Tribal Leaders, Members of Congress Stand With Gwich’in in Call to Protect the Arctic Refuge

Washington, DC -- Today, Tribal leaders from across the country were joined by members of Congress including Reps. Steny Hoyer, Ruben Gallego, Jared Huffman, and Rep.-elect Deb Haaland, to mark the 58th anniversary of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and stand with the Gwich’in Nation in opposition to destructive drilling there.

Representatives from the Gwich’in Nation, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Navajo Nation, Lummi Nation, and others came together this week to draw connections between their fights to defend their homelands and to stand in solidarity against the Trump administration’s dangerous attempts to prioritize the interests of corporate polluters over the human rights, culture, and way of life of Indigenous people.

Since day one, the Trump administration has showed a total disregard for Indigenous rights -- from the removal of protections from Bears Ears National Monument against the wishes of local Tribes, to the approval of dirty fossil fuel pipelines like Dakota Access through Native communities, to their push to open the Arctic Refuge for drilling. The Department of the Interior is rushing ahead with plans to hold a lease sale for drilling in the Arctic Refuge’s coastal plain -- considered sacred by the Gwich’in people and central to their food security and way of life -- as soon as next spring.

“We are caribou people. We are physically and spiritually connected to the Porcupine Caribou Herd and have been for more than 40,000 years. Any threat to the caribou is a threat to our people,”  said Bernadette Demientieff, Executive Director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee. “We see the changes in our climate, our land, our animals and our way of life. For us as Gwich’in, our home, our very existence and identity is under threat. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a sacred place. We want to continue to live our cultural and traditional way of life with the Porcupine Caribou Herd. It is our basic human right to continue to feed our families and practice our traditions.”

“I’m proud to stand with Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and a broad coalition of concerned Americans against the Trump Administration’s efforts to undermine the protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” said House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer. “Since its creation fifty-eight years ago, the Arctic Refuge has enabled native people to continue living off their ancestral lands and protect the vulnerable wildlife of America’s most remote environment.  House Democrats will continue to stand up for the Arctic Refuge and the rights and protections of our country’s native communities.”

“People need to understand that what happens to our Gwich’in relatives and the Arctic wildlife in Alaska affects us all throughout the world,” said Frankie Orona, Co-Founder & Executive Director of Society of Native Nations. “Their very way of life, culture, air, water, and land is in danger by the drilling taking place in the sacred coastal plain. This attack on their community is an attack on all future generations and is why we must stand together in solidarity to help protect the future so that our children don’t only survive but thrive.”

For photos of today’s event or to schedule interviews with participants, contact Gabby Brown at gabby.brown@sierraclub.org or 914-261-4626.

Additional Statements from Members of Congress and Tribal Leaders:

“This administration treats the people of Northern Alaska as political targets, not as Americans with legal rights, and openly puts corporate demands ahead of the public interest. The Arctic Refuge is a special place where real people live and real species have room to sustain themselves, and we need to keep it that way,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva. “The Natural Resources Committee in the next Congress will conduct vigorous oversight of President Trump and Secretary Zinke’s destructive, unsustainable corporate giveaways at Americans’ expense, and the fate of the Arctic Refuge and its people are near the top of our list of priorities.”

“The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of the last great expanses of untouched wilderness areas in America,” said Rep. Jared Huffman. “As our Republican colleagues and the Trump Administration do everything they can to initiate a drilling spree in this sacred region, we must do everything we can to protect these valuable landscapes and resources that are constantly under threat from the fossil fuels industry and their political allies. I’m glad to stand strong today with the Gwich’in Nation to oppose oil drilling in this pristine area, and look forward to a vote to reverse the drilling mandate in the next Congress.”

“The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge must be protected from the Trump administration’s continued attacks on our environment and on tribal lands,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ). Republican policies that would rush development in the these pristine lands will jeopardize climate security for future generations, threaten natural habitat for countless species, and compromise the ancestral lands of Alaska Native peoples who were the original stewards of this land.”

“President Trump has yet again put the profits of the fossil fuel industry above the rights of sovereign Tribal nations. The Trump administration is ignoring the voices of the Gwich’in people -- whose way of life and culture is inextricably tied to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They strongly oppose any drilling in this sacred and pristine land, as do seventy percent of American voters,” said Congresswoman Betty McCollum. “Experts agree that drilling in this sensitive and precious wilderness would permanently damage an ecosystem that is home to the calving grounds for caribou, polar bear dens, and more than 200 species of migratory birds. In the new Congress, Democrats will use the power of the purse through the Interior and Environment Appropriations Committee to hold this administration accountable and protect the rights of our Native American brothers and sisters.”

“Our fight to protect the Bears Ears cultural landscape is interconnected with the fight to protect the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge,” said Meredith Benally of Utah Diné Bikéyah. “The Trump administration has ignored us in their quest to eliminate protections for Bears Ears, and their attempts to sell off the coastal plain, which is sacred to the Gwich’in, shows the same disrespect for Indigenous communities. We stand united with the Gwich’in in defense of all our sacred lands.”

“My family has been active in the fight for Indigenous and environmental rights for generations. I think we are all in one way or another born into the fight. I have been fighting Keystone XL for over 15 years now,” said Mekasi Camp-Horinek of the Ponca Nation. “The work we do against the fossil fuel industry and environmental genocide is a global fight, not limited to ‘state,’ ‘county,’ ‘country.’ What happens in the Arctic matters because we are global citizens. What happens in Ponca City, Oklahoma and the levels of emissions being allowed into the atmosphere matters to the world because this is a closed system.”

“The government’s Earth to Sky agency partnership of NASA, the National Park Service, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service predicts that it is not if but when permafrost will thaw in the Refuge as temperatures continue to warm. Trump is already guilty of crimes against humanity for his willful ignorance and denial of climate change. Drilling in the Arctic Refuge to further undermine the integrity of the permafrost, and the decimation of Gwich’in sacred lands and culture, will be added to that indictment,” said Rain Bear Stands Last, Executive Director of the Global Indigenous Council.

“We, the Earth surface people see today’s science and physics coming to acknowledge TEK, tribal ecological knowledge. We are taught that we are part of nature, we are part of the balance of nature, we are not to be the dominance of nature. One world, one water, one air make for Mother Earth. There are sacred sites throughout the world that make for sacred landscapes. Our ancestors located on the sacred lands of Mother Earth. These are our indigenous homelands. They are our holy lands. The Indigenous holy people of the Arctic circle, our relatives, need to have their landscape protected as a critical balancer of nature,” said Navajo Council Delegate-elect Daniel Tso.

“As Indigenous descendants of Central and South America, many of my people have lost our languages, cultures, and traditional ways. It all began with the taking of our land and then our identity as Indigenous people,” said Kiki Naranjo, an Indigenous activist and educator. “I stand today in solidarity with my Gwich’in relatives because the destruction of the Arctic Refuge affects us all, Indigenous or not, but overall it affects my Alaska relatives’ connection to the traditions they have preserved for thousands of years. We will not lose our Indigenous ways any more than we have over the past 500 years, and we will stand together to make sure of this.”

“As Tribal Nations, our people have always been the collateral damage in America’s addiction to extractive industries. The destruction of our lands and traditional lifeways were and continue to be acts of cultural genocide,” said A. Gay Kingman, Executive Director of the Great Plains Tribal Chairman’s Association. “The Gwich’in are the latest victims in Trump’s revival of Manifest Destiny. We must stand with the Gwich’in. We must defend the sacred for our future generations, for if we don’t, what will become of the earth?”

“We are part of the lands we come from protection and care of our homelands is crucial. For cultural continuity, we must be in the action of defending our sacred places, our Mother Earth. I stand for the protection of Mother Earth. I have been in the fight to get Gold Butte designated as a National Monument, stood beside Water Protectors at Standing Rock, lent my voice to the protection of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge, Bears Ears and Red Rock Conservation Area,” said Fawn Douglas, a member of the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe. “Our state has the second largest Wildlife refuge in the Country, the first being the Arctic Wilderness. These pristine areas are untouched. Our desert bighorn sheep roam these protected lands as the caribou roam the Arctic. Our people have felt the loss of our bighorn sheep. To know the destruction of the Arctic Wilderness, and the loss of the Gwich’in Tribe’s subsistence with the caribou is heartbreaking. That is why we must stand with the Gwich’in.”

"We give, they take. We live, they break. We pray, it's our way,” said Richard KillsCrow, from the Standing Rock and Black Foot Lakota bands.

“Indigenous people are still struggling with foreign ideologies brought by Europeans to this once fully sovereign land now called the United States of America. The US Constitution has absolutely no moral right to dictate any form of government upon the Gwich'in people or any other Indigenous people group, because we never ratified the very US Constitution that claims ‘democratic’ authority over us. We indigenous people along with womyn, slaves and many other groups to whom it claims authority were never brought to the table. We have been exploited to nauseating and even terminal lengths and our divinely mandated life ways are at risk because of foreigners/US Governments disregard for morality,” said Carl Moore, co-founder and Chairperson of Indigenous-led PANDOS (Peaceful Advocates for Native Dialogue and Organizing Support).

“When people tell me, ‘Quit living in the past,’ it's sad because I'll be telling them what's happening in the present and they're shocked that this could still be happening,” said Dave John, Co-founder and Treasurer for PANDOS (Peaceful Advocates for Native Dialogue & Organizing Support). “PANDOS has been fighting with the White Mesa Ute Mountain Tribe against the Uranium Mill that is contaminating their land, water and air, and we know how some of their documents are tied to shrinking Bears Ears. There's a reason why the Tribes were placed or put in certain areas and endured many hardships. We will continue the fight to protect Mother Earth.”

“We are coming to this event to show our support of the Gwich’in Nation. The Pokanokit Tribe believes that the land and all nature are sacred, so we stand with the Gwich’in Nation,” said Wesley Wright, a member of the Council of Seven Royal House Pokanoket Tribe Pokanoket Nation.