Protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Written by Sarah Anderson
For thousands of years, the
Gwich’in people have lived in and around the land that is known as the Arctic
Refuge. The Gwich’in, like many other Native tribes,
are spiritually and physically linked to this landscape and its wildlife. There
are thousands of species that encompass this land, including, but not limited
to polar bears, grizzly bears, black bears, more than 200 species of birds,
caribou, wolves, and a multitude of other species (Protecting the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge 2018).
It is no
surprise to anyone that polar bears could go extinct during our lifetime due to
climate change. There are only about 30,000 polar bears left today but 50 of
those polar bears come to the Artic Refuge each year in September to begin
denning. The USFWS states that the Arctic Refuge is the only national
conservation area where polar bears regularly den, and it is the most
consistently used polar bear land denning area in the state of Alaska. Due to
the reduction of sea ice, the Arctic Refuge is a critical habitat for the polar
bears and if it is destroyed, it could increase their rate of extinction (Protecting the Arctic Wildlife Refuge 2018).
The Gwich’in people rely on
Caribou for subsistence, therefore, without the caribou the Gwich’in could not
survive in this remote environment. The herd’s calving grounds on the Coastal
Plain, referred to by the Gwich’in as “the sacred place where life begins,” is
at a huge risk for destruction and irreversibly damaged by drilling equipment
and infrastructure should it be permitted in the Arctic Refuge (Protecting the
Arctic Wildlife Refuge 2018).
Although 8 million acres of
the total 19.6 million acres of Arctic Refuge have been congressionally
designated as wilderness, that still leaves a very large portion of this land
at risk for the government to use as a mining site. The Arctic Refuge’s
Comprehensive Conservation Plan recommends the entire refuge receive wilderness
designation to avoid government intervention and to protect the sacred land. In
2015, President Obama issued a formal recommendation to Congress that the
entire refuge be protected as wilderness but unfortunately, nothing came from
it. If mining is approved and the state moves forward, drilling equipment and infrastructure
would devastate the Arctic landscape and harm wildlife. Any leaks or spills would
exacerbate these damages and forever impair this refuge (Protecting the Arctic
Wildlife Refuge 2018).
The reason that Arctic
Refuge is at risk is because people believe that the ground under it contains
oil and natural gas reserves. Despite productive oil fields throughout the
state, there has been an ongoing push by the extraction industry and Alaska’s government
to open the Arctic Refuge to drilling operations (Protecting the Arctic
Wildlife Refuge 2018). In fact, in 2017 the Trump Administration and Alaska
Senator were making progress towards delivering the refuge to the oil and gas
industry, which eventually lead the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and
gas development (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge). Furthermore, Alaska is a
state that doesn’t have sales or income tax, and more than one-third of the
state’s 300,000 private-sector jobs depend on oil and gas. For Alaska, this
industry funds 90% of the state budget, making it an obvious reason why the
government is itching to mine under the Arctic Refuge (Bourne 2018).
In an effort
to fast track this process before the next presidential election, in December
the Bureau of Land Management released the draft Environmental Impact Statement
for oil and gas development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. However, it
entails old, pre existing data and research from other parts of Alaska and
tries to claim that mining will have no effect on the caribou or Gwich’in
peoples, which is grossly false. This analysis also fails to include Native
knowledge from the people most intimately familiar with the region (Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge).
Unfortunately, situations
like this normally fall in favor of the government. The government has no
respect for Native peoples, their culture, their land, or the animals on their
land. Even land previously protected by treaties has been overturned by our
government so they can get their hands on land, gas, oil, etc. and they don’t
care what they have to destroy to get it. The government has proven many times
over how insensitive they are in regards to Native peoples and that they don’t
care how connected native peoples are to the land and its wildlife.
Bibliography
Protecting the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge « National Wildlife Refuge Association. (2018).
Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.narf.org/cases/arctic-national-wildlife-refuge/
Bourne, J. K., & Schulz,
F. (2018, May 29). This Refuge May Be the Most Contested Land in \the U.S. Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/06/arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-america-oil-risk/
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