“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.”
By Shaelene Grace Moler
This story was published by First Alaskans Magazine. Read the full story here.
Photo from the First Alaskans article: Quinn Aboudara, Stewardship Coordinator for Shaan Seet Inc. Natural Resources Division and the Klawock Indigenous Stewards Forest Partnership (KISFP), discusses stream rehabilitation with National Forest Service staff at one of KISFP’s most recent sites near Hollis. (Photo by Kaa Yahaayí Shkalneegi Muriel Reid)
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. 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.
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.”