I met a gentleman tonight from the Alaska State Department of Natural Resources Division of Mining, Land, and Water. Their division is considering creating concessions and leasing them to outfitters. He's currently working on the project and would appreciate input. I was explaining to him about the long standing concession systems in African countries and the differnces in systems. I am looking for any references or official documents that purtain to the various concession systems in various countries to pass on for his viewing pleasure. Any help in finding articles or government links to expalanations would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Brett

PS. Although I'm looking for papers and reports even outitter acounts of how it works would be appreciated for general feedback. Even general feedback on what works and doesn't work is welcome. Thanks.

You must have been talking to Clark Cox. He has been working on this for over a year.

The reason he would want to be looking at the way concessions are distributed in other areas is because it's his job to create a program that is in violation of the state constitution.

In 1988 the state supreem court ruled that exclusive guide concessions were in violation of the the equal access provistion under state constitution (the Owsichek decision).

Since the dep't of natural has been given this task they have been looking at the Owisicheck desistion with a magnifying glass and they are of the opinion that if the state charges a fee for the concession this would then be congruous with the constitution based of a breef by one judge at the time of the decision.

I guess it makes since then that he would want to see how it's done other places but I would think there would be no shortage of models to base this on since every federal agency administering lands in AK have a programe for assinging concessions.

Since you've brought this to the attention of the AR crowd I might point out one other thing. I happen to know that the bunny huggers are looking at this also. Based on the the model of the Alaska wildlife alliance where they are tring to use the backdoor politics of overtaking the game board on the primis that non-consumtive users should have equal repersentation on the game board. Those same people are looking at this new guide concession programe as a way to aquire exlusive concessions for non-consumptive commercial activities therefore afectively stopping guided hunting in the concession area.

I can't say this tactic by a group (who will be in denial of association with Alaska wildlife alliance) will be effective especially in light of the overwhelming wins last week at the game board elections but it's good to point out all the concerns for this program.

quote:

Originally posted by Akshooter:

Since you've brought this to the attention of the AR crowd I might point out one other thing. I happen to know that the bunny huggers are looking at this also. Based on the the model of the Alaska wildlife alliance where they are tring to use the backdoor politics of overtaking the game board on the primis that non-consumtive users should have equal repersentation on the game board. Those same people are looking at this new guide concession programe as a way to aquire exlusive concessions for non-consumptive commercial activities therefore afectively stopping guided hunting in the concession area.

This seems like a highly unlikely scenario. Generally the anti hunting crowd will not put up any real money when it comes to this sort of thing. In any case even if they did manage to buy a concession or two that would be fine with me, we could use less guided hunting activity in Alaska.

Originally posted by Chisana

"This seems like a highly unlikely scenario. Generally the anti hunting crowd will not put up any real money when it comes to this sort of thing. In any case even if they did manage to buy a concession or two that would be fine with me, we could use less guided hunting activity in Alaska."


I do agree but the idea is already in motion. And keep in mind it probably won't requier a lot of money to aquire a concesstion.

Any ecco-tour outfit (and there are a lot of them)in the state would love to boast that they could offer operations in a area free of at least nonresident hunting.

Go to the Alaska wildlife alliance website http://www.akwildlife.org/ and read their mission statement. This kind of thing is what there all about.

As the proposal stands right now a person eligble for aquireing a concession or more properly called a guide use area under the proposed amendment must be a registered or master guide. Be sure their will be a fight on this one just like the fights on the game board when they tried to get guys like Leo Keeler and that bitch with the hifenated last name wittington -something. Under the Knowles administratin they allmost got there way and they did as far as that idiotic wolf buffer go'es around Denali park.