Post by Woody Williams on Dec 22, 2005 22:45:53 GMT -5
This article ran in today's (Dec 22, '05) The Outdoor Wire. The author has
given permission to spread it around.
The wisdom of Arctic oil - The luxury of running water
By Tara Sweeney
If you listened only to the news media and environmentalists, you'd think
the debate over oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was
about caribou and ecology. It's not.
ANWR is about land. It is about Alaskan Natives' rights of
self-determination - our right to decide how our own lands and resources
will be used. About whether the United States will honor its agreements with
Natives who ceded their claim to vast ancestral lands and resources, in
exchange for the right to determine our destiny on the lands we retained -
or so we were told.
It's about whether senators, congressmen, pressure groups and other people
who live hundreds or even thousands of miles from our lands will have the
right to dictate our future.
Anyone who professes to respect Native rights, civil rights, human rights
and property rights has only one choice in this matter. They must support
what Native Americans who live in ANWR overwhelmingly want: drilling in
accord with guidelines that we will negotiate ourselves.
Anything less is cultural and environmental imperialism. It is stealing our
Native lands, resources and futures. It will keep our people on the edge of
poverty forever. It is wrong.
Right now, it's 30 below zero in Kaktovik, the only village within the
entire 19.6 million acres of the federally recognized boundaries of ANWR. It
is total 24-hour darkness, and the wind is howling. Beyond the little
houses, there is flat frozen ocean and tundra for as far as the eye can see.
Stretching 1000 miles from the Barents Sea near Siberia in the west, to the
Canadian border in the east, the Arctic Coastal Plain is one of the harshest
climates in the world. Only the strongest people survive.
The pure luxury of running water, flush toilets, local schools, local health
care clinics, police and fire stations, were unavailable prior to the
discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay, America's largest oil field, 90 miles to
the west. Kaktovik was the last community on Alaska's North Slope to get
these wondrous things, courtesy of tax revenue from oil operations at
Prudhoe Bay.
What would Americans in the Lower 48 States do if they were denied these
basic necessities? They'd scream bloody murder!
Yet these are the basic amenities that radical environmentalists of the
Sierra Club and Wilderness Society say the Inupiat Eskimo people should be
denied. Some Gwich'in Indians in Alaska's interior agree. They can afford
to. They are funded quite lavishly by green groups for opposing oil
development on Inuit lands - even as they leased and drilled for oil on
their own tribal lands, in the middle of caribou migration areas. But for
opposing oil development on Inuit lands, the Gwich'in have become the poster
children for the anti-drilling movement.
Even worse, many members of Congress also want to deny the Inupiat people of
ANWR one of the most basic principles of our society: the right to own,
control and use our private property.
My Inupiat Eskimo people are freezing in the dark, and with one breath
members of Congress are preventing them from developing oil and gas on our
own private lands in ANWR. With the next breath, they are pleading for gas
and heating oil subsidies for their constituents. These actions are
appalling and offensive to my people.
"The Inupiat Eskimo people are subsistence hunters," says Jacob Adams,
president of the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation. "Based on close personal
experience, we know we can have carefully regulated oil exploration and
development in the Coastal Plain study area. We can preserve the environment
and wildlife resources of ANWR - and still provide economic and energy
security benefits to our people and the Nation."
Congress created and set aside the Coastal Plain specifically for oil and
gas exploration - to compensate the Inuit for having given up rights to
their other ancestral lands, and as a compromise for designating other
Alaskan lands as wilderness. The 1.5-million-acre is larger than Delaware,
in a refuge the size of South Carolina. But Kaktovik's 92,000 acres of
private land have been trapped, locked up and made untouchable by crass
political forces, because it lies with the borders of ANWR.
Any oil or land development here can take place only with Congressional
approval. The people of Kaktovik overwhelmingly support drilling. We know
the tax revenues from oil exploration on our land will fund our basic
utilities, educate our children, and preserve our culture and heritage.
But our rights and wishes are being trampled under foot - for no good
reason.
In 1970, when oil development was first proposed at Prudhoe Bay, my people
in the Arctic Native community were understandably concerned and hesitant
about our future and the effect of development our homelands. Would the
whales and caribou be chased away forever? Would our culture be destroyed?
To meet these concerns and challenges, and ensure the preservation of Native
lands and heritage, Inupiat leaders, the Alaskan government, oil industry
and federal government have managed a symbiotic, rational and successful
relationship. Indeed, the operations here are easily the most community
involved, environmentally strict and technologically advanced anywhere in
the world.
The results are equally clear. During three decades of oil development,
3,000 caribou have turned into 32,000. Not a single species of animal, fish,
bird or insect has declined even a fraction. Whales are harvested every
year, as always. Neighboring Native communities have thrived, and cultures
have been preserved and promoted. And many Native Alaskans have professional
jobs in the oil industry.
Even the hypocritical Gwich'in - who want to stop all development in ANWR -
operate Gwich'in Ensign Oilfield Services, Mackenzie Aboriginal Corporation,
Mackenzie Valley Construction, Camp MGK, Gwich'in Helicopters and Inuvik
Commercial Properties. Every one is directly involved in oil field services
and contracts. They enable Gwich'in men and women to return to nice homes
with decent paychecks and the satisfaction that comes from being involved in
managing their own land for the benefit of their families and people.
That is why Kaktovik vice mayor the late Herman Aishanna said: "The strange
people who want to call our country wilderness, to deny that we even exist -
these people insult us. We know and understand the oil people, and we can
handle them, as we have done for some years now." Former North Slope Borough
mayor George Ahmaogak and the vast majority of all our people echo these
sentiments.
Kaktovik wants its rights and wishes honored. This shameful, unconscionable
treatment of Alaska's Native People - in the name of protecting lands that
are in no danger - must end.
We urge all decent Americans to call their senators and congressmen, and
tell them to vote for drilling in ANWR. The Natives who actually live there
want this. Our nation needs it. It will be good for the environment. And it
will provide jobs, revenues and energy for Natives and non-Natives alike.
Tara Sweeney is an Inupiaq from Barrow, Alaska. She has worked on the ANWR
issue for a decade.
given permission to spread it around.
The wisdom of Arctic oil - The luxury of running water
By Tara Sweeney
If you listened only to the news media and environmentalists, you'd think
the debate over oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was
about caribou and ecology. It's not.
ANWR is about land. It is about Alaskan Natives' rights of
self-determination - our right to decide how our own lands and resources
will be used. About whether the United States will honor its agreements with
Natives who ceded their claim to vast ancestral lands and resources, in
exchange for the right to determine our destiny on the lands we retained -
or so we were told.
It's about whether senators, congressmen, pressure groups and other people
who live hundreds or even thousands of miles from our lands will have the
right to dictate our future.
Anyone who professes to respect Native rights, civil rights, human rights
and property rights has only one choice in this matter. They must support
what Native Americans who live in ANWR overwhelmingly want: drilling in
accord with guidelines that we will negotiate ourselves.
Anything less is cultural and environmental imperialism. It is stealing our
Native lands, resources and futures. It will keep our people on the edge of
poverty forever. It is wrong.
Right now, it's 30 below zero in Kaktovik, the only village within the
entire 19.6 million acres of the federally recognized boundaries of ANWR. It
is total 24-hour darkness, and the wind is howling. Beyond the little
houses, there is flat frozen ocean and tundra for as far as the eye can see.
Stretching 1000 miles from the Barents Sea near Siberia in the west, to the
Canadian border in the east, the Arctic Coastal Plain is one of the harshest
climates in the world. Only the strongest people survive.
The pure luxury of running water, flush toilets, local schools, local health
care clinics, police and fire stations, were unavailable prior to the
discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay, America's largest oil field, 90 miles to
the west. Kaktovik was the last community on Alaska's North Slope to get
these wondrous things, courtesy of tax revenue from oil operations at
Prudhoe Bay.
What would Americans in the Lower 48 States do if they were denied these
basic necessities? They'd scream bloody murder!
Yet these are the basic amenities that radical environmentalists of the
Sierra Club and Wilderness Society say the Inupiat Eskimo people should be
denied. Some Gwich'in Indians in Alaska's interior agree. They can afford
to. They are funded quite lavishly by green groups for opposing oil
development on Inuit lands - even as they leased and drilled for oil on
their own tribal lands, in the middle of caribou migration areas. But for
opposing oil development on Inuit lands, the Gwich'in have become the poster
children for the anti-drilling movement.
Even worse, many members of Congress also want to deny the Inupiat people of
ANWR one of the most basic principles of our society: the right to own,
control and use our private property.
My Inupiat Eskimo people are freezing in the dark, and with one breath
members of Congress are preventing them from developing oil and gas on our
own private lands in ANWR. With the next breath, they are pleading for gas
and heating oil subsidies for their constituents. These actions are
appalling and offensive to my people.
"The Inupiat Eskimo people are subsistence hunters," says Jacob Adams,
president of the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation. "Based on close personal
experience, we know we can have carefully regulated oil exploration and
development in the Coastal Plain study area. We can preserve the environment
and wildlife resources of ANWR - and still provide economic and energy
security benefits to our people and the Nation."
Congress created and set aside the Coastal Plain specifically for oil and
gas exploration - to compensate the Inuit for having given up rights to
their other ancestral lands, and as a compromise for designating other
Alaskan lands as wilderness. The 1.5-million-acre is larger than Delaware,
in a refuge the size of South Carolina. But Kaktovik's 92,000 acres of
private land have been trapped, locked up and made untouchable by crass
political forces, because it lies with the borders of ANWR.
Any oil or land development here can take place only with Congressional
approval. The people of Kaktovik overwhelmingly support drilling. We know
the tax revenues from oil exploration on our land will fund our basic
utilities, educate our children, and preserve our culture and heritage.
But our rights and wishes are being trampled under foot - for no good
reason.
In 1970, when oil development was first proposed at Prudhoe Bay, my people
in the Arctic Native community were understandably concerned and hesitant
about our future and the effect of development our homelands. Would the
whales and caribou be chased away forever? Would our culture be destroyed?
To meet these concerns and challenges, and ensure the preservation of Native
lands and heritage, Inupiat leaders, the Alaskan government, oil industry
and federal government have managed a symbiotic, rational and successful
relationship. Indeed, the operations here are easily the most community
involved, environmentally strict and technologically advanced anywhere in
the world.
The results are equally clear. During three decades of oil development,
3,000 caribou have turned into 32,000. Not a single species of animal, fish,
bird or insect has declined even a fraction. Whales are harvested every
year, as always. Neighboring Native communities have thrived, and cultures
have been preserved and promoted. And many Native Alaskans have professional
jobs in the oil industry.
Even the hypocritical Gwich'in - who want to stop all development in ANWR -
operate Gwich'in Ensign Oilfield Services, Mackenzie Aboriginal Corporation,
Mackenzie Valley Construction, Camp MGK, Gwich'in Helicopters and Inuvik
Commercial Properties. Every one is directly involved in oil field services
and contracts. They enable Gwich'in men and women to return to nice homes
with decent paychecks and the satisfaction that comes from being involved in
managing their own land for the benefit of their families and people.
That is why Kaktovik vice mayor the late Herman Aishanna said: "The strange
people who want to call our country wilderness, to deny that we even exist -
these people insult us. We know and understand the oil people, and we can
handle them, as we have done for some years now." Former North Slope Borough
mayor George Ahmaogak and the vast majority of all our people echo these
sentiments.
Kaktovik wants its rights and wishes honored. This shameful, unconscionable
treatment of Alaska's Native People - in the name of protecting lands that
are in no danger - must end.
We urge all decent Americans to call their senators and congressmen, and
tell them to vote for drilling in ANWR. The Natives who actually live there
want this. Our nation needs it. It will be good for the environment. And it
will provide jobs, revenues and energy for Natives and non-Natives alike.
Tara Sweeney is an Inupiaq from Barrow, Alaska. She has worked on the ANWR
issue for a decade.
