Russia’s Slaughter of Indigenous People in Alaska Tells Us Something Important About Ukraine

In the racial-reckoning summer of 2020, local leaders in a small American town gathered for a contentious vote on whether to take down a statue that honored a man who was, as one assessment read, “steeped in racial division, violence and injustice.” Would they join local leaders from cities in Virginia, Alabama and other states to remove a memorial praising a figure who symbolized a “historical trauma” that still caused anguish and anger among their constituents?

The town council listened, and debated, and finally decided. By a margin of 6-1, the seven members voted to join the floodtide of decisions elsewhere to take down another symbol of historic oppression.

Indigenous Professor From B.C.-Alaska Border Nation Forced To Leave Canada

VANCOUVER — A First Nations woman working to revive a threatened language in her traditional territory of northern British Columbia says she's being forced to leave the country on Canada Day.

Mique'l Dangeli belongs to the Tsimshian First Nation, whose territory straddles the border between Alaska and British Columbia. She says Canada won't recognize her right to live and work in B.C. because she was born on the American side on Annette Island Indian Reserve.

Alaska Day—Not Just for White People Anymore

Gerry Hope of the Sik'nax.ádi clan of the Tlingit tribe sees good reason for native people to question Alaska Day, an annual celebration of the U.S. acquisition of this land from Russia. The acquisition happened 150 years ago, but the Tlingit people have called this land home for 10,000 years.

“Our hurt, anger, and resentment have been simmering and smoldering for the past 150 years,” Hope said.

Obama Is a Climate Hypocrite. His Trip to Alaska Proves It.

On Monday morning President Obama headed to Alaska—the front lines of climate change—for a trip the White House is calling "a spotlight on what Alaskans in particular have come to know: Climate change is one of the biggest threats we face, it is being driven by human activity, and it is disrupting Americans' lives right now."

Problem is, those words fall flat when compared with Obama's mixed record on climate. The widely publicized trip comes at a delicate moment for the president. Barely two weeks ago, his administration gave Royal Dutch Shell final approval to drill for oil offshore from Alaska's northwest Arctic coast—not exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from someone who professes to be "leading by example."

BC Minister Bennett's Visit Fails to Ease Alaskans' Mining Concerns

Promises of a closer relationship between B.C. and Alaska, and more consultation on B.C. mine applications are a good start, but so far, southeast Alaska has no more guarantees that those mines will not pollute salmon-bearing rivers than before last week's visit by B.C.'s Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett, say Alaskan fishing and conservation groups.

Bennett, accompanied by senior civil servants from the ministries of Energy and Mines and Environment, took a conciliatory tone as he met with state officials, policy-makers and critics of what is seen as an aggressive push by B.C. to develop mines in the transboundary area, close to vitally important salmon rivers like the Unuk, Taku and Stikine.

In Polley's Wake, Downstream Alaska Fears BC's Mining Boom

Roaring at seven knots up the U.S. side of the Stikine River, a grizzly bear of a man named Mark Galla steers our jet boat through a gauntlet of protruding logs, attempting to point out the exact point at which Alaska becomes British Columbia. Against the vastness of the surrounding wilderness, the border is invisible, almost arbitrary. Until recently, most Alaskans couldn't see it either.

That all changed in August when YouTube video highlights of the Mount Polley mine disaster circulated through panhandle towns like Ketchikan, Petersburg and Wrangell. Media from across the state drew comparisons between Mount Polley and the tailings dams that could one day accompany the half-dozen open pit mines proposed in the wild river watersheds that Alaska and B.C. share -- the Unuk, Taku and, more than anywhere else, the Stikine.

BP Well Sprays Crude Oil Mist Over 27 Acres Of Alaskan Tundra

A large pipe attached to a BP-owned well pad on Alaska’s North Slope has sprayed an oily mist of natural gas, crude oil, and water over an area of tundra larger than 20 football fields, state officials confirmed Wednesday.

The discovery at BP’s Prudhoe Bay oil field operation comes one week after federal scientists released a report warning that the United States is woefully unprepared to handle oil spills in the Arctic.

Meet America's First Climate Refugees

Sabrina Warner keeps having the same nightmare: a huge wave rearing up out of the water and crashing over her home, forcing her to swim for her life with her toddler son.

"I dream about the water coming in," she said. The landscape in winter on the Bering Sea coast seems peaceful, the tidal wave of Warner's nightmare trapped by snow and several feet of ice. But the calm is deceptive. Spring breakup will soon restore the Ninglick River to its full violent force.

Oil Company Polar Bear Rules Affirmed By Appeals Court

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Oil companies operating in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast will have a negligible effect on polar bears and walrus, according to a federal Appeals Court ruling Tuesday that backed U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rules on harassment of the animals.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the agency correctly issued rules that provide legal protection to oil companies if small numbers of polar bears or Pacific walruses are incidentally harmed.

Subhankar Banerjee: Looming Deadline Creates Window for Protests to Stop Shell’s Arctic Drilling

As the oil giant Shell prepares to begin exploratory drilling in the Arctic, activists across the world have begun holding protests. The Obama administration has set a deadline for next month to decide on whether to grant the final drilling permits. Over the last decade, Arctic Alaska has become the most contested land in recent U.S. history. But in addition to oil, natural gas and coal, the Arctic is rich in biodiversity and has been home to generations of indigenous people for thousands of years. We’re joined by Subhankar Banerjee, a renowned photographer, writer and activist who has spent the past decade working to conserve the Arctic and raise awareness about human rights and climate change. Banerjee is editor of the newly published book, "Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point," and has just won the 2012 Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Award.

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Source: Democracy Now!
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Sexual Violence and Natural Resource Pillaging Top Hardships Facing Alaskan Natives

Hundreds of indigenous leaders and activists from all across the world are gathering in New York City this week for the 11th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. We speak with Dalee Sambo-Dorough, an Inuit from Alaska who teaches political science at the University of Alaska, Anchorage and serves as vice chair of the Permanent Forum. Sambo-Dorough discusses the range of hardships faced by indigenous peoples in Alaska today, from environmental devastation and threatened land ownership in the Arctic, to rampant sexual violence. "In various political and economic agendas, indigenous peoples in the United States are at the bottom of the bottom — they always have been," Sambo-Dorough says. "The issues facing Alaskan Native communities, indigenous communities across the United States never appear on the radar screen as a priority issue."

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Source: Democracy Now!
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Obama Administration Moves Against Alaska Oil Drilling

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in remote northern Alaska is home to a surprisingly diverse array of wildlife: polar bears, caribou, wolverines, lemmings, and others all call the frigid, windswept place home. But one infamous strip of coastline in the massive refuge is also home to nearly two billion barrels of recoverable oil (enough, the feds estimate, to supply America for nine months), which has placed it squarely in the center of a decades-long controversy over whether to open the ecologically sensitive region for oil and gas development or keep it locked up as wilderness.

On Monday the US Fish and Wildlife Service took the first step in granting increased federal protection to a relatively small, oil-rich region within ANWR known as the "1002 area" by nominating it for wilderness designation in a lengthy report (PDF) on conservation plans for ANWR. Only Congress can declare wilderness areas, and the "preliminary recommendation" made in the report is only the beginning of a long (and possibly dead-end) road to approval. But it is the first time such a recommendation has been made since the area was set aside for study in a 1980 federal law (from which the area takes its name), and environmental activists and the FWS agree that it marks a major turning point in an ongoing struggle in Alaska between conservationists and oil and gas developers.

How Sarah Palin Got a AAA Credit Rating for Alaska

In light of Friday's decision by Standard and Poor's to downgrade the United States' credit rating to AA+, it's worth mentioning again -- as I first did in this Atlantic piece -- that Alaska recently had its bond rating raised to AAA for the first time in the state's history, largely due to fiscal improvements brought about by Sarah Palin while she was governor. The state currently enjoys a $12 billion budget surplus. I was reminded of this fact over the weekend by Ian Lazaren, the indefatigable supporter-cultist behind Conservatives4Palin.com.