Arctic drilling could threaten caribou people, pastor says
5/22/2001
WASHINGTON (UMNS) - A Native American who lives above the Arctic Circle told United Methodists why he and his people fear drilling in or near the caribou calving grounds in Alaska.
"We depend on those animals," said the Rev. Trimble Gilbert, an Episcopalian clergyman and a leader of the Gwich'in tribe. "We are the caribou people."
Gilbert, along with several staff members of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries and Board of Church and Society, spoke at a gathering of United Methodists who were also attending an environmental justice ministry conference. The National Council of Churches' Environmental Justice Working Group organized the May 20-23 conference, which was attended by people of many faiths.
The caribou have been in Northern Alaska and Canada for thousands of years, and the Gwich'in people have relied on the animals for food, clothing, shelter, blankets, medicine, tools and more, said Gilbert, who lives in Arctic Village. The community, one of several Gwich'in villages, is near the boundary of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a pristine area north of the Arctic Circle that President Bush has proposed for oil drilling.
Each of the caribou herds has only one calving ground, he noted. And each of the Gwich'in communities, based on reservations in Alaska and Canada, depends on its herd. The existing oil pipeline already hampers the movements of some herds. Global warming is changing the Arctic habitat too, he added.
"We're losing our way of life - our culture," Gilbert declared.
The Gwich'in want to preserve the land and resources for the next generations, Gilbert noted. "If we lose the animals, no one will be there," he added.
He said the Gwich'in do not know why the whole herd of more than 100,000 caribou stand together for several days on the calving ground, but he speculated that it might give the newborns a chance to gather their strength before the huge herd resumes grazing. The Gwich'in do know that calves born before the herd reaches its calving ground rarely, if ever, survive, he noted.
Many of Alaska's native communities have lost a disproportionate number of people to alcoholism, drugs and suicide, which severely impact families and whole communities, he said.
So far, the people have succeeded in keeping alcohol out of Arctic Village, he said, but they see its effects in other settlements.
In a 1998 study, the U.S. Geological Survey reported that drilling in the refuge would yield only a six-month supply of oil for the United States.
Jaydee Hanson, a Board of Church and Society staff executive, noted that Sen. Deborah Stabenow (D-Mich.) has said the oil companies are not after the ability to drill in Alaska but instead want the ability to drill anywhere. Stabenow is a United Methodist.
In other presentations, David Wildman, a Board of Global Ministries executive, observed that if drilling is bad for the Arctic, it is equally bad for rain forests.
Wildman urged United Methodists to look at environmental racism in a global context. Giving examples, he cited the destruction of olive groves belonging to the Palestinian women's cooperative that the board has helped fund, and Colombia's use of a U.S. company's herbicide that destroys not only drug traffickers' cocoa crops but also all indigenous food crops. Only a special seed manufactured by the same company can grow in areas treated by the herbicide, he said.
Andris Salter, an executive with the board's Women's Division, discussed the women's campaign to use alternatives to paper that is made with chlorine processes.
Janet Allen, a laywoman from Syracuse, N.Y., explained creation stewardship and what individuals and congregations could do to become better stewards of God's creation.
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