Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 93.djvu/1495

 PROCLAMATION 4621—DEC. 1, 1978

93 STAT. 14(33

Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (43 U.S.C. 1616(d)(1)); however, the national monument shall be the dominant reservation. Nothing in this Proclamation is intended to modify or revoke the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding dated September 1, 1972, entered into between the State of Alaska and the United States as part of the negotiated settlement of Alaska v. Morton, Civil No. A-48-72 (D. Alaska, Complaint filed April 10, 1972). The Secretary of the Interior shall promulgate such regulations as are appropriate. Warning is hereby given to all unauthorized persons not to appropriate, injure, destroy or remove any feature of this monument and not to locate or settle upon any of the lands thereof. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I hereunto set my hand this 1st day of December, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and seventy-eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and third. JIMMY CARTER

Proclamation 4621

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December 1, 1978

Kobuk Valley National Monument

By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation The Kobuk Valley and its environs, an area located in the northwest interior of Alaska, contains important archeological data and biological and geological features of great scientific significance. Archeological features within the area illustrate an unbroken continuum of human adaptation to the natural environment from the early pre-Eskimo people of 10,500 years ago to present-day local residents. Scientists recently discovered more than 100 dwellings occupied in about 1250 A.D., comprising the largest settlement of its kind. The Onion Portage Archeological District is located within the area, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Archeological research at Onion Portage has yielded evidence of more than 10,000 years of human occupation. The area contains the Great and Little Kobuk Sand Dunes, which lie north of the Arctic Circle and include both active and stabilized dunes. Scientific studies of the dunes show them to be older than 33,000 years, and several plants have been found in association with the dunes environment which are scientifically unusual in the area. The Great Kobuk Sand Dunes attain a height of 100 feet. The inclusion of the watersheds on the.lorth and south of the Kobuk River protects a uniquely representative series of interrelated plant communities. There is here an essentially unspoiled laboratory for the study of the northern boreal forest. A rich variety of wildlife also occurs within the area. Major portions of the northwest arctic caribou herd move through the area in spring and fall migrations. The area also includes one of only two significant populations of the Alaskan sheefish. The water environment is habitat for nesting waterfowl, moose, and muskrat. A relatively dense population of grizzly and black bears, wolf, wolverine, fox, otter, and other northern furbearing mammals range over the entire area. The land withdrawn and reserved by this Proclamation for the protection of the archeological, geological, biological, and other phenomena enumerated above supports now, as it has in the past, the unique subsistence culture of the local residents. The continued existence of this culture, which depends on subsistence hunting, and its availability for study, enhances the historic and scientific values of the natural objects protected herein because of the ongoing interaction of the subsistence culture with these objects. Accordingly, the opportunity for local residents to engage

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