A/HRC/21/47/Add.1 millions of dollars and filed thousands of documents in support of their claims. Figures about the pace of the recognition process yield differing perspectives. Nonetheless, as described by one Senator “it is not a system that is working under any stretch of the imagination.” I. Alaska 58. Indigenous peoples in Alaska have federal recognition within a unique legal regime that developed under a specific set of circumstances. In 1971 Congress enacted the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), which extinguished “all claims of aboriginal title,” as well as “any aboriginal hunting and fishing rights that may exist,” throughout Alaska. The act set up a system of native-run corporations with assets provided under the settlement, and Alaska Natives born as of the date of the act were given shares in the corporations. 59. With its design of replacing rights in land and resources with individual shares in corporations, ANCSA can be seen as being driven by the policy of assimilation that had long been in place and that presumably was coming to an end around the time of the act’s adoption (see paras. 21-24 above). Yet ANCSA continues to define realities for indigenous peoples in Alaska, leaving in its aftermath precarious conditions for indigenous peoples in their ability to maintain the subsistence and cultural patterns that have long sustained them amid abundant fish and wildlife resources, or to craft their own vehicles of selfdetermination. 60. Subsequent federal legislation has done little to restore Alaska Native hunting and fishing rights, but instead has left indigenous hunting and fishing subject to the same regulatory regime that applies to non-indigenous activities. And this regulatory regime is a highly complex, difficult one to navigate, in which both the federal Government and the state play a part, with the state in effect having a dominant role. The matter of subsistence hunting and fishing remains crucial both for cultural purposes and for food security. However, subsistence activities are subject to a state regulatory regime that allows for, and appears to often favour, competing land and resource uses such as mining and other activities, including hunting and fishing for sport, that may threaten natural environments and food sources. 61. Representatives of Alaska Native tribal governments, villages, corporations and organizations with whom the Special Rapporteur met coincided in the view that ANCSA was faulty in its inception. There were divergent views, however, about the extent to which the corporations can and are being responsive to the needs and aspirations of Alaska Natives, within the limitations of the corporate model. The Special Rapporteur did find indications that in many respects the native-run corporations are functioning to provide important economic and other benefits to Alaska Natives. 62. At the same time, the Special Rapporteur was struck by indications about how the economic and cultural transformations accelerated by ANCSA have bred or exacerbated social ills among indigenous communities, manifesting themselves, for example, in high rates of suicide, alcoholism, and violence. 63. Several Alaska Native representatives expressed to the Special Rapporteur the view that the problem runs deeper than ANCSA, to the incorporation of Alaska into the United States as a federal state through procedures that allegedly were not in compliance with the right of the indigenous people of Alaska to self-determination. 15