The Alaska Native Regional Corporations (Alaska Native Corporations or ANCSA Corporations) were established in 1971 when the United States Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) which settled land and financial claims made by the Alaska Natives and provided for the establishment of 13 regional corporations to administer those claims.
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Associations, regional and village corporations
Under ANCSA the state was originally divided into twelve regions, each represented by a "Native association" responsible for the enrollment of past and present residents of the region. Individual Alaska Natives enrolled in these associations, and their village level equivalents, were made shareholder in the Regional and Village Corporations created by the Act. The twelve for-profit regional corporations, and a thirteenth region representing those Alaska Natives who were no longer residents of Alaska in 1971, were awarded the monetary and property compensation created by ANCSA. Village corporations and their shareholders received compensation through the regional corporations. The fact that many ostensibly Alaska Native villages throughout the state were not empowered by the ANCSA to form village corporations later led to a number of lawsuits.
The regional and village corporations are now owned by Alaska Native people through privately owned shares of corporation stock. Alaska Natives alive at ANCSA's enactment on December 17, 1971, who enrolled in a Native association (at the regional and/or village level) received 100 shares of stock in the respective corporation. In 2006, the 109th Congress passed S.449 which amended ANCSA, and allowed for shares to be more easily issued to those who had missed the enrollment, or were born after the enrollment period by reducing the requirement for voting from a majority of shareholders to a majority of attending shareholders at corporation meetings.
During the 1970s, ANCSA regional and village corporations selected land in and around native villages in the state in proportion to their enrolled populations. Village corporations own the surface rights to the lands they selected, but regional corporations own the subsurface rights of both their own selections and of those of the village corporations.
Alaska Native Village Corporations Video
Text of the Act
The Act lays out the specifics of the corporations' status. Here is an excerpt of the relevant portion:
The thirteen regional corporations created under ANCSA are:
Alaska Native village corporations
There are over 200 village corporations, corresponding to the list of villages published in the text of ANCSA. Most corporations serve a single village, though some smaller villages have consolidated their corporations over the years.
AFOGNAK NATIVE CORPORATION
The Afognak Native Corporation was organized in 1977 through the merger of two ANCSA village corporations: Port Lions Native Corporation and Natives of Afognak, Inc. It is governed by a nine-member board of directors. Afognak Native Corporation has many business interests. For 18 years it participated in and profited from timber development ventures on Afogank Island. It also operates a number of successful subsidiaries including Leasing, Bioenergy Operations and Oil Field Services. In the late 1990s, the Afognak Native Corporation launched a government contracting business. The Afognak Native Corporation is a wealthy corporation and was listed in the Top 100 Contractors of the Federal Government in 2010. Coming in at No. 79, The Afognak Native Corporation's contracts were $749,557,576.49. Afognak Native Corporation entities also received NASA Small Business Contractor of the Year Award in 2013. The Corporation's profile is listed as "Construction and Engineering" services. The Afognak Native Corporation has approximately 900 shareholders and pays over $12 million in dividends annually. The Afognak Native Corporation controls over 160,000 acres of land in the Kodiak Archipelago and the lands form the core of financial success of the corporation.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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