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Dear Chelsey,
Happy New Year to everyone in the Chilkat Valley!
We were very happy to see familiar faces at Southeast Conference last year and catch up with folks from the community. From there, we flew to Fairbanks to attend Confluence, where we learned about how we can be more collaborative and strategic in our thinking around land management and community building. Thank you to Lee Hart for organizing! We are planning to attend the next one in Anchorage this April.
UA Land Selections in the Chilkat Valley
As I mentioned previously, at the end of 2022, Congress passed legislation to finalize the University’s land entitlement as part of its Land Grant. This is a complex, multi-year process that involves both the State and the federal government. The way this works is that the UA Land team can select from federal land holdings that are part of the state’s remaining general selections.
Recently the UA land team submitted a request for two selections along the Klehini River (approximately 30 acres each), and another one further north along the Chilkat River at the Canadian border (approximately 4,400 acres).
Please visit our website and then click on the "Southeast" section to view maps of the three selections.
The next step in the process is for the State of Alaska to put out a public notice. After that, the State will decide whether or not to transfer ownership to UA. The State may decide to modify these parcels or leave as is. Finally, the land selections would go back to the federal government for final conveyance.
Our plan is to visit with all of you in person, hopefully the first week of March. We will send another eNewsletter as soon as we have dates, and when the State issues any public notice. In the meantime, please reach out with any questions you might have, and please visit our Land Grant web pages for more details about the history and process.
Two other things I want to add today:
- We are doing everything we can to coordinate with BLM on any conflicting Native Veteran allotment requests.
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If the University does receive conveyance of these new landholdings, then we will continue to communicate with all of you and find ways to address community needs while generating revenue for the UA Scholars program. The UA Land team does not have any development plans for the parcels at this time.
Carbon Credit Program
We are also working with a consultant to evaluate all forested areas in UA landholdings, including the Chilkat Valley. We hope to have more information on the potential carbon credit program in the next few months.
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