00:02:26.180She is the former executive director of the Gwachin Steering Committee and Alaska director
00:02:31.120at the Indigenous Leadership Institute.
00:02:34.140She was a production manager with Native Voices at the Autry National Center, a member
00:02:39.480of the board of Dancing with the Spirit, and she's also an actor, director, and activist.
00:02:46.280Faith, to start us off with a sense of place, I'd love if you could tell us about your ancestral Gwich'in lands and the territories of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
00:03:00.160So, our community, it's called Vashraik'o, and it means deep bank by the creek.
00:03:08.100and we're located about 200 miles above the arctic circle within the brooks range in northeast
00:03:18.840alaska and the brooks range is a mountain range that's very beautiful and it separates
00:03:26.140the inland community from coastal community of kaktowik but the arctic national wildlife refuge
00:03:36.860is 19 million acres of wholly intact ecosystem within northeast Alaska.
00:03:47.360And the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
00:03:51.100is right at the very top, adjacent to the Beaufort Sea.
00:03:57.260And that is the biological heart of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
00:04:02.580the 1.5 million acres is also at threat by all of the oil companies every major oil company has a
00:04:14.200stake and interest in it but that place is the birthplace and nursery of the porcupine caribou
00:04:23.540herd which to the which in people that's a sacred place in our language we say
00:04:30.980it means the sacred place where life begins and it's not only a birthplace for the caribou but
00:04:40.620it's also one of the most important on-land denning habitat for polar bears and there's 156
00:04:50.840species of migratory birds that fly from all around the world to nest there it's one of the
00:04:59.080most vital ecosystems that we have in the United States.
00:05:05.640And Princess, if there's anything you'd like to add to that?
00:05:09.160Yeah, I'd just say that, you know, I think the refuge is absolutely symbolic of what
00:05:16.320is happening in the world, because it really is the commons.
00:05:21.940And you have, for years, this really capitalist Western mentality of industry and politicians looking at the refuge and saying, it's barren. There's nothing there. It's not going to hurt anybody if we go up there and develop and drill for oil in the last remaining area of the North Slope that's not open to development.
00:05:48.480In that regards, we're talking about the commons. In a world that's trying to privatize land and water and patent life, I think that we're talking about two very different worldviews, one which commodifies life and another which realizes that we need these ecosystems in order to survive.
00:06:13.820And I would just add, too, that it's about human cultural diversity. You know, for us as Gwich'in, this is a human rights issue. For too long, Indigenous people have been looked at as it's okay if we're collateral damage in extractive resource industry. We just have to shift that paradigm and we have to change that in the world if it's not too late.
00:06:41.300And would you mind telling us the Gwachin creation story so that we might begin to understand the sacred alliance between your people and the land and that this is much more than just, quote, an environmental battle, but it is deeply rooted in ancestry and spirituality?
00:07:01.900our creation story tells of a time when animals had characteristics like human beings
00:07:14.540and there was just animals at the time of creation the creator decided to create human
00:07:24.380beings. And at that time, our story says that when human beings, when we separated from the
00:07:35.060caribou, we made an agreement. And that agreement says that the caribou would always retain a part
00:07:44.980of the Gwich'in heart, and the Gwich'in would always retain a part of the caribou heart
00:07:51.220from that time on so in a spiritual sense in a cultural sense when there's a threat
00:08:02.040to the caribou it affects the guichin and spiritually we're so connected to the caribou
00:08:13.600So when we talk about it, we say it's just like the relationship that the Plains tribes had with buffalo.
00:08:23.100That's the same type of relationship the Gwich'in have with the caribou.
00:25:07.340And right now, Alaska's been ground zero for U.S. energy policy.
00:25:15.120And, besides just the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, there's other indigenous territories throughout the state that are subsistence use lands that are also at threat from oil and gas, mining, coal development, etc.
00:25:33.720and what we are trying to do is raise the consciousness of the public not only here
00:25:44.580at the local level in Alaska but at the national level and the international level
00:25:50.760that basically the earth cannot sustain any more exploitation that it's time we as humanity
00:26:01.760realize we have taken too much. Our consumption is too high. There needs to be a transition
00:26:10.220to clean, sustainable energy that would uphold and promote Indigenous people's way of life
00:26:20.820and also allow for our children to continue.
00:26:29.260That's what this issue is about for us
00:26:32.460because in 1988, when our elders and our people
00:26:38.100found out that the oil companies were trying to gain access to the Arctic Refuge,
00:26:43.660they held a Gwich'in gathering in Arctic Village,
00:26:47.760And it was the first Gwich'in gathering that was held in over 100 years.
00:26:53.400When the U.S. and Canada separated and they put that border in, they separated the Gwich'in nation.0.56
00:27:03.280We got separated by this invisible line.0.88
00:27:07.700So we have half of the Gwich'in nation in Canada and half in Alaska.
00:27:13.200And we all subsist on this one same caribou herd, which doesn't see the border.
00:27:22.800So we held the Gwich'in gathering in Arctic Village in 1988.
00:27:28.660And our elders, well, our young leaders back then, they asked the eldest Gwich'in woman.
00:28:18.680it was unanimously decided that we're not going to allow
00:28:22.500the oil companies to drill in the Arctic Refuge
00:28:25.380because it was such a threat to our nation
00:28:29.320and at that time they created a political body to be the voice for the Gwich'in people0.68
00:28:38.220and that was the Gwich'in steering committee and once the members of the steering committee were
00:28:46.680chosen they were taken to the front of the people and they were given directives by the elders and
00:28:55.640by the leaders and there was two main things that they told them one was go out there tell our story
00:29:05.460do it in a good way and we're going to be successful that was one part of it but the
00:29:13.620other part of it was when we're going out there talking about this issue and telling our story
00:29:21.400we need to let them know that we're not trying to protect that area for ourselves
00:29:28.960we are standing and protecting the arctic refuge for all humanity and when i think about that
00:29:38.680directive i think about global warming and this time that we're in we see the changes so rapid
00:29:47.360we are like in climate chaos and the arctic refuge is one of the last places it is the actual last
00:29:58.040piece of land of alaska's north slope that's still protected everything else 95 percent of
00:30:06.620alaska's north slope is already open to oil and gas development and so standing for that area
00:30:15.580and when our people say we're doing it for all humanity they were talking about and prophesying
00:30:22.300global warming but also they were talking about this time of transition because we have a story
00:30:31.760and a prophecy about this time and in our prophecy it says that we have to protect that area
00:30:41.060and if that area is ever open to development it's the beginning of the end and so that's why we
00:30:52.600stand up for that area and that's why this issue is so critical to the Gwich'in people but to0.61
00:30:59.740humanity itself you know what does it say to our future generations if we allow0.99
00:31:06.820the last 5% of the North Slope of Alaska to be developed.
00:31:13.540So this issue is very, very, very critical.0.97
00:31:18.540Everyone has a say what happens to it, not just the Gwich'in.
00:31:22.860It's one of the most controversial issues in Congress.
00:31:27.340They've been debating it for the past 30 years.
00:31:31.880And it will take an act of Congress to open it to development
00:31:36.140or to protect it permanently and so that's why we organized ourselves to try to educate as much
00:31:45.380Americans as possible because every American has a say what happens well I can't thank you enough
00:31:55.460for organizing and fighting for this and protecting for all of us in the United States
00:32:03.380and beyond on a global level for climate change for the biodiversity and i'm wondering when you
00:32:11.140were talking about this act of congress i know that back in january 2015 i believe obama recommended
00:32:17.500protection for over 12 million acres including the coastal plain but just last month obama
00:32:24.620announced a joint u.s and canada agreement to combat climate change and prioritize arctic
00:32:30.460conservation for the benefit of indigenous peoples, but then days later proposed new
00:32:36.000offshore leases in the Arctic. So what do you make of this political mind game and what is the true
00:32:42.740prospect for protection? I think the politics of what's happening right now, and that was fantastic
00:32:49.500that the Obama administration came out with this official recommendation for wilderness, which
00:32:56.840changed the last official recommendation that was for oil and gas development on the coastal
00:33:01.840plain. And that was years, I believe, three plus years that went into public commentary
00:33:08.100on the comprehensive conservation plan for management of the refuge. And overwhelmingly,
00:33:15.320people really came out and said, we want to see further protections for the coastal plain.
00:33:22.440So then from there, Obama makes that official recommendation to Congress to designate wilderness for the coastal plain. And then the job is to get it through Congress, which is the same thing that people have been trying to do for over 30 years is get a wilderness designation for the coastal plain.
00:33:42.500It just hasn't happened. So I think there's a lot of doublespeak. And we saw from Paris that there's a lot of firm talk to wanting to act on climate change. But there's not, in my eyes, enough political will to get us there.
00:34:03.640And I'm definitely behind the keep it in the ground campaign. And I think that politicians need to understand that we just simply cannot afford to do business as usual.
00:34:15.620So until we start really putting a different system in place that doesn't look at corporations as citizens, that understands that people need to come first and that we need to have an economy that is reflective of our morals and ethics around really being sustainable and aware of the fact that we are dependent upon these critical ecosystems, until that transformation happens, we're not going to get to where we need to be.
00:34:45.200But in terms of permanent protection, on the upside, we have more co-sponsored than ever before for wilderness designation. And it is bipartisan. And then the only other option would be for President Obama to use his executive authority and do a monument designation for the coastal plain.
00:35:05.680and if we're really looking at climate change and we're looking at the fact that
00:35:10.640our species is not gonna be able to exist on this planet if it warms up more than you know 1.5
00:35:16.320degrees celsius and we are not doing what we need to do to get there yet keeping fossil fuels in the
00:35:23.080ground is the only way to do it and we're just not seeing i don't think the political will
00:35:30.220to get us there because it needed to happen yesterday and the communities that depend on
00:35:39.500the oceans that have been put in the five-year plan of the federal government their outer
00:35:47.620continental shell five-year plan there's three places here in alaska that are at threat under
00:35:54.540that plan and that's one in the Beaufort Sea one in the Chukchi Sea and one in Cook Inlet
00:36:02.440and all these places there's indigenous communities that rely on the marine ecosystem0.99
00:36:10.560to provide all their essential subsistence needs and so it's the same fight that the Gwich'in are
00:36:19.460facing they are going to face as they stand up and oppose fossil fuel development in their
00:36:27.340ecosystem that provides for their food security. And the other thing is the Beaufort Sea is
00:36:35.800directly adjacent to the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge. I've always thought that
00:36:43.680Drilling offshore is a direct threat to the Arctic Refuge as well
00:36:50.780If there's going to be offshore drilling in the Beaufort Sea
00:36:55.480Because once they access the resource offshore in the Beaufort Sea
00:37:01.000They're going to have to bring it to market
00:37:05.080And they're going to want to access land
00:37:11.200and try to connect to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline,
00:37:17.140and it would just be a backdoor approach
00:37:21.200in opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
00:37:25.460And the thing about the Arctic Refuge is it's not really about the oil there,
00:37:30.580because they estimate that at current consumption rates of the United States,
00:37:37.000It's basically a whole six months' worth of oil that we would not even be able to bring to market for 10 years.
00:37:47.580So the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge does not solve our energy needs now, as they'd like to tout it.
00:37:55.020But the primary push for the refuge is actually for precedent-setting of access to these places that are protected by such stringent environmental laws.
00:38:11.180If they can access the Arctic Refuge, they can access any other public lands anywhere.
00:38:19.040And they've admitted that themselves, that it's about the precedent.
00:38:25.020But as for offshore development, like we stand and oppose offshore development here in Alaska because of climate change and because there should not be any more fossil fuel development here in the state.
00:38:44.560We have enough fields operating currently that are already online that would take us through a transition period.
00:38:54.120if we start to transition now but that's where our work comes in and that's where the public
00:39:01.380comes in i believe that there is an awakening happening i believe that the public senses
00:39:11.320what we're speaking about and i believe that people are starting to shift the way they
00:39:18.760We see how we use energy, what we're taking from the earth, and the march in New York on climate.
00:39:31.620Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets.
00:44:27.220That alone enough is enough to get it cracking Not man-made's demise just the warriors strapping
00:44:33.380Rapping Staying focused not making it happen
00:44:49.780so i was down in louisiana when the deep water horizon spill right after it happened
00:45:16.240I met with Indigenous communities there. It was amazing the parallels, the similarities between Alaska and Louisiana.
00:45:29.580The coastal communities, these Indigenous communities that we were meeting with, the Homa, the Chitimacha, I can't even remember the tribal names,
00:45:42.760but we've met with most of the indigenous communities there and we happened to be in
00:45:47.640one of the communities when the oil started hitting their shrimping grounds and we were
00:45:55.420actually in a community meeting and one of the community members came into the meeting and said
00:46:02.380it's hitting our shrimping grounds right now it's hitting the marshes so we all went out on
00:46:09.260shrimping boats to go to where the oil was hitting and it was just devastating you could
00:46:17.540see the oil slick on the marshes and i could see the pain in those people's faces because their
00:46:27.380way of life was so interdependent on the waters there they've been devastated by global warming
00:48:21.160So when there was a moratorium put on on offshore development, right immediately following that up here in Alaska,
00:48:29.560that moratorium was lifted six months later and it was back to business as usual and i was just
00:48:36.500shocked i almost lost hope but my hope has been restored since then and i believe that uh if we
00:48:46.140work hard doing what we're doing holding the line with these last places raising consciousness
00:48:53.140we're gonna wake people up we actually don't have a choice when we were all together in paris
00:49:03.280for cop 21 a big theme being voiced by indigenous activists was co2 colonialism
00:49:11.420and i think it's important to explore how colonialism is at work in the resource grabs
00:49:18.960going on in Alaska beginning with, and probably even before that, but with the Alaska Native
00:49:25.400Claim Settlement Act in 1971. And I'm wondering if you could explain how this act has divided
00:49:33.020tribes and opened up those lands to destructive industries and continues to create havoc.
00:49:40.460here in Alaska in 1968 Prudhoe Bay was discovered and in order to bring the resources to market
00:49:50.360they needed to settle land claims and so they put forward the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
00:49:59.300and it was approved unilaterally in 1971 most Alaska Natives did not even have a vote or a voice
00:50:08.720But when it happened, what it basically did was set up for-profit Native corporations.
00:50:18.600There's 13 for-profit Native corporations divided by regions in the state of Alaska.
00:50:25.960And these for-profit corporations hold title to the subsurface, right?
00:50:31.960And then we also have village corporations, which were created in every native village in the state. So there's over 200 native village corporations. They have surface rights.
00:50:50.100At the time, there were governments, and we had our own traditional governments in place, our tribes, tribal governments.
00:51:02.660the tribal governments were ignored basically and the land transferred to these new entities
00:51:11.560that were created under the act because they wanted to do something different here in Alaska
00:51:19.200than the lower 48 and so these corporations these newly created native corporations
00:51:28.540there was a clause that if they didn't prosper and if they went under they could be bought out
00:51:36.700any corporation could buy them out and if that happened that also jeopardized land
00:51:45.260and land would be moved out of native hands totally and i believe that was the intent
00:51:54.360except Alaska Natives mobilized and realized the threats that we could lose the land more,
00:52:04.660so they had to be prosperous as corporations.0.53
00:52:12.880So these Native people who lived in tiny communities, isolated communities throughout the state,1.00
00:52:21.380very little western education but the few that did have that western education were the ones0.94
00:52:29.820that had to learn how to become corporate citizens basically and what they did is they
00:52:38.260partnered up with the companies depending on what resource was within their territory so like on the
00:52:47.760north slope you have arctic slope regional corporation that's a multi-billion dollar
00:52:53.800corporation now and they partnered with the oil companies and that's the resource they tapped
00:53:05.360to get their billions some other regions it was mining companies and other regions it was the
00:53:12.920timber industry but basically the only assets they held was the land so to prosper they had to
00:53:24.580exploit their assets that's what they did so the lands became corporate assets and that's how they
00:53:32.940were accessed and when I talk about angst I like to say angst in a nutshell was basically a theft
00:53:39.880of our ancestral territories it was an act to assimilate Alaska natives and an act to divide
00:53:48.520and conquer Alaska natives and then the final blow would have been termination of tribes here in
00:53:56.640Alaska that was their intent in a nutshell but so far we've been able to fight off termination
00:54:06.060because something that constantly comes up here in Alaska
00:54:10.680is legislation to basically legislate away tribes.
00:55:11.360But ANCSA, to me, was one of the worst acts created by Congress.
00:55:17.640And now the same type of legislation is being promoted
00:55:22.700in other areas of the world where there's resources.
00:55:25.720I was down in the Amazon, and the Amazonian leaders there said they had been approached and asked whether they wanted to do land claims similar to Alaska.1.00
00:55:39.860And we cautioned them, don't make that mistake, don't let it happen, because we're still dealing with angsa here.
00:55:48.620and now the legacy of angsa is we have polluted lands we have fracture we have divisions because
00:55:58.780there's tribes that want to protect certain areas and then there's corporations that
00:56:03.540want to exploit that same area and so that creates division
00:56:10.700so we told them the story in the amazon of what happened to alaska natives and
00:56:18.460told them don't allow it to happen to them