regional corporation, received nearly 300,000 acres from the Tongass National Forest. Between 1971 and 2020, Sealaska clearcut nearly all old-growth forests on these lands employing some of the most environmentally destructive logging practices seen anywhere in North America.
Sealaska Logging on the Cleveland Peninsula in 2016 © Rebecca Knight
It is in this context that the landless legislation has emerged. Senator Lisa Murkowski, who has long worked to weaken Tongass protections, is using claims that five communities were “left out” of ANCSA to justify another massive land privatization from the National Forest. Yet, these communities were never overlooked. The Department of the Interior confirms: “There is no inequity in ANCSA to redress. Each of the five communities was considered for village status during the formulation of ANCSA, and none met the general statutory criteria for eligibility.” In fact, Alaska Natives from these five “landless” communities are enrolled as at-large shareholders in Sealaska and have received higher dividends than village shareholders.
At stake are 115,200 acres of public lands containing some of the nation’s last remaining old-growth forests and intact watersheds. More than half of these acres are protected under the 2001 Roadless Rule, protections that are now being dismantled. The landless legislation would overturn these safeguards and open the door to large-scale old-growth logging in one of the world's most intact remaining temperate rainforests. It would also remove critical public access to vast stretches of public land, transferring irreplaceable landscapes out of public ownership and putting them at immediate risk.
Gravina West
Land Selection
This 500 year-old sitka spruce tree stands in the Gravina West land selection, which would transfer over 10,000 acres of currently protected, roadless old growth forests to the Ketchikan Corporation. It would open the heart of a 37,000 acre protected area to logging.
Photo by Joshua Wright
Public lands are at stake
This bill is one of the least known - yet highest stakes - attacks on our public lands in decades. It threatens to roll back environmental protections and public access to an area 10 times the size of Manhattan Island. These lands are currently owned by the American people, and are subject to federal environmental laws. They contain some of the nations last intact old growth forests. In an instant, this legislation could condemn these lands to industrial logging and mining projects that would not be subject to public input or oversight.
115,200
Acres of National Forest
Would be privatized from the national forest under this legislation.
80,000
Acres of old growth forests
Would be given to for profit corporations with a fiduciary responsibility to log.
60,000
Acres of roadless areas
That have been protected by the 2001 Roadless Rule
Read about the bill
Juneau Empire OP-ED:
Why Alaska Natives like me oppose the landless bill
"The landless bill is not about valid Native claims — it is about predatory corporate interests. The promise of genuine Native claims has never been fulfilled — not then and not now."
Wanda Culp
Tlingit elder & shareholder
Download Article
Juneau Empire OP-ED:
"There are no landless Natives in Southeast Alaska"
"Since ANCSA was enacted, no governmental or other authoritative entity has determined that the five communities should have been deemed eligible for corporate status in ANCSA."
Rebecca Knight
Petersburg resident
Download Article
Juneau Empire OP-ED:
Why I oppose privatization of the Tongass rainforest
"We must ensure that [the Tongass] is safeguarded for generations to come by opposing misguided privatization that would undermine the Tongass’ unique character."
Dr Dominick A. DellaSala
Renowned forest scientist
Download Article
This has happened before
The Landless Bill is just the latest in a Pattern of Privatization that has brought devastation to Southeast Alaska’s wild places. This isn’t just history; it’s an ongoing attack. Over the past fifteen years, a series of land-transfer and privatization schemes have quietly enabled more old-growth logging in Southeast Alaska than the high-profile attacks on the Roadless Rule. Yet these massive land giveaways remain largely under the radar, receiving minimal attention and almost no meaningful pushback from national conservation NGOs. Collectively, they have opened the door to industrial-scale clearcutting in some of the world’s last intact old growth rainforests, with consequences that will reverberate for generations.
70,075
Acres of public lands were privatized by this act. Most of these acres were clearcut after they were given to Sealaska
2017
The Alaska Mental Health Trust Land Exchange Act
2014
The Sealaska Bill
The Southeast Alaska Native Land Entitlement Finalization and Jobs Protection Act was quietly passed as a rider to the National Defense Authorization Act and signed into law by President Obama on December 19, 2014. The legislation transferred 70,075 acres of Tongass National Forest lands to Sealaska. It moved through Congress with little meaningful opposition from national regional conservation groups, despite the fact that it ultimately led to the clearcutting of tens of thousands of acres of roadless old-growth forests. Within a year of the bill’s passage, Sealaska began liquidating many of there newly acquired old-growth stands. After several years of industrial logging, Sealaska enrolled portions of the remaining forestlands into a carbon offset project. That project was later purchased by British Petroleum (BP) on the voluntary carbon market, enabling the company to claim emissions reductions while continuing its fossil-fuel expansion in the Arctic.
Upon the passage of this legislation, Senator Lisa Murkowski proclaimed that: “Some 43 years after passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, the federal government will finally finish paying the debt we owe Natives for the settlement of their aboriginal land claims.” Now, she has re-introduced the landless bill, reopening alaska public land to a new wave of land claims.
The Alaska Mental Health Trust Land Exchange Act, enacted on May 5, 2017, authorized a land swap between the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority (AMHTA) and the U.S. Forest Service within the Tongass National Forest. Through the exchange, 18,494 acres of highly productive, predominantly old-growth forests were transferred to the Trust, while 17,980 acres of Mental Health Trust lands were conveyed to the U.S. Forest Service. The lands provided to the Forest Service held little to no timber value and were largely dominated by muskeg. In effect, the deal granted the federal government non-operable lands while the Trust received high-value old-growth forest parcels. The AMHT is now clear cutting the old growth forest that it received under this act to produce revenue for mental health care in Alaska. Although the trust is technically a public entity, these lands are now considered private property and are not accessible to the public.
18,494
Acres of public lands were given to the Alaska Mental Health Trust. It is currently clear cutting these lands including 4300 acres of old growth sold in the Shelter Cove timber sale north of Ketchikan.
Mitkof Interior 4
Land Selection
This high productivity old growth is contained within the Mitkof Interior 4 land selection, which would be handed to the Petersburg corporation. Mitkof island has already seen deer populations collapse as a result of logging, and areas like these are important to hunting dependent communities.
Photo by Joshua Wright
Map
This map shows areas selected for privatization under the Landless Bill. All of these areas are currently public lands and half of them are currently protected from development. Zoom in to explore the intact landscapes that would be opened to industrial logging and mining under this act.
This spatial data is approximate, boundaries are not exact and are based off of paper maps. Download KMZ file here.
It is not too late to stop this disastrous legislation.
University of Alaska clearcutting on Gravina Island (2025) the mountains in the background are at risk of privatization under the Landless Bill. Photo by Alexi Liotti
Media contact: Joshua@wlfdc.org