Administration Endangering Food Security and Human Rights

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

January 6th, 2021

On January 4, 2021, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its final Record of Decision for a new Integrated Activity Plan (IAP) in the Western Arctic, opening sacred land to the Inupiaq Peoples and threatening the Teshekpuk Caribou Herd. January 6th, 2021 the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that births 40,000 caribou, was opened to lease sales for oil and gas extraction. These rushed and incomplete processes during a global pandemic is a direct threat to human rights and food security to the Indigenous Peoples.

The Integrated Activity Plan will open 82% of the Reserve for oil leasing, adding seven million acres. This threatens eight Iñupiat communities, especially the community of Nuiqsut and those who depend on the Teshekpuk Herd. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge provides safe and vital lands to sustain the Porcupine Caribou Herd, polar bears, birds, and sensitive ecosystem. But this land has also sustained the Inupiaq and Gwich’in Peoples for over 12,000 years. The original caretakers knew our health depended on the health of the land and animals. Today where oil and gas has been developed in the Arctic Slope rare cancer clusters, respiratory illness, and sickness follow. There is no way to safely drill for fossil fuels.

As twelve Alaska Native villages need to relocate due to climate change without sufficient funds, our government continues to exasperate climate change to a point of no return. Western science, Traditional Ecological knowledge, and elders such as the late Eben Hopson Sr. made it clear that extraction of fossil fuels is the leading cause of our climate crisis. This generation has the ability to ensure our great grandchildren can continue to eat off the land and keep their identity as Inuit and Indigenous Peoples.

Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic (SILA) is shocked by our representatives and our government that have gone against our values, ways of living, and human rights. We remind the public that these sacred lands are unceded territory that our people have lived on and harvested from since time immemorial. We oppose any lease of these sacred lands and will defend our ways of living against the attack on the Arctic as a whole. We stand with the Gwich’in and the Inupiat who stand to protect our lands and animals and a livable future for all.