SHI lecture to examine erosion of Alaska Natives' subsistence rights
Legal expert to discuss impacts of ANCSA on traditional hunting, fishing practices
Feb. 24, 2025
Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) will sponsor a lecture next week as part of its spring lecture series featuring prominent voices in Indigenous knowledge, art and culture, wildlife conservation and science.
The upcoming lecture will feature attorney Jonathan K. Tillinghast, who will present his talk, “The Erosion of Alaska Natives’ Subsistence Rights Since Enactment of ANCSA in 1971.”
Tillinghast will explore how the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) extinguished aboriginal hunting and fishing rights and the subsequent erosion of these rights due to misplaced congressional reliance on the State of Alaska and state-sponsored litigation aimed at narrowing them. He will trace this decline from 1971 to the present, providing historical and legal context for ongoing subsistence struggles.
A graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, Tillinghast has represented Sealaska Corporation on natural resource issues for over 40 years. He has authored legal briefs on Native subsistence and historic site issues presented before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. District Court for Alaska and the U.S. Department of the Interior. For over 30 years, he served as general counsel to the Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority becoming one of the top attorneys in the country to specialize in Indian housing law and funding.
The lecture is scheduled for noon, Thursday, Feb. 27, in Shuká Hít within the Walter Soboleff Building, 105 Heritage Way, in Juneau. The event will be livestreamed and posted on SHI’s YouTube channel.
Sealaska Heritage Institute is a private nonprofit founded in 1980 to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. SHI also conducts scientific and public policy research that promotes Alaska Native arts, cultures, history and education statewide. The institute is governed by a Board of Trustees and guided by a Council of Traditional Scholars, a Native Artist Committee and a Southeast Regional Language Committee.
CONTACT: Kathy Dye, SHI Communications and Publications Deputy Director, 907.321.4636, kathy.dye@sealaska.com.
Caption: Jonathan K. Tillinghast. Photo by Mircea Brown, courtesy of SHI. Note: News outlets are welcome to use this photo for coverage of this story. For a higher resolution version, contact kathy.dye@sealaska.com.