Yakutat tribal leader fears loss of land as bank sues Southeast Alaska village corporation for $13.3 million – Alaska Beacon

A Washington state-based financial institution has sued the Alaska Native company primarily based within the Southeast village of Yakutat over what it says is $13.3 million in unpaid loans — sparking fears locally concerning the lack of Indigenous lands.

Yak-Tat Kwaan acquired some 36 sq. miles of land close to Yakutat by means of the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. 

Prior to now three years, Yak-Tat Kwaan has borrowed tens of millions of {dollars} from Spokane-based AgWest Farm Credit score Providers to launch a logging enterprise on the properties it owns close to the Southeast village, which has turn into a summer time vacationer vacation spot. 

The timber harvest precipitated a backlash from shareholders and regional Indigenous leaders as Yak-Tat Kwaan started logging close to a salmon stream that’s the namesake of an area Tlingit clan, the Kwaashk’iḵwáan — an space that many Yakutat residents see as a sacred web site.

Amid native opposition to extra proposed harvests, Yak-Tat Kwaan’s timber subsidiary has not made any funds below its loans since mid-2022, AgWest mentioned in its six-page authorized grievance, filed March 31 in U.S. District Courtroom in Seattle. The subsidiary additionally has failed to fulfill its “monetary reporting covenants,” mentioned AgWest, which is suing for compensation, curiosity and attorneys’ charges.

Reached Friday by telephone, Shari Jensen, Yak-Tat Kwaan’s chief govt, declined to remark, saying the company has not but been served with the grievance. In a ready assertion subsequently posted to social media, the company mentioned its board is “united in each attainable effort to handle the allegations.”

Yak-Tat Kwaan’s subsidiary pledged logging gear and timber rights as collateral for its loans; company leaders have mentioned they didn’t pledge the land itself. However the lawsuit nonetheless creates “enormous concern” concerning the potential lack of tribal land, mentioned Andrew Gildersleeve, the chief govt for the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe, which has publicly objected to Yak-Tat Kwaan’s timber harvest.

Prior to now, Gildersleeve mentioned, Yak-Tat Kwaan has expressed curiosity in promoting a few of its land to generate revenue.

“Is the collateral below the settlement sufficient to fulfill the debt? And if it isn’t, what else will the financial institution take from an underserved, Indigenous inhabitants that already has every kind of environmental and financial threats?” Gildersleeve mentioned in a telephone interview Friday.

Requested about these issues, a Seattle-based legal professional for AgWest, John Rizzardi, mentioned the financial institution declined to remark.

Rizzardi additionally declined to reply a query about why AgWest agreed to finance Yak-Tat Kwaan’s timber efforts even because the logging business has been on a protracted decline in Southeast Alaska. Sealaska, the massive Alaska Native regional company primarily based in Juneau, introduced it was exiting the timber enterprise in 2021.

Yak-Tat Kwaan’s native critics have questioned why the company didn’t pursue the sale of carbon credit — an association the place polluters pay timber homeowners to go away bushes standing. Company leaders have mentioned that income from carbon credit revenues would have arrived too slowly, and that such offers wouldn’t have created native jobs like these that include timber harvests.

AgWest has filed a second lawsuit, in federal courtroom in Anchorage, asking a choose for assist in “ascertaining the standing of and arresting” a tug and barge that Yak-Tat Kwaan’s subsidiary purchased as a part of its logging operation and, the financial institution alleges, pledged as collateral “for loans which are in default.” The tug and barge, the financial institution mentioned in its authorized submitting Friday, are believed to be “uninsured and subsequently vulnerable to loss.” An official from Yak-Tat Kwaan mentioned the company has not but seen the financial institution’s new lawsuit.

This text was initially revealed in Northern Journal, a publication from journalist Nathaniel Herz. Subscribe at this hyperlink.