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A growing desire by President Bush to drill for oil in the pristine natural habitat of native people and wild animals alike has sparked much debate between environmentalists and developers in Alaska and the Northwest Territory.
On Monday evening, a lecture was given at the University of Maine addressing these concerns. Two speakers flew from their homes in Alaska and the Northwest Territory to educate those who attended the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The ANWR is getting hit hard from two opposite ends. The oil industry is pushing hard to get permits to go in and to drill while environmentalists are pushing even harder to protect the area. Being designated a wilderness area would give ANWR the highest form of governmental protection that it could possibly receive – higher than a national park.
Jim Leach, the first speaker, began by lecturing and showing slides of the area.
“I made my first trip to Alaska to attempt climbing Denali, our country’s highest most pristine peak,” Leach said. “While there I was given another challenge. President Bush had just taken office and was pushing hard to begin drilling in the refuge. Being there at this time I heard many conflicting stories. I had to find which was true. Was the area suitable for drilling, or would it destroy the beautiful environment I saw around me? After looking hard from both angles, I saw the area needed protection. That we the people needed to stand up for one of the last areas of wilderness left on this earth.”
Leach cycled along the road next to the trans-Alaskan pipeline and commented on how none of the native animals could trust the pipeline and would avoid its range.
“The drilling that would take place in these wetlands wouldn’t be in a straight line. The oil that is underneath the area is in pockets throughout the region. To drill the region for oil these pockets would be connected by the pipeline, causing a web of pipes directly in the breeding grounds of the caribou,” Leach said.
The caribou make a long migration every year from western Canada to ANWR. Some years they don’t make the distance and breed in the mid-plains of Alaska. During the years they are unable to breed in the wetlands, the survival rate of calves is greatly reduced.
“Although the workers for the oil companies manage the pipelines to the best of their abilities, accidents always happen, Leach said. “In the past few years there have been many leaks in the existing pipeline, ranging from just a couple of gallons to a few thousand. ”
The second speaker is a true native of the land. Elaine Elexi is a member of the Gwichin Tribe in the Northwest Territory. She and her people are the last remaining who still live off of the land.
“Many who are outdoors people in your culture could not relate to us who truly live off of the land,” Elexi said. “We notice small changes in our environment. The recent global warming has caused changes in how we must go about our harvests. In the summers when the caribou are migrated and breeding, we live off fish in the rivers. In the winters we feed off the caribou herd, as we have for thousands of years. If the herd were lost, our culture would be lost too.”
For information on this issue, go to cariboucommons.com
Bangor Daily News