Arctic Truth
Photo: Karsten Heuer
Top 10 Distortions in the Arctic Refuge Debate
And Some of the People who Spread Them
After 20 years of trying, the U.S.
government has the representation it
needs in the Senate and House of
Congress to approve oil and gas
drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge. It is predicted the final
vote to open the Refuge will take place
in mid-September. While the Bush
administration and its oil industry
backers swear this is the oil that will
free America from its dependence on
foreign oil, scientists estimate a 6month supply that won’t hit markets
for at least 10 years. The Refuge has
become the symbol of a battle to
access all America’s protected wild
lands. Unfortunately, the caribou,
Gwich’in and Canadians will pay the
price because this is precisely the
ribbon of land that has been the
calving grounds for the 120,000member Porcupine Caribou Herd, for
27,000 years.
This narrow band provides the perfect
balance of abundant food and
protection from predators and insects
creating the ideal place to calve. Will
2005 be the year this changes forever?
Despite the U.S. Congress passing a
budget with language to open the
Refuge, the Refuge is still not open.
And the caribou continue, for now,
their age old circle of life.
In Whitehorse, people gathered on
March 30 to ask our own and visiting
Alaskan politicians to do whatever was
required to protect the Refuge. The
participation of over 300 people got
organizers a meeting with the
Alaskans and during that discussion,
Alaskan senators and representatives
repeated many of the distortions
addressed here.
DISTORTION #1 Senator
Ted Stevens: The 1002 area
is not in the Refuge and
provisions of ANILCA “allow
us to explore and develop”
that area.
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By Erica Heuer of Being Caribou
The Coastal Plain of the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge is also known as the
1002 area – named after Section 1002
of the Alaska National Interests Lands
Conservation Act (ANILCA) which
makes clear in Sections 1002 and
1003 that the Coastal Plain is
specifically closed to oil and gas
production. The 1002 area has been
part of the Arctic Refuge since its
establishment in 1980, and has been
set aside for its conservation values
since 1959.
The Coastal Plain itself was
“withdrawn from all forms of entry or
appropriation under the mining laws,
and from operation of the mineral
leasing laws.” Importantly, Congress
also provided in section 1003 of
ANILCA that:
Production of oil and gas from the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is
prohibited and no leasing or other
development leading to production
of oil and gas from the range shall
be undertaken until authorized by an
Act of Congress.
DISTORTION #2 Senator L.
Murkowski: Exploration will
occur on only 2,000 acres.
Yes – within the 1002 lands which are
only 100 miles long by 30 miles wide.
The entire 1.5 million-acre coastal
plain would still be opened to leasing.
Plus, the 2,000-acre provision applies
only to some development
infrastructure, facilities, or operations
with no requirement that the 2,000
acres be concentrated in one spot.
In fact, the U.S. Geological Survey
said whatever oil and gas is under the
coastal plain is in small deposits
spread throughout the plain. This is
why the bill includes the entire coastal
plain and not a smaller portion of it.
To produce oil from this vast area,
supporting infrastructure would have
to stretch across the coastal plain.
DISTORTION #3 Senator L.
Murkowski: Gwich’in are not
in the 1002 area – implying
they have nothing at stake.
This is a simple human rights issue.
We have a right to continue our
subsistence way of life. Oil drilling in
the birth place and nursing grounds
of the Porcupine Caribou Herd
would hurt the caribou and threaten
the future of my people.” - Sarah
James, Arctic Village.
About 7000 Gwitchin people live in 19
villages along the Porcupine Caribou
Herd migration route in Alaska and
northwest Canada. Archeological
evidence suggests Gwich’in caribou
hunters have lived there for more than
20,000 years. The 120,000-strong
Porcupine caribou herd are at the
centre of Gwich’in culture and life. In
many villages, caribou, fish and wild
foods exceed 70% of the diet.
DISTORTION #4 Senator L.
Murkowski: Alaska’s oil
industry is the cleanest most
tightly regulated in the world.
There is no getting around it. Oil
development and production create
industrial sprawl – at present across
more than 1,000 square miles of the
North Slope. This huge industrial
comple can be seen from space and
includes production pads, gravel
roads, airfields, pipelines, and huge
amounts of pollution.
Prudhoe Bay experiences an average
of one oil spill per day.
DISTORTION #5 Senator
Bennett: Oil activities will
only occur in the winter.
What, do they pack up the facilities
and take them away in the summer?
Once oil is discovered, oil companies
have never ceased production activity
in the summer months on the North
Slope. Vehicle, helicopter and airplane
traffic, production plant noise, air
pollution, and other activities create
conflicts with wildlife in every season.
Nowhere do caribou calve within 30
miles of any development. The 1002
lands are only 30 miles wide.
Winter exploration disturbs polar bears
in their maternity dens and muskoxen,
impacts fish habitats by removing
massive amounts of water to build ice
roads and ice pads, and damages
plants and permafrost through snow
and ice with seismic trails.
DISTORTION #6 Senator P.
Domenici: Alpine drilling is
done from what looks like a
“row of outhouses”.
Alpine is a northern site that began
with promises of directional drilling.
Ice roads were cited as a reason this
footprint could be so “small” – two
drilling pads, a runway for jet
airplanes, three miles of in-field roads
and facilities that cover 100 acres of
tundra and a 150-acre gravel mine.
Now, plans have been approved to
build five more drill sites connecting
to the initial Alpine oil field for a total
of 7 drill sites, 33 miles of permanent
gravel roads; two airstrips; two gravel
mines; and 72 miles of pipelines.
Information from Interior’s Bureau of
Land Management shows future oil
and gas development for the Alpine
Project is planned to include 24 more
production drill sites, 122 more miles
of roads, 7 more airports, 150 miles
of pipeline, and 1262 more acres of
tundra smothered by gravel.
DISTORTION #7 Senator
Pete Domenici: No roads.
Every oil field on Alaska’s North Slope
has permanent gravel roads.
The original Alpine field – promoted to
this day as a “roadless development”
– has a permanent road connecting
its drill sites. Late last year, 33 new
miles of Alpine roads were approved.
122 more miles are predicted for the
next phase of Alpine expansion.
Alpine is still promoted as “roadless”
with this explanation: “Roadless never
meant no roads, only that
construction of permanent roads
would be minimized.”
DISTORTION #8 Senator
Pete Domenici: One million
barrels a day potential.
EIA’s March 2004 report, “Analysis of
Oil and Gas Production in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge, ” which
optimistically used USGS estimates of
technically recoverable oil, found:
If oil were discovered in commercial
quantities, it would take 10 years
before Refuge oil could first be
produced. In 2015, it would only
make up 0.3% of world oil
production (300,000 barrels per
day). Even when production peaked
11 Easy Ways to Really Help
Our goal is for every Canadian
and American to see the film,
Being Caribou, and then tell their
politicians to act against drilling in
the Refuge. You can help:
Watch Being Caribou.
Phone, write, meet your
local federal representative.
Ask them to act against drilling in
the Arctic Refuge. In Canada, ask
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them, with the Prime Minister, to
meet with and put pressure on key
U.S. Senators. Ask them to stop
transboundary projects – like the
railway study and pipeline – with
the Alaskan government, prime
pushers of drilling in the Refuge.
Get Being Caribou from the National
Film Board (NFB). Follow links at
www.beingcaribou.com to Buy a Film.
2
3
Share Being Caribou with
friends, family, co-workers.
Get it on your local cable TV.
Make a list, with mailing
addresses, of everyone you
know who should see Being
Caribou. Send the film and list to
the first person. Ask them to share
it with everyone they know, then
mail it to the next person on the list.
Photo: Karsten Heuer
(in 2025), Arctic Refuge oil would
make up only 7/10 of 1% (876,000
barrels per day) of world oil
production and only 3% of U.S. oil
consumption. Production would
diminish steadily after 2025.
DISTORTION #9 and 10
Senator Ted Stevens: The
Central Arctic Herd has
300,000 members. Oil
activities don’t harm wildlife.
The Central Arctic Herd has 32,000
members. While some bulls have
become habituated to development,
calving areas have moved completely
away from oil activity and facilities —
not an option in the 30-mile wide 1002
lands. Biologists have concluded that
no calving occurs within 30 miles of
any development.
The National Academy of Sciences and
other studies show widespread harm
to wildlife. “Animals have been
affected by industrial activities on the
North Slope… It is unlikely most
disturbed wildlife habitat on the North
Slope will ever be restored… the
effects of abandoned structures and
unrestored landscapes could persist
for centuries.”
If you can buy more than one copy
of the film to do this, please do.
5
Ask everyone to: write and
phone their politicians and go
to www.beingcaribou.com to
order a film and start a mailing list.
6
7
www.beingcaribou.com.
Take Action and send a letter.
Ask local groups to host
public screenings of Being
Caribou and ask people to
Take Action. (Excellent fundraiser.)
The Human Perspective
“This is a simple human rights
issue. We have a right to
continue our subsistence way
of life. Oil drilling in the birth
place and nursing grounds of
the Porcupine Caribou Herd
would hurt the caribou and
threaten the future of my
people.”
Old Crow is a small town of
300 aboriginal people; known
as the Vuntut Gwitchin. We are
located at the confluence of
the Crow and Porcupine Rivers
– the only village in the Yukon
without road access. We are
also the only Yukon
community located north of
the Arctic Circle.
For thousands of years our
ancestors used and continue
- Sarah James, Arctic Village
to use the land and its
resources. We are called the “Vuntut Gwitchin” meaning “People of the Lakes”.
We are one of nineteen communities spread across the US State of Alaska and
Canada’s Yukon and western Northwest Territories.
We rely heavily on the land and on the Porcupine Caribou Herd for our food,
shelter and medicines. Each family group in Old Crow has their own trapping
area, referred by each family as “their” or “my country”. This is an area that
has been passed down from generation to generation.
Our main livelihood is trapping, hunting, and fishing. The Porcupine Caribou
have been our source of meat as well as hide for boots, mitts, moccasins and
traditional outfits, for generations. Everything of the caribou is used by our
people. This next paragraph is a true story of our people, who to this day, live
off the land and coexist with the great Porcupine Caribou Herd the way our
ancestors did 20,000 years ago.
Gwitchin Elders deliberately placed all Gwichin communities in areas where the
Porcupine Caribou Herd roam on an annual basis. All parts of the caribou are
used, from the head to the hooves. The head is saved to either roast over a
fire or to make head soup – a delicacy reserved for special feast days – while
the hooves are either boiled down into a jelly and eaten or hung and dried to
later be tied to hunters’ belts, becoming caribou chimes that clatter together
and imitate the sound of walking caribou, masking the sound of the hunters’
steps through the snow in the spring and over the tundra in the autumn. We
the Vuntut Gwitchin live today as we have for tens of thousands of years. And
we have the human right to continue to practice our traditional way of life.
Today, this traditional way of life is being threatened. Oil and gas companies
want to develop and thus invade such a sacred land, the caribou calving
grounds and the wintering areas of the Porcupine Caribou Herd.
In 2002, a U.S Geological Survey report based on 12 years of
studies said the Porcupine Caribou herd is especially
sensitive to development in the Arctic Refuge coastal plain.
In 2002, the Porcupine Caribou Management Board’s summer
ecology report said how important the refuge coastal plain is
to caribou calving, post-calving and its vulnerability to
disturbance.
8
9
Get Being Caribou to
schools, universities,
colleges, your local PIRG.
If you attend professional
conferences, ask organizers
to show Being Caribou as an
option for evening entertainment.
Contact us for help: 867.393.4440
or [email protected].
10
Spread the word. One
viewer went home, sent
an email to 100 people in
his address book asking them to
By Tammy Josie, Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation
Often compared with the African Serengeti, this area is truly America’s ‘Last
Great Wilderness.’
And ever since it became threatened back in 1987, the Vuntut Gwitchin First
Nation has been on the front lines, battling for permanent protection of this
area. For the Porcupine Caribou Herd is the centre of the Vuntut Gwitchin
culture and life; we still live in the traditional way, hunting the caribou for food
and traditional clothing. Nothing is wasted. For the Vuntut Gwitchin, the
caribou are our life. In a Vuntut Gwitchin General Assembly Resolution in
August 1995, we created the Caribou Coordination Department – a Vuntut
Gwitchin Government Department that deals exclusively with the ‘1002 issue’
and any threat to the entire range of the Porcupine Caribou Herd, including its
wintering grounds. (References: http://www.oldcrow.ca)
IMAGINE
by Monique Musick
Imagine a land
Of powder blue sky
Where caribou roam
And many birds fly
Imagine a river
So wide and so clean
Imagine a people
So strong and so lean
The Vuntut Gwitchin
A proud ancient band
Live off the earth
And love this land
See now the sky
Turn ashy and black
Watch animals flee
And never turn back
A fragile ecosystem
Destroyed and gone
While loud oil rigs
Drill on and on...
Now imagine the power
You hold in your hand
To stop oil development
And save this great land
Randall Tetlichi on his
Photo: Karsten Heuer
caribou hunt. Randall is
one of many hunters that provides meat to Elders in his community of Old Crow.
“Caribou is always important, if something happen
to caribou we’re going to be sad. Everyone was
happy to see Caribou, last year we never see any,
now lots come and everyone got meat to eat! I
want to see caribou all the time in the future,
that’s what I want to see. I‘m glad to see my
grandchildren eat caribou meat!”
– Chief John Joe Kyikavichik
visit www.beingcaribou.com, get a
copy of the film, watch it and if
they were moved to, Take Action
and share the film with others.
11
Contact Being Caribou
for more info, to discuss
ways to help, donate, buy
a film, or chat: 867.393.4440 or
[email protected].
Know a BIG celebrity in Canada or
the U.S.? Help us contact them. We
are also trying to get onto “Oprah”.
Can you help?
Photo: Karsten Heuer
CANADIAN PARKS AND WILDERNESS SOCIETY, YUKON CHAPTER
P: 867.393.4848
www.yaaw.com
Need the perfect gift? Planning a trip to Tombstone?
We have beautiful books including Tombstone and the Wind, Snake
and Bonnet Plume rivers guidebooks, ballcaps, water
bottles, Three Rivers Journey DVDs, art catalogues
and stunning posters suitable for framing.
Stop by 506 Steele St. or shop securely
online at www.cpawsyukon.org.
This is a great way to support conservation in the Yukon.
Just the Facts
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featuring original works
of over 40 Yukon Artists.
Open daily 12pm-5pm
Located in McCrae East
#3B Glacier Road • Whitehorse
By Don Russell
• Grew at 4% per year during this
increase phase
• The 1002 area is important for
calving because this is a region
with large expanse of rapidly
growing vegetation at the critical
post-calving period – cows must
have free access to this forage
• Has been in decline since 1989. Last
count was 123,000 in 2001
Calves:
• Declined at 3.5% during this
decrease phase
• On average 20% of calves die in
their first month of life
• Among herds with good data, the
Porcupine herd is the least
productive herd.
• Survival of calves is 8-11%
greater if born in the 1002 area
compared to outside the 1002
Population:
• Climbed from ~100,000 animals to
178,000 from the mid 1970’s to 1989
Range:
• Whole range is 290,000 km2
• Average area of concentrated calving
(the area where 50% of calves are
born) in any year is 1,100 km2
• Concentrated calving was primarily in
1002 area in 12 of the last 22 years
• In the 1990’s, 60% of all calves were
born in the 1002 area
• There is a strong relationship
between amount of green
vegetation on calving grounds
and calf survival.
• If calving cows were displaced
27 km from their concentrated
calving, the increase in calf
mortality that would result
would have been enough to halt
the herd growth experienced
between 1975-89.
5 REASONS THE PORCUPINE CARIBOU ARE VULNERABLE TO OIL DEVELOPMENT ON ITS CALVING GROUNDS
1. Already low productivity of the Porcupine
Caribou Herd
In Summary:
• We know a lot about the herd
2. Strong link between calf survival and free
movement of cows
• The calving and post-calving
habitats are the most critical
parts of the herd’s annual range
3. Porcupine Caribou calves and cows cannot
compensate, later in the summer, for poor
physical condition in late June
4. Demonstrated displacement of the
Central Arctic Herd concentrated calving
away from development
5. Lack of high-quality alternate calving
habitat
Join us on a FREE Guided Hike!
Yukon Conservation Society offers FREE Guided Hikes
in the Whitehorse Area July 1 - August 19. For schedule
information visit www.yukonconservation.org. Drop by
our office at 302 Hawkins Street. Or call 668-5678.
Photo: Karsten Heuer
• Every researcher that has worked
on the herd, in both the U.S. and
Canada, has predicted major
impacts on the productivity and
future well-being of the Porcupine
Caribou Herd if oil development
were permitted in the 1002 lands.
SO COOL, WE ATTRACT TOURISTS.
— Oh, And Bring Your Recycling.
Corner of Industrial + Galena Roads, Whitehorse.
Open 7 days a week. Tel. 667.7269
www.ravenrecycling.org