Latest news with #AlaskaNatives
Wall Street Journal
a day ago
- Health
- Wall Street Journal
RFK Jr.'s Latest Challenge: Bring MAHA to Alaska
FAIRBANKS, Alaska—In a community of roughly 230 people about six hours by car from Fairbanks on a gravel road, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. heard from Alaska Natives about how hard it is to find fresh food. The king salmon that once sustained the village of Tanana are disappearing. Because of high fuel and shipping costs, a half gallon of milk at the local grocery store costs $10.99. A greenhouse took millions of dollars to construct, according to Kennedy, but was never hooked up to water and electricity, making it unusable for most of the year.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘Erasure of years of work': outcry as White House moves to open Arctic reserve to oil and gas drilling
The Trump administration's plan to expand oil and gas drilling in a 23m acre reserve on the Arctic Ocean is sparking an impassioned response, amid fears it threatens Arctic wildlife, undermines the subsistence rights of Alaska Natives and imperils one of the fastest-warming ecosystems on Earth. More than a quarter of a million people have responded to the 2 June proposal from the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to roll back protections on the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), the largest tract of public land in the US. A man from Georgia described hearing from an oil company that an employee shot a mother polar bear after encountering her with two cubs in northern Alaska. 'I beg you to reconsider … I'm just 18 years old and haven't had a chance to see the real world yet,' said a teenager from Denmark. 'This will make that impossible – if not in the whole world, then at least in the icy areas of our planet.' The staggering number of comments submitted during the two-month comment period showed the public was watching, said Andy Moderow, senior director of policy at the Alaska Wilderness League. 'That's a pretty large turnout of Americans saying this is not the direction we need in the Arctic.' The BLM rollback is part of a broad, rapid-fire regulatory push to industrialize the Alaskan Arctic, particularly the NPR-A. Weeks after proposing to strip protections from the reserve, the Department of Interior signaled it would adopt a management plan that would open 82% of the NPR-A to oil drilling. Two weeks ago, before the public comment period had ended, the BLM rescinded three other Biden-era documents protecting the reserve. The Alaska Wilderness League, an Alaska-focused conservation non-profit, said the administration's decision to start dismantling protections for the NPR-A before the comment period concluded showed 'a lack of interest in meaningfully reviewing any input before taking action to allow unfettered industrialization across this landscape'. Alaska Native groups, some of which have worked for years to secure protections for areas of the NPR-A, also expressed frustration. The rollback is 'a coordinated erasure of years of work by Alaska Native communities', said Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic in a press statement. 'To have all the work we've done for the last two decades, trying to create important special areas with their unique biological features demonstrated by science, disregarded to allow full-force development is crazy to consider,' said Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, an activist and former mayor of Nuiqsut, Alaska, a village in the NPR-A. The BLM said in a statement it was working through all comments received on the 2024 NPR-A rule rescission, and that it would respond to substantive comments in the final rule. The White House referred the Guardian to the BLM when asked for comment. Under Trump, the Department of Interior has embarked on a push to promote resource extraction in the Arctic, vowing to expand oil and gas in the NPR-A, open oil leasing on the coastal plain of the Arctic national wildlife refuge, and advance a controversial mining road in the southern Brooks range. The total land in play from these proposals is nearly 25m acres (10m hectares) of Arctic ecosystem, an area larger than the state of Indiana. The NPR-A comprises the vast majority of this. The reserve supports home grounds for polar bears, calving areas for caribou, and habitat for millions of migratory birds from Africa and Europe, as well as the Americas. In 2023, the Biden administration began consultations with Alaska Native groups and other stakeholders to update existing rules on how the NPR-A should be managed. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion These consultations led to the 2024 rule which the BLM now aims to rescind. That rule protects key areas in the NPR-A for subsistence use and habitat, including Teshekpuk Lake, the Utukok Uplands and the Colville River. Ahtuangaruak, who participated in the 2023 consultations, said removing these protections could be 'very devastating rapidly'. She described a worsening ecological situation across the reserve, partly driven by existing oil development. Caribou herds were declining, she said, and some had shifted their migration patterns away from her village because of oil and gas development to the west of her village. Permafrost was thawing, causing freshwater Arctic lakes to drain. Ice roads separated caribou calves from caribou cows; polar bears struggled to den in the melting snowpack. Tim Fullman, a senior ecologist at the Wilderness Society, a US conservation non-profit, said that already-existing roads in the Alaskan Arctic had been shown to hinder caribou movement, at times delaying migrating animals for up to a month. Then there's the perennial health impacts on communities from gas flaring in the NPR-A, which Ahtuangaruak said she began to notice in the early 2000s when she was a healthcare worker. 'The flares, when there'd be 20 or more, there would be nights where people would have trouble breathing,' she said. 'Babies would start to have events. There was one point where we had 20 babies develop respiratory distress and 10 of them were put on ventilators.' Thirty miles east of Nuiqsut, Ahtuangaruak's village, is the ConocoPhillips Willow project, a drilling operation approved in March 2023 under the Biden administration. Still under construction, it is projected to come online in 2029. Once it begins to produce, Willow will be operational for at least 30 years, according to its environmental impact statement. The project is an example of the timeframe involved in the Arctic oil and gas projects the Trump administration is currently encouraging, says Moderow – spanning decades. 'We're not talking about oil next year. We're talking about oil in 2050 and 2060 and beyond, when we need to move past it,' he said. The projects 'could easily be pumping oil when babies born today are retiring in a climate that's not livable if that oil is not blocked'. 'It's investing in production that's going to be going on for decades, well past when we need to be at essentially net zero greenhouse gas emissions if we're going to have a livable climate,' said Jeremy Lieb, a senior attorney at Earthjustice.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘Erasure of years of work': outcry as White House moves to open Arctic reserve to oil and gas drilling
The Trump administration's plan to expand oil and gas drilling in a 23m acre reserve on the Arctic Ocean is sparking an impassioned response, amid fears it threatens Arctic wildlife, undermines the subsistence rights of Alaska Natives and imperils one of the fastest-warming ecosystems on Earth. More than a quarter of a million people have responded to the 2 June proposal from the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to roll back protections on the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), the largest tract of public land in the US. A man from Georgia described hearing from an oil company that an employee shot a mother polar bear after encountering her with two cubs in northern Alaska. 'I beg you to reconsider … I'm just 18 years old and haven't had a chance to see the real world yet,' said a teenager from Denmark. 'This will make that impossible – if not in the whole world, then at least in the icy areas of our planet.' The staggering number of comments submitted during the two-month comment period showed the public was watching, said Andy Moderow, senior director of policy at the Alaska Wilderness League. 'That's a pretty large turnout of Americans saying this is not the direction we need in the Arctic.' The BLM rollback is part of a broad, rapid-fire regulatory push to industrialize the Alaskan Arctic, particularly the NPR-A. Weeks after proposing to strip protections from the reserve, the Department of Interior signaled it would adopt a management plan that would open 82% of the NPR-A to oil drilling. Two weeks ago, before the public comment period had ended, the BLM rescinded three other Biden-era documents protecting the reserve. The Alaska Wilderness League, an Alaska-focused conservation non-profit, said the administration's decision to start dismantling protections for the NPR-A before the comment period concluded showed 'a lack of interest in meaningfully reviewing any input before taking action to allow unfettered industrialization across this landscape'. Alaska Native groups, some of which have worked for years to secure protections for areas of the NPR-A, also expressed frustration. The rollback is 'a coordinated erasure of years of work by Alaska Native communities', said Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic in a press statement. 'To have all the work we've done for the last two decades, trying to create important special areas with their unique biological features demonstrated by science, disregarded to allow full-force development is crazy to consider,' said Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, an activist and former mayor of Nuiqsut, Alaska, a village in the NPR-A. The BLM said in a statement it was working through all comments received on the 2024 NPR-A rule rescission, and that it would respond to substantive comments in the final rule. The White House referred the Guardian to the BLM when asked for comment. Under Trump, the Department of Interior has embarked on a push to promote resource extraction in the Arctic, vowing to expand oil and gas in the NPR-A, open oil leasing on the coastal plain of the Arctic national wildlife refuge, and advance a controversial mining road in the southern Brooks range. The total land in play from these proposals is nearly 25m acres (10m hectares) of Arctic ecosystem, an area larger than the state of Indiana. The NPR-A comprises the vast majority of this. The reserve supports home grounds for polar bears, calving areas for caribou, and habitat for millions of migratory birds from Africa and Europe, as well as the Americas. In 2023, the Biden administration began consultations with Alaska Native groups and other stakeholders to update existing rules on how the NPR-A should be managed. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion These consultations led to the 2024 rule which the BLM now aims to rescind. That rule protects key areas in the NPR-A for subsistence use and habitat, including Teshekpuk Lake, the Utukok Uplands and the Colville River. Ahtuangaruak, who participated in the 2023 consultations, said removing these protections could be 'very devastating rapidly'. She described a worsening ecological situation across the reserve, partly driven by existing oil development. Caribou herds were declining, she said, and some had shifted their migration patterns away from her village because of oil and gas development to the west of her village. Permafrost was thawing, causing freshwater Arctic lakes to drain. Ice roads separated caribou calves from caribou cows; polar bears struggled to den in the melting snowpack. Tim Fullman, a senior ecologist at the Wilderness Society, a US conservation non-profit, said that already-existing roads in the Alaskan Arctic had been shown to hinder caribou movement, at times delaying migrating animals for up to a month. Then there's the perennial health impacts on communities from gas flaring in the NPR-A, which Ahtuangaruak said she began to notice in the early 2000s when she was a healthcare worker. 'The flares, when there'd be 20 or more, there would be nights where people would have trouble breathing,' she said. 'Babies would start to have events. There was one point where we had 20 babies develop respiratory distress and 10 of them were put on ventilators.' Thirty miles east of Nuiqsut, Ahtuangaruak's village, is the ConocoPhillips Willow project, a drilling operation approved in March 2023 under the Biden administration. Still under construction, it is projected to come online in 2029. Once it begins to produce, Willow will be operational for at least 30 years, according to its environmental impact statement. The project is an example of the timeframe involved in the Arctic oil and gas projects the Trump administration is currently encouraging, says Moderow – spanning decades. 'We're not talking about oil next year. We're talking about oil in 2050 and 2060 and beyond, when we need to move past it,' he said. The projects 'could easily be pumping oil when babies born today are retiring in a climate that's not livable if that oil is not blocked'. 'It's investing in production that's going to be going on for decades, well past when we need to be at essentially net zero greenhouse gas emissions if we're going to have a livable climate,' said Jeremy Lieb, a senior attorney at Earthjustice.
The Advertiser
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Advertiser
Alaska conflicted over mining push, indigenous customs
Fish camps still dot the banks of the broad Kuskokwim River in southwestern Alaska. Wooden huts and tarped shelters stand beside drying racks draped with bright red strips of salmon. Alaska Native families have harvested fish for generations and preserved them for the bitter winters ahead. But the once-abundant salmon populations have declined so sharply in recent years that authorities have severely restricted subsistence fishing on Alaska's second-longest river. They've imposed even tighter restrictions on the longer Yukon River to the north. Various factors are blamed for the salmon collapse, from climate change to commercial fishing practices. What's clear is the impact is not just on food but on long-standing rituals — fish camps where elders transmit skills and stories to younger generations while bonding over a sacred connection to the land. "Our families are together for that single-minded purpose of providing for our survival," said Gloria Simeon, a Yup'ik resident of Bethel. "It's the college of fish camp." So when Alaska Natives debate proposals to drill, mine or otherwise develop the landscape of the nation's largest state, it involves more than an environmental or economic question. It's also a spiritual and cultural one. "We have a special spiritual, religious relationship to our river and our land," said Simeon, standing outside her backyard smokehouse where she uses birch-bark kindling and cottonwood logs to preserve this year's salmon catch. "Our people have been stewards of this land for millennia, and we've taken that relationship seriously." Put a pin just about anywhere on the map of Alaska, and you're likely to hit an area mulling a proposed mine, a new wilderness road, a logging site, an oil well, or a natural gas pipeline. Such debates have intensified during US President Donald Trump's second term. His administration and allies have pushed aggressively for drilling, mining and developing on Alaska's public lands. Native leaders and activists are divided about extraction projects. Supporters say they bring jobs and pay for infrastructure, while opponents say they imperil the environment and their traditions. Trump singled out Alaska as a priority for extraction projects in an executive order signed on his first day in office. "Unlocking this bounty of natural wealth will raise the prosperity of our citizens while helping to enhance our Nation's economic and national security," the order said. Increasingly, words are turning to action. Congress, in passing Trump's budget bill in July, authorised an unprecedented four new sales of oil and gas leases in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and still more in other locations. Trump cabinet officials made a high-profile visit in June to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska's far north — an aging oil field that is one of the largest in North America. They touted goals of doubling the oil coursing through Alaska's existing pipeline system and building a massive natural gas pipeline as its "big, beautiful twin". It takes years for proposed extraction projects to unfold, if they ever do. The extent of oil reserves in the Arctic refuge remains uncertain. No major oil company bid during the only two lease sales offered to date in the Arctic refuge. But the measures pushed by the new administration and Congress amount to the latest pendulum swing between Republican and Democratic presidents, between policies prioritising extraction and environmental protections. The budget bill calls for additional lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, west of the Arctic refuge, and opening more areas to potential leasing than authorized under recent Democratic administrations. Alaska's political leaders generally have cheered on the push for more extraction, including its Republican congressional delegation and its governor, who has called his state "America's natural resource warehouse". So have some Native leaders, who say their communities stand to benefit from jobs and revenues. They say such projects are critical to their economic prospects and self-determination, providing jobs and helping their communities pay for schools, streets and snow removal. "We need jobs. Our people need training. To stand on our own two feet. Our kids need a future," said PJ Simon, first chief of the Allakaket Tribal Council. But Native opponents of such projects say short-term economic gains come at the risk of long-term environmental impacts that will reverberate widely. "We're kind of viewed as the last frontier, like we have unlimited resources," said Sophie Swope, executive director of the environmental advocacy group Mother Kuskokwim Tribal Coalition. She said Alaska's most renewable resources — such as salmon, deer and other migratory wildlife — are threatened both by overly aggressive ocean fishing and by extractive industries. "There's that lack of respect for our traditional subsistence lifestyles," she said. Opponents of oil drilling in the Arctic refuge fear it will permanently disrupt the long-range migration of caribou, which Native people have hunted for millennia. A massive caribou herd goes to the refuge's coastal plain to calve in the spring before fanning out across a wider area, providing a crucial food source for Native hunters in Alaska and Canada. If the herd's migration is disrupted, opponents fear an impact similar to the salmon collapse — a loss not just of food but of a focal point of culture and spirituality. Simeon said the disruption of communal hunting and fishing activities leads to a spiritual rootlessness that she believes contributes to alarming rates of addictions and suicide among Alaska Native people. "What does it do to your heart and soul when you have to look at an empty smokehouse year after year after year, and you can't provide for your family?" Simeon said. Fish camps still dot the banks of the broad Kuskokwim River in southwestern Alaska. Wooden huts and tarped shelters stand beside drying racks draped with bright red strips of salmon. Alaska Native families have harvested fish for generations and preserved them for the bitter winters ahead. But the once-abundant salmon populations have declined so sharply in recent years that authorities have severely restricted subsistence fishing on Alaska's second-longest river. They've imposed even tighter restrictions on the longer Yukon River to the north. Various factors are blamed for the salmon collapse, from climate change to commercial fishing practices. What's clear is the impact is not just on food but on long-standing rituals — fish camps where elders transmit skills and stories to younger generations while bonding over a sacred connection to the land. "Our families are together for that single-minded purpose of providing for our survival," said Gloria Simeon, a Yup'ik resident of Bethel. "It's the college of fish camp." So when Alaska Natives debate proposals to drill, mine or otherwise develop the landscape of the nation's largest state, it involves more than an environmental or economic question. It's also a spiritual and cultural one. "We have a special spiritual, religious relationship to our river and our land," said Simeon, standing outside her backyard smokehouse where she uses birch-bark kindling and cottonwood logs to preserve this year's salmon catch. "Our people have been stewards of this land for millennia, and we've taken that relationship seriously." Put a pin just about anywhere on the map of Alaska, and you're likely to hit an area mulling a proposed mine, a new wilderness road, a logging site, an oil well, or a natural gas pipeline. Such debates have intensified during US President Donald Trump's second term. His administration and allies have pushed aggressively for drilling, mining and developing on Alaska's public lands. Native leaders and activists are divided about extraction projects. Supporters say they bring jobs and pay for infrastructure, while opponents say they imperil the environment and their traditions. Trump singled out Alaska as a priority for extraction projects in an executive order signed on his first day in office. "Unlocking this bounty of natural wealth will raise the prosperity of our citizens while helping to enhance our Nation's economic and national security," the order said. Increasingly, words are turning to action. Congress, in passing Trump's budget bill in July, authorised an unprecedented four new sales of oil and gas leases in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and still more in other locations. Trump cabinet officials made a high-profile visit in June to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska's far north — an aging oil field that is one of the largest in North America. They touted goals of doubling the oil coursing through Alaska's existing pipeline system and building a massive natural gas pipeline as its "big, beautiful twin". It takes years for proposed extraction projects to unfold, if they ever do. The extent of oil reserves in the Arctic refuge remains uncertain. No major oil company bid during the only two lease sales offered to date in the Arctic refuge. But the measures pushed by the new administration and Congress amount to the latest pendulum swing between Republican and Democratic presidents, between policies prioritising extraction and environmental protections. The budget bill calls for additional lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, west of the Arctic refuge, and opening more areas to potential leasing than authorized under recent Democratic administrations. Alaska's political leaders generally have cheered on the push for more extraction, including its Republican congressional delegation and its governor, who has called his state "America's natural resource warehouse". So have some Native leaders, who say their communities stand to benefit from jobs and revenues. They say such projects are critical to their economic prospects and self-determination, providing jobs and helping their communities pay for schools, streets and snow removal. "We need jobs. Our people need training. To stand on our own two feet. Our kids need a future," said PJ Simon, first chief of the Allakaket Tribal Council. But Native opponents of such projects say short-term economic gains come at the risk of long-term environmental impacts that will reverberate widely. "We're kind of viewed as the last frontier, like we have unlimited resources," said Sophie Swope, executive director of the environmental advocacy group Mother Kuskokwim Tribal Coalition. She said Alaska's most renewable resources — such as salmon, deer and other migratory wildlife — are threatened both by overly aggressive ocean fishing and by extractive industries. "There's that lack of respect for our traditional subsistence lifestyles," she said. Opponents of oil drilling in the Arctic refuge fear it will permanently disrupt the long-range migration of caribou, which Native people have hunted for millennia. A massive caribou herd goes to the refuge's coastal plain to calve in the spring before fanning out across a wider area, providing a crucial food source for Native hunters in Alaska and Canada. If the herd's migration is disrupted, opponents fear an impact similar to the salmon collapse — a loss not just of food but of a focal point of culture and spirituality. Simeon said the disruption of communal hunting and fishing activities leads to a spiritual rootlessness that she believes contributes to alarming rates of addictions and suicide among Alaska Native people. "What does it do to your heart and soul when you have to look at an empty smokehouse year after year after year, and you can't provide for your family?" Simeon said. Fish camps still dot the banks of the broad Kuskokwim River in southwestern Alaska. Wooden huts and tarped shelters stand beside drying racks draped with bright red strips of salmon. Alaska Native families have harvested fish for generations and preserved them for the bitter winters ahead. But the once-abundant salmon populations have declined so sharply in recent years that authorities have severely restricted subsistence fishing on Alaska's second-longest river. They've imposed even tighter restrictions on the longer Yukon River to the north. Various factors are blamed for the salmon collapse, from climate change to commercial fishing practices. What's clear is the impact is not just on food but on long-standing rituals — fish camps where elders transmit skills and stories to younger generations while bonding over a sacred connection to the land. "Our families are together for that single-minded purpose of providing for our survival," said Gloria Simeon, a Yup'ik resident of Bethel. "It's the college of fish camp." So when Alaska Natives debate proposals to drill, mine or otherwise develop the landscape of the nation's largest state, it involves more than an environmental or economic question. It's also a spiritual and cultural one. "We have a special spiritual, religious relationship to our river and our land," said Simeon, standing outside her backyard smokehouse where she uses birch-bark kindling and cottonwood logs to preserve this year's salmon catch. "Our people have been stewards of this land for millennia, and we've taken that relationship seriously." Put a pin just about anywhere on the map of Alaska, and you're likely to hit an area mulling a proposed mine, a new wilderness road, a logging site, an oil well, or a natural gas pipeline. Such debates have intensified during US President Donald Trump's second term. His administration and allies have pushed aggressively for drilling, mining and developing on Alaska's public lands. Native leaders and activists are divided about extraction projects. Supporters say they bring jobs and pay for infrastructure, while opponents say they imperil the environment and their traditions. Trump singled out Alaska as a priority for extraction projects in an executive order signed on his first day in office. "Unlocking this bounty of natural wealth will raise the prosperity of our citizens while helping to enhance our Nation's economic and national security," the order said. Increasingly, words are turning to action. Congress, in passing Trump's budget bill in July, authorised an unprecedented four new sales of oil and gas leases in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and still more in other locations. Trump cabinet officials made a high-profile visit in June to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska's far north — an aging oil field that is one of the largest in North America. They touted goals of doubling the oil coursing through Alaska's existing pipeline system and building a massive natural gas pipeline as its "big, beautiful twin". It takes years for proposed extraction projects to unfold, if they ever do. The extent of oil reserves in the Arctic refuge remains uncertain. No major oil company bid during the only two lease sales offered to date in the Arctic refuge. But the measures pushed by the new administration and Congress amount to the latest pendulum swing between Republican and Democratic presidents, between policies prioritising extraction and environmental protections. The budget bill calls for additional lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, west of the Arctic refuge, and opening more areas to potential leasing than authorized under recent Democratic administrations. Alaska's political leaders generally have cheered on the push for more extraction, including its Republican congressional delegation and its governor, who has called his state "America's natural resource warehouse". So have some Native leaders, who say their communities stand to benefit from jobs and revenues. They say such projects are critical to their economic prospects and self-determination, providing jobs and helping their communities pay for schools, streets and snow removal. "We need jobs. Our people need training. To stand on our own two feet. Our kids need a future," said PJ Simon, first chief of the Allakaket Tribal Council. But Native opponents of such projects say short-term economic gains come at the risk of long-term environmental impacts that will reverberate widely. "We're kind of viewed as the last frontier, like we have unlimited resources," said Sophie Swope, executive director of the environmental advocacy group Mother Kuskokwim Tribal Coalition. She said Alaska's most renewable resources — such as salmon, deer and other migratory wildlife — are threatened both by overly aggressive ocean fishing and by extractive industries. "There's that lack of respect for our traditional subsistence lifestyles," she said. Opponents of oil drilling in the Arctic refuge fear it will permanently disrupt the long-range migration of caribou, which Native people have hunted for millennia. A massive caribou herd goes to the refuge's coastal plain to calve in the spring before fanning out across a wider area, providing a crucial food source for Native hunters in Alaska and Canada. If the herd's migration is disrupted, opponents fear an impact similar to the salmon collapse — a loss not just of food but of a focal point of culture and spirituality. Simeon said the disruption of communal hunting and fishing activities leads to a spiritual rootlessness that she believes contributes to alarming rates of addictions and suicide among Alaska Native people. "What does it do to your heart and soul when you have to look at an empty smokehouse year after year after year, and you can't provide for your family?" Simeon said. Fish camps still dot the banks of the broad Kuskokwim River in southwestern Alaska. Wooden huts and tarped shelters stand beside drying racks draped with bright red strips of salmon. Alaska Native families have harvested fish for generations and preserved them for the bitter winters ahead. But the once-abundant salmon populations have declined so sharply in recent years that authorities have severely restricted subsistence fishing on Alaska's second-longest river. They've imposed even tighter restrictions on the longer Yukon River to the north. Various factors are blamed for the salmon collapse, from climate change to commercial fishing practices. What's clear is the impact is not just on food but on long-standing rituals — fish camps where elders transmit skills and stories to younger generations while bonding over a sacred connection to the land. "Our families are together for that single-minded purpose of providing for our survival," said Gloria Simeon, a Yup'ik resident of Bethel. "It's the college of fish camp." So when Alaska Natives debate proposals to drill, mine or otherwise develop the landscape of the nation's largest state, it involves more than an environmental or economic question. It's also a spiritual and cultural one. "We have a special spiritual, religious relationship to our river and our land," said Simeon, standing outside her backyard smokehouse where she uses birch-bark kindling and cottonwood logs to preserve this year's salmon catch. "Our people have been stewards of this land for millennia, and we've taken that relationship seriously." Put a pin just about anywhere on the map of Alaska, and you're likely to hit an area mulling a proposed mine, a new wilderness road, a logging site, an oil well, or a natural gas pipeline. Such debates have intensified during US President Donald Trump's second term. His administration and allies have pushed aggressively for drilling, mining and developing on Alaska's public lands. Native leaders and activists are divided about extraction projects. Supporters say they bring jobs and pay for infrastructure, while opponents say they imperil the environment and their traditions. Trump singled out Alaska as a priority for extraction projects in an executive order signed on his first day in office. "Unlocking this bounty of natural wealth will raise the prosperity of our citizens while helping to enhance our Nation's economic and national security," the order said. Increasingly, words are turning to action. Congress, in passing Trump's budget bill in July, authorised an unprecedented four new sales of oil and gas leases in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and still more in other locations. Trump cabinet officials made a high-profile visit in June to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska's far north — an aging oil field that is one of the largest in North America. They touted goals of doubling the oil coursing through Alaska's existing pipeline system and building a massive natural gas pipeline as its "big, beautiful twin". It takes years for proposed extraction projects to unfold, if they ever do. The extent of oil reserves in the Arctic refuge remains uncertain. No major oil company bid during the only two lease sales offered to date in the Arctic refuge. But the measures pushed by the new administration and Congress amount to the latest pendulum swing between Republican and Democratic presidents, between policies prioritising extraction and environmental protections. The budget bill calls for additional lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, west of the Arctic refuge, and opening more areas to potential leasing than authorized under recent Democratic administrations. Alaska's political leaders generally have cheered on the push for more extraction, including its Republican congressional delegation and its governor, who has called his state "America's natural resource warehouse". So have some Native leaders, who say their communities stand to benefit from jobs and revenues. They say such projects are critical to their economic prospects and self-determination, providing jobs and helping their communities pay for schools, streets and snow removal. "We need jobs. Our people need training. To stand on our own two feet. Our kids need a future," said PJ Simon, first chief of the Allakaket Tribal Council. But Native opponents of such projects say short-term economic gains come at the risk of long-term environmental impacts that will reverberate widely. "We're kind of viewed as the last frontier, like we have unlimited resources," said Sophie Swope, executive director of the environmental advocacy group Mother Kuskokwim Tribal Coalition. She said Alaska's most renewable resources — such as salmon, deer and other migratory wildlife — are threatened both by overly aggressive ocean fishing and by extractive industries. "There's that lack of respect for our traditional subsistence lifestyles," she said. Opponents of oil drilling in the Arctic refuge fear it will permanently disrupt the long-range migration of caribou, which Native people have hunted for millennia. A massive caribou herd goes to the refuge's coastal plain to calve in the spring before fanning out across a wider area, providing a crucial food source for Native hunters in Alaska and Canada. If the herd's migration is disrupted, opponents fear an impact similar to the salmon collapse — a loss not just of food but of a focal point of culture and spirituality. Simeon said the disruption of communal hunting and fishing activities leads to a spiritual rootlessness that she believes contributes to alarming rates of addictions and suicide among Alaska Native people. "What does it do to your heart and soul when you have to look at an empty smokehouse year after year after year, and you can't provide for your family?" Simeon said.
West Australian
4 days ago
- Politics
- West Australian
Alaska conflicted over mining push, indigenous customs
Fish camps still dot the banks of the broad Kuskokwim River in southwestern Alaska. Wooden huts and tarped shelters stand beside drying racks draped with bright red strips of salmon. Alaska Native families have harvested fish for generations and preserved them for the bitter winters ahead. But the once-abundant salmon populations have declined so sharply in recent years that authorities have severely restricted subsistence fishing on Alaska's second-longest river. They've imposed even tighter restrictions on the longer Yukon River to the north. Various factors are blamed for the salmon collapse, from climate change to commercial fishing practices. What's clear is the impact is not just on food but on long-standing rituals — fish camps where elders transmit skills and stories to younger generations while bonding over a sacred connection to the land. "Our families are together for that single-minded purpose of providing for our survival," said Gloria Simeon, a Yup'ik resident of Bethel. "It's the college of fish camp." So when Alaska Natives debate proposals to drill, mine or otherwise develop the landscape of the nation's largest state, it involves more than an environmental or economic question. It's also a spiritual and cultural one. "We have a special spiritual, religious relationship to our river and our land," said Simeon, standing outside her backyard smokehouse where she uses birch-bark kindling and cottonwood logs to preserve this year's salmon catch. "Our people have been stewards of this land for millennia, and we've taken that relationship seriously." Put a pin just about anywhere on the map of Alaska, and you're likely to hit an area mulling a proposed mine, a new wilderness road, a logging site, an oil well, or a natural gas pipeline. Such debates have intensified during US President Donald Trump's second term. His administration and allies have pushed aggressively for drilling, mining and developing on Alaska's public lands. Native leaders and activists are divided about extraction projects. Supporters say they bring jobs and pay for infrastructure, while opponents say they imperil the environment and their traditions. Trump singled out Alaska as a priority for extraction projects in an executive order signed on his first day in office. "Unlocking this bounty of natural wealth will raise the prosperity of our citizens while helping to enhance our Nation's economic and national security," the order said. Increasingly, words are turning to action. Congress, in passing Trump's budget bill in July, authorised an unprecedented four new sales of oil and gas leases in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and still more in other locations. Trump cabinet officials made a high-profile visit in June to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska's far north — an aging oil field that is one of the largest in North America. They touted goals of doubling the oil coursing through Alaska's existing pipeline system and building a massive natural gas pipeline as its "big, beautiful twin". It takes years for proposed extraction projects to unfold, if they ever do. The extent of oil reserves in the Arctic refuge remains uncertain. No major oil company bid during the only two lease sales offered to date in the Arctic refuge. But the measures pushed by the new administration and Congress amount to the latest pendulum swing between Republican and Democratic presidents, between policies prioritising extraction and environmental protections. The budget bill calls for additional lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, west of the Arctic refuge, and opening more areas to potential leasing than authorized under recent Democratic administrations. Alaska's political leaders generally have cheered on the push for more extraction, including its Republican congressional delegation and its governor, who has called his state "America's natural resource warehouse". So have some Native leaders, who say their communities stand to benefit from jobs and revenues. They say such projects are critical to their economic prospects and self-determination, providing jobs and helping their communities pay for schools, streets and snow removal. "We need jobs. Our people need training. To stand on our own two feet. Our kids need a future," said PJ Simon, first chief of the Allakaket Tribal Council. But Native opponents of such projects say short-term economic gains come at the risk of long-term environmental impacts that will reverberate widely. "We're kind of viewed as the last frontier, like we have unlimited resources," said Sophie Swope, executive director of the environmental advocacy group Mother Kuskokwim Tribal Coalition. She said Alaska's most renewable resources — such as salmon, deer and other migratory wildlife — are threatened both by overly aggressive ocean fishing and by extractive industries. "There's that lack of respect for our traditional subsistence lifestyles," she said. Opponents of oil drilling in the Arctic refuge fear it will permanently disrupt the long-range migration of caribou, which Native people have hunted for millennia. A massive caribou herd goes to the refuge's coastal plain to calve in the spring before fanning out across a wider area, providing a crucial food source for Native hunters in Alaska and Canada. If the herd's migration is disrupted, opponents fear an impact similar to the salmon collapse — a loss not just of food but of a focal point of culture and spirituality. Simeon said the disruption of communal hunting and fishing activities leads to a spiritual rootlessness that she believes contributes to alarming rates of addictions and suicide among Alaska Native people. "What does it do to your heart and soul when you have to look at an empty smokehouse year after year after year, and you can't provide for your family?" Simeon said.
