THE GWICH'IN AND ANWR
'The most Anglican group of people in the world '
fight for the right to protect a way of life
by Murray Carpenter

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) means different things to different people. Environmentalists see the 19-million-acre tract in extreme northeastern Alaska as a last remnant of wilderness, home to wolves, wolverines, polar bears and snowy owls. Oil developers see it as the last best hope for a large oil field in the U.S. And the Gwich'in people see the area as a critical birthing area for caribou -- and for a way of life.

The 130,000 caribou of the Porcupine herd migrate hundreds of miles to the ANWR coastal plain annually to give birth to their young. The Gwich'in, 7,000 people living in 15 villages along interior Alaska and Canada, have always been dependent on the Porcupine herd (named after the Porcupine River). Caribou are not just another animal to the Gwich'in, they are part of them.

Caribou, culture and 'spiritual solidarity'

"We've always lived like this," says Faith Gemmill, who is from the Gwich'in settlement of Arctic Village, located just south of the refuge, and along the caribou migration route. "We even have a creation story that we came from the caribou." According to Gemmill, the Gwich'in and the animals struck a deal. "The Gwich'in would retain a piece of the caribou heart, and the caribou would retain a piece of the Gwich'in heart," said Gemmill. "So whatever happens to the caribou happens to us, and whatever happens to us, happens to them."

The Gwich'in, and a number of environmentalists, are concerned that oil development along the coast would devastate the Porcupine herd and the Gwich'in way of life. "We're dependent on caribou," said Gemmill. "If [drilling] were allowed, slowly we would lose aspects of our culture. We just want to pass along what we have to our future generations. I want to pass it on to my daughter, and she's only two now."

Caribou comprises as much as 80 percent of the Gwich'in diet, Gemmill says. The hides are used for clothing, the bones for tools. Caribou have inspired traditional songs and dances. In sum, Gemmill said, "It's everything. Spiritually, culturally and socially, too. Like when we're out on the mountain hunting; it's very important for us to have that time up there with the caribou." During the hunt, young boys are taught the role of being the provider, hunting, and giving thanks. Young women are taught to prepare the meat, and other traditional roles. "We live in modern communities, we have TVs, we have telephones," says Gemmill, "but we need that time of year with the caribou."

Sarah James, a Neetsaii ("from the south side of the Brooks Range") Gwich'in from Arctic Village, agrees about the importance of the hunt in teaching the youth "survival, patience, sharing." The hunt also provides specific sustenance to the Gwich'in. "We need fresh meat for our bodies, we survive year to year by hunting or fishing. If that's missing from our bodies, we feel different," said James. "Going out [hunting] like that, that's the way I grew up."

A surprising fact to many outsiders is that most Gwich'in are Episcopalian. "We're Episcopals in Alaska, for about 100 years," Gemmill says. "My great-grandfather was one of the first Episcopal ministers; he helped translate the Bible to our language. We say the Lord's Prayer in our language, sing traditional hymns in our language." Gemmill sees no real distinction between traditional Gwich'in spirituality and Christianity. "It's the same," she says. "We have our traditional songs, our traditional dances."

Mark MacDonald, Episcopal Bishop of Alaska, agrees, "Gwich'in Christianity has become a way to affirm and embrace the old ways and the new ways, without losing cultural cohesiveness and solidarity. The Gwich'in are brilliant theologians. Gwich'in traditional culture is much closer to Christianity and Jesus than the dominating culture -- Christian or not."

MacDonald adds, "The church has found ANWR a compelling issue since General Convention in 1991. This is because it involves both an environmental concern, in the protection of ANWR, and a human rights concern, in the protection of the Gwich'in way of life. The Gwich'in people, arguably the most Anglican group of people in the world, are directly dependent upon the Porcupine Caribou herd for survival. A threat to the herd is a threat to Gwich'in cultural and physical survival."

The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church last spring renewed its support for permanent protection of ANWR in a resolution "in spiritual solidarity with the Gwich'in people."

'Among the most pristine ecosystems on earth'

The untrammeled land that is now part of the refuge has nurtured the Gwich'in for centuries. "It's an ecosystem that's been intact, and a way of life that's been intact for thousands of years," says Gemmill. She adds that the region she hopes to protect is a finite strip of land. "It's the last 5 percent of America's arctic coast that's not open to oil development. We're not asking much. We should not be asked to sacrifice our culture, our way of life. It's not fair or right."

The entire refuge is over 19 million acres, the same size as Maine. It was dedicated by President Dwight David Eisenhower in 1960 at the behest of scientists and conservationists who felt it had some of the most extraordinary natural values in the arctic. The Brooks Range swings down close to the coast here, making the coastal plain much narrower than it is farther west near Prudhoe Bay, and compressing a great many diverse habitats into a compact area within the refuge.

The great herds of migratory caribou have earned ANWR comparisons to Africa's wildlife-rich Serengeti Plain. In addition to the caribou, the refuge is home to wolves, musk oxen, wolverines, snowy owls and great flocks of snow geese. For a place so far north, the refuge features a great diversity of species: over 160 birds, 36 land mammals, nine marine mammals, and 36 fish. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the refuge, "The Arctic Refuge is among the most complete, pristine, and undisturbed ecosystems on earth."

At risk: the ANWR coast

Eight million acres of the refuge are protected as wilderness; it's the largest wilderness area in the refuge system. But only 30 of the 125 miles of coastline fall into the wilderness area. The coastal area is most critical for the caribou, polar bears and many other species. It's also the area oil developers hope to tap. In 1980, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act doubled the size of ANWR, set aside 8 million acres of the refuge as wilderness, and, controversially, designated 1.5 million acres on the coastal plain as an area to be studied for oil development. This so-called 1002 area, named for the section of ANILCA that created it, comprises the vast majority of the ANWR coast.

Adam Kolton of the Alaska Wilderness League says there have been constant efforts to open ANWR to oil development ever since the Trans-Alaskan pipeline started delivering oil from Prudhoe Bay in 1977. A federal study released in 1987 recommended full-scale oil development. But the Exxon Valdez oil spill scuttled the momentum. "Images of dead sea otters, killer whales and shorebirds on the TV every night," he says, "really changed all of that."

Other legislative efforts to open ANWR to drilling came after concerns about dependence on foreign oil flared in the wake of the Gulf War and then a few years later, when concerns about the national debt were high.

The Alaska Wilderness League is pushing efforts to protect the area as wilderness, a measure supported by over 200 members of the House and Senate, and a large segment of the public. In the final months of the Clinton administration, a number of ANWR advocates urged President Clinton to declare the area a National Monument.

"There's huge support from the American people for protecting this area," says Kolton.

In Alaska, the general sentiment is exactly the opposite. "It's become just about illegitimate [for Alaskan politicians] to oppose development in ANWR," says Bob Childers, an advisor to the Gwich'in Steering Committee. "Basically, oil taxes pay 80 percent of the budget." Alaska Senator Frank Murkowski has been the "most vociferous advocate" in Washington, D.C., repeatedly introducing legislation to open the refuge to drilling. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates 3.2 billion gallons of economically recoverable oil lie beneath ANWR, about the amount the U.S. burns in five months.

The recent momentum for drilling in the refuge has been partly prompted by high oil prices, but some believe the oil would provide little price relief. "We think the evidence is pretty overwhelming that drilling in the refuge would have absolutely no impact on energy prices," says Kolton. "It's really Economics 101: The price of oil is determined by global supply and demand. The simple fact is that, with less than 3 percent of the world's global reserves, we can't drill ourselves to economic independence. We need to decrease our dependence on oil rather than plundering the area."

At stake: a people's spiritual and cultural authority

The Gwich'in have opposed oil development on the refuge since a 1988 meeting, when Gwich'in elders -- four from the U.S. and four from Canada, representing 15 villages from Mackenzie Peninsula to Arctic Village -- said "no" with "one voice and no compromise."

"It was unanimous, we can't allow it," Gemmill says. "The elders told us to go out and educate the public. It wasn't the environmental community that asked us to take a stand, we did it on our own, with the elders. One of our main cultural values is respect for the land and the animals. One of our spiritual beliefs is that any birthplace, any spawning area, is sacred."

But environmental protection is just part of the equation. "For us it's a human rights issue, not just an environmental issue," Gemmill says. "Every human should have the right just to live." James agrees, "We have the right to say, 'No, we don't want oil development.' It's just human rights versus oil."

ANWR may seem remote, but choices being made by distant industrial economies are now affecting the Gwich'in, most notably in the case of global warming brought on by fossil fuel combustion. Gemmill says the Gwich'in see "many alarming changes" related to global warming, including plants growing differently and migration routes and times changing. Warming is a symptom of a bigger problem. "People are depleting the earth's resources too fast. The earth won't be able to sustain life," she said. Gemmill said many native people, not just the Gwich'in, are saying "Stop ... and give the earth time to heal."

MacDonald believes this is more than an isolated skirmish over preserving the environment or protecting human rights; there is a bigger issue at stake. "Many of the arguments that the church has found compelling in supporting the Gwich'in and other indigenous groups are based in similar views of the spiritual and cultural authority of a 'people' -- a nation. These arguments are at the center of our basic moral and spiritual teaching," says MacDonald. "This is the first major skirmish in what may prove to be one of the decisive moral battles of this century. One-fourth of the world's usable land is in the hands of indigenous people. These 'Peoples of the Land' are on the front line of human survival. They are the thin line between the insatiable greed and total destruction of our moral, spiritual, and physical environments."

For now, the Gwich'in are continuing their efforts to get the word out about ANWR. "The elders directed us to go out into the world and tell people why we opposed oil development," James says of the grassroots campaign. "We don't have much money to work with; we've got multi-million-dollar corporations against us. But people do have power. And we've proven that. This is the right thing to do, and that's why."

Even as they struggle to protect ANWR, the Gwich'in work to preserve their traditional culture. James doesn't have any interest in seeing the Gwich'in way of life, now a mixture of cash and subsistence economies, subsumed by modern western culture. "I don't see much value in western culture, but I'm not opposed to higher learning," says James. And she notes that while many places have seen a lot of environmental damage from modern industrial society, ANWR is an ecosystem that still functions well.

"I don't see many places where the natural ecosystems still work," says James. "We're talking about caribou that are still wild and healthy. It's a small place they've gone for thousands of years, It's a safe place for them. It's a special place, a healthy place tucked away in that corner of the world, and it needs to be protected."

Murray Carpenter is a freelance writer based in Belfast, Me.

Indigenous peoples battling corporate culture

While the Gwich'in struggle with big oil in Alaska, other native peoples are having similar struggles with modern industrial society.

In northeast Colombia, the U'wa Indians have threatened to commit mass suicide by jumping off a cliff if Occidental Petroleum proceeds with plans to explore and develop oil deposits beneath their ancestral homeland. The U'wa claim Occidental's developments, supported by the Colombian government, are just the most recent in a constant erosion of their land rights over hundreds of years.

The U'wa conflict has at least three strong U.S. connections: Occidental Petroleum is based in California; the U.S. is the largest importer of Colombian oil; and the $1.3 billion the U.S. is spending on "Plan Colombia" will strengthen the Colombian military which has worked on Occidental's behalf, brutally at times, to clear roads of protesters and otherwise smooth the way for oil exploration. The U'wa called on foreign governments to reject funding for Plan Colombia because the Colombian government "seeks through this plan to increase violations against the Colombian people and, in particular, against indigenous groups."

In Maine, the Penobscot Indian Nation is fighting the state over the authority to regulate wastewater discharged in the Penobscot River watershed (see TW 6/99). Because the Penobscots claim the state's largest river and its islands as their reservation, they argue that they should be allowed to regulate discharges to the river. The state opposes the Penobscot's position, and has been joined by over 30 municipalities and businesses, including pulp and paper mills, concerned that the Penobscots might set unreasonably high standards. The Penobscots argue that they've been living on and with the land and river since the Ice Age, and ought to have the authority to prevent further industrial pollution like the dioxin that has made Penobscot fish, once a dietary staple, unsafe to eat.

The flip side of native sovereignty and the environment is visible in Utah, where the Skull Valley Goshutes hope to site a high-level radioactive waste dump on their reservation. In this case, the tribal leadership and a majority of the tribal members want the dump as a means of "economic development," while Utah's governor, environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, and over 50 Indian tribes oppose it.

For more information on environmental struggles of indigenous peoples, see the Indigenous Environmental Network website at http://www.alphacdc.com/ien/ .

To learn more about the Gwich'in, contact Faith Gemmill of the Gwich'in Steering Committee at gwichin2@alaska.net .