Natural resource development key to Native corporations' success: providing benefits to shareholders, and income to the businesses.

• Author: Orr, Vanessa
• Position: Alaska Native: BUSINESS NEWS

When the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) was passed in 1971, it conveyed approximately one-ninth of the state's land to 12 regional Native corporations and 200 local village corporations. This land, much of which is rich in timber, oil, gas and minerals, has been used by the corporations to create a sustainable economy for its shareholders through natural resource development.

For some corporations, the development of natural resource industries on its lands still makes up a major portion of the bottom line. For others, this development provided a base from which the corporation could grow, expanding into other non-resource related business areas. Three Native regional corporations, Arctic Slope Regional Corp. (ASRC), Cook Inlet Region Inc. (CIRI), and Sealaska Corp. have a long history of developing Alaska's natural resources on their lands. Though each corporation utilizes these resources in different ways, they all share in the wealth, and the benefits, that natural resource development provides.

ARCTIC SLOPE REGIONAL CORP.

According to Richard Glenn, ASRC vice president/lands, over the years, ASRC has advocated in favor of environmentally responsible resource development of its lands and other North Slope lands, such as those owned by the state and federal government.

"Resource development is the only significant 'non-government' economic engine on the North Slope," said Glenn. "In fact, the presence of resource development allows for tax revenues to be forwarded to the North Slope Borough, our home-rule municipal government. So, in addition to providing an economy of its own, there would be significantly less government services, like health clinics, fire and police services, and local education for North Slope Borough residents if there was no resource development."

ASRC lands host significant potential for oil, gas, coal and minerals. In 2006, natural resource income contributed about one-sixth of ASRC's net income, with $20 million of that $120 million coming from development of ASRC's lands at Alpine. "Of our subsidiary companies, all but one-quarter of the consolidated income stream ($90 million out of $120 million) is related in one way or another to resource development, in activities such as oilfield construction, engineering, operations, refining and sales," said Glenn.

Though natural resource development can be controversial, Glenn says that the corporation works diligently to allow debate on development issues...