TCC Achieves AAAHC Accreditation

Tanana Chiefs Conference has received another 3-year accreditation from the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, Inc. (AAAHC)! At the beginning of August, AAAHC surveyors visited the Chief Andrew Isaac Health Center as well as our health care facilities in Galena and Nenana to evaluate the quality and environment of care provided at our clinics. Out of over 1,000 AAAHC standards, there were only six partially-compliant findings. 

Congratulations to all TCC Health Staff who contributed to the success of the survey and who continually go above and beyond to ensure that TCC meets this standard of excellence.

Part of TCC’s 2015-2020 Strategic Plan is to be prepared for the 2016 AAAHC Accreditation.

Gwich’in people need protection for Draanjik River region

Author: Chief Nancy James and Chief Woodie Salmon

Photo Courtesy Joe Mates

For millennia, the Draanjik Gwich’in people in Alaska’s Eastern Interior have known the place that surrounds and sustains them as the land that gives their communities life.

The Draanjik River region extends from the Yukon Territory into an undisturbed wildland that includes 2.4 million acres of public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The vast, pristine region includes watershed tributaries of the Yukon River and encompasses the traditional territories of the Draanjik and Gwichyaa Zhee Gwich’in. In a world where nature is increasingly diminished and threatened by human activities, the Draanjik is that rare place with room to breathe. It looks today much like it did at the end of the last ice age about 12,000 years ago.

[Feds recognize Native names for major Alaska river system.]

Entirely free from mining, logging or oil and gas development, this land matches like a puzzle-piece with contiguous protected areas across the Canadian border and is subject to two international treaties: one for salmon and one for caribou. The intact forest and wetlands support more than two dozen species of mammals, including the Porcupine caribou herd that requires large and isolated tracts of intact habitat to thrive. The river supports spawning populations of three species of salmon, including chinook, and is one of five known locations in the Yukon drainage where sheefish spawn.

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33rd Annual Tribal Court Development Conference

In August Tanana Chiefs Conference, in partnership with the National Judicial College and the University of Alaska, hosted the 33^rd annual Tribal Court Development Conference. Each year the conference is held in order to bring tribal members together to discuss current topics and basic tribal court knowledge.  The intent is to continue to assist those who are either new to tribal court development or wanting to enhance a system that they already have in place.

The theme this year was “Fairness in Justice.”

Chief Victor Joseph of TCC said, “Talking about Fairness in Justice, it’s like the puzzle pieces are coming together.” As the conferences continue to grow each year Joseph reminded those in attendance what TCC has been doing, “We have been looking at what we have done so far; where we are at today, and what we need to do to be successful in the future.”Read more