For more than three decades, the Gwich’in Native community has helped to fight off repeated attempts by Republican administrations and fossil fuel companies to drill for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, the largest remaining stretch of wilderness in the United States.
For more than three decades, the Gwich’in Native community has helped to fight off repeated attempts by Republican administrations and fossil fuel companies to drill for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, the largest remaining stretch of wilderness in the United States.
Last month, however, the Trump administration finalized plans to open up the refuge’s entire 1.5-million-acre coastal plain — thought to contain the largest untapped onshore oil reserve in North America — to fossil fuel development. The Gwich’in refer to the coastal plain as Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit, or the “sacred place where life begins.” It is the birthing grounds for the Porcupine caribou herd, upon which the tribe’s culture, history, and livelihood are based.
In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Gwich’in elder Sarah James, who has been an international leader in this fight since the 1980s, talks about the significance the refuge plays in Gwich’in life; the Trump administration’s full-scale pursuit of drilling in the region; and what comes next in the battle to protect these sacred lands.
“We’re not a nonprofit. We’re not a movement. We’re not corporation,” says James. “We’re a Neets’aii Gwich’in tribal government, and that’s how we’re now taking on this issue, government-to-government, and we’re standing our ground.”
Read more at: YaleEnvironment 360
