Sealaska, the Alaska Native regional corporation for Southeast Alaska, is building a future rooted in Indigenous values. By growing businesses that improve ocean health around the world, Sealaska generates sustainable revenue that is reinvested in shareholders, communities, culture and homelands across Southeast Alaska.
, /PRNewswire/ — For more than fifty years, Sealaska has worked to fulfill the promise of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA): empowering Alaska Native people to strengthen their communities, steward their lands and build prosperity for future generations. Today, Sealaska carries those same values onto the global stage. Through a growing portfolio of ocean health businesses, the company generates sustainable revenue that supports shareholder benefits, cultural revitalization, environmental stewardship and economic opportunity throughout Southeast Alaska.
Experience the full interactive Multichannel News Release here: https://www.multivu.com/sealaska/9411751-en-sealaska-sustainable-environmental-investing-ocean-health-ancsa
ANCSA Overview
In 1971, decades of determined Alaska Native advocacy led Congress to pass theAlaska Native Claims Settlement Act, transferring approximately $962 million and 44 million acres of land to Alaska’s Indigenous people. The Act divided the funds and lands among more than 200 village corporations representing local communities, as well as12 regional corporationsestablished to represent Alaska’s distinct regions and the Indigenous people within them. Rather than adopt the reservation system used in the contiguous United States, ANCSA empowered Alaska Native people to steward their lands and invest in their future through newly established, for-profit Alaska Native corporations.
Representing Our People and Culture
Sealaska is theAlaska Native regional corporation for Southeast Alaska, representing theTlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian Peopleswho have lived in the region since time immemorial. Under ANCSA, regional corporations provide benefits that promote health, education and welfare of Alaska Native shareholders and their immediate families. Providing these benefits requires substantial and sustained investment. To support that commitment, Sealaska operates profitable businesses that generate revenue year after year and create lasting value for future generations of shareholders.
Guided by thousands of years of Indigenous knowledge and tradition, Sealaska recognizes that cultural connection is a cornerstone of shareholder health, education and well-being. That belief drives Sealaska’s commitment to investing in values-aligned businesses that shareholders can be proud of.
For People, For Planet
The cultures of Southeast Alaska have always been deeply connected to the region’s abundant oceans and thriving waters. Today, Sealaska brings the values of its people and their sustainable ways of life to communities around the world. This progress did not happen overnight. It is the result of deliberate, long-term investments in businesses that protect and restore the environment.
Sealaska ocean health businesses span three categories:
- Geosciences:Sealaska subsidiaries are world leaders in offshore, nearshore and onshore geosciences, advancing global understanding of the Earth throughextensive subsea engineering capabilitiesand deep analytical expertise.
- Construction & Environment:Sealaska companies improve critical infrastructure while preserving and restoring water resources. Protecting drinking water andstewarding the waters that flow into the oceansare shared priorities worldwide.
- Sustainable Seafood:Responsibly sourced and packaged food from the world’s oceans is key to fighting the effects of climate change. Sealaska has brought together leadingsustainability,marketing and seafood expertswithin a single organization.
Sealaska’s global business success helps share traditional knowledge on a global scale while generating revenue that supports shareholder benefits across Southeast Alaska.
Reinvesting Global Revenue at Home
A portion of Sealaska’s overseas business revenue is reinvested back into its global ocean health endeavors for sustainable success and continued positive climate impact. Another portion is distributed directly to Sealaska’s Alaska Native shareholders through biannual dividends. Sealaska directs the remaining revenue toward local investments and cultural initiatives. These efforts include funding and working with organizations that make up theOneSealaska family partners, investing in thecareer development of Sealaska-affiliated students, supporting efforts torevitalize the region’s traditional languages, as well asdefending traditional ways of life and advocating for policiesthat strengthen opportunities for their Alaska Native shareholders.
A critical element of all of these initiatives, which is intrinsic to the well-being and identity of Sealaska’s shareholders, is the individual and collective connection to traditional homelands.
Stewarding Traditional Homelands
Sealaska’s Natural Resource department, Haa Aaní (honoring the Lingít phrase for “our lands”), oversees Sealaska’ssustainable land managementoperations. Haa Aaní invests instewardship practicesthat strengthen both local economies and Southeast Alaska’s ecosystems by collaborating with communities and creating opportunities to partner with shareholders.
Through Haa Aaní projects, Sealaska supports habitat restoration by intentionally accelerating old growth development, increasing forest canopy diversity, mitigating invasive species and giving traditional plants room to grow. Sealaska improves watershed health and supports food security by monitoring fish passage in spawning streams and creating conditions that help salmon and other species successfully reach upstream habitat. Meanwhile, Haa Aaní crews survey traditional and recreational trails and roads, ensuring communities maintain access to the places they have relied on for thousands of years to practice Indigenous ways of life.
Traditional arts and cultural practices remain central to life in Southeast Alaska. Through its Carving & Bark Program, Haa Aaní provides natural materials for traditional artists, helping to ensure that cultural knowledge, artistic skills and traditional practices are carried forward to future generations. Similarly, the Cultural Wood Access Program sustainably provides appropriately sized and aged red cedar and yellow cedar logs for culturally significant works, including totem poles and oceangoing canoes.
Paddling Together As One to Uplift Our People
Since ANCSA’s passage, Sealaska has continually evolved its approach to serving shareholders, balancing economic success with cultural stewardship, environmental responsibility and community partnership. Guided by the values of Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian peoples, Sealaska works to strengthen its people, culture and homelands for generations to come. This commitment to balance reflects a longstanding Indigenous understanding that economic opportunity, cultural vitality and stewardship of the land and waters are inseparable.
About Sealaska
We are Sealaska, the Alaska Native regional corporation for Southeast Alaska formed under federal law in 1971. With more than 27,000 shareholders of Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian descent, our purpose is to strengthen our People, culture and homelands. We invest in and operate businesses that improve the health of our oceans, maintain healthy homelands in Southeast Alaska, and benefit shareholder communities. Learn more atSealaska.com.
SOURCE Sealaska
