Copper River Wilderness Rafting: The Power of Place From The Geotourism Challenge: Celebrating Places - Changing Lives Saved May 13, 2008 - 08:08 AM EST

Dune was born into the Eyak Tribe in Cordova. During the ANSCA land claims process, his home was a center of political debate about the future of Indigenous people in Alaska; his grandmother Lena “Ahtahkee” Saska warned him “they’re here to take our Eyak land—don’t let them have it!” Dune’s mother went to court to prove that the Eyak tribe had a rightful ANSCA land claim; lawyers and Natives came to the house almost daily, and the conversations he heard left a profound mark on Dune. His mother and grandmother told him that he would emerge as a leader of his people. At age seven, when Dune started fishing with his dad, he questioned why the fishermen threw trash in the water and persuaded some to burn their trash instead. After high school, when his dad used Dune’s college fund to buy him a fishing permit and boat, Dune took up commercial fishing. When Dune was 30, the Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in his backyard. This was the spark that Dune needed. After the spill, Dune sued his own Eyak Corporation to force a vote on conservation over development. Eighty-seven percent of the shareholders voted for conservation in this precedent-setting vote that saved 75,000 acres of Alaska rainforest. Soon afterwards, Time magazine named Dune one of the “Top 50 Heroes for the Planet.” The legal action Dune initiated opened the way to conservation agreements approved by shareholders in 13 other Native corporations. Dune organized the Eyak Tribal Elders Council and went to the Alaska Supreme Court on their behalf. With pro bono help from law schools and Trustees for Alaska, he won his case. The decision paved the way for “public interest litigant status” which allowed Native people to bring legal challenges without having to post bonds or pay attorney’s fees to have their case heard. It meant Native citizens could sue their ANCSA corporations without incurring massive debt to do so—an unprecedented opening for natives in the legal system. When Dune perceives threats to his beloved Native heritage, he lives up to his Eyak name, Jamachakih: Little Bird Who Screams Really Loud and Won’t Shut Up. After great success as a community activist, Dune saw that he needed to change the ground rules to favor indigenous peoples in their struggles. The institutions he has created work in concert to protect pristine wilderness and secure the rights of Native people to their way of life. Dune is once again a commercial fisherman in Cordova. Given Dune’s unique work, wild salmon continue to be a source of cultural inspiration and valuable revenue. His fishing profits help support the Cultural Conservation Initiative, and he is working with other fishing captains who have pledged a portion of their profits as well. He is now developing several for-profit entities: a value-added seafood cooperative plant, a fish-waste biodiesel plant, and a seafood marketing company to further his conservation and preservation efforts in Alaska and around the world.