'We're fighting for our way of life': Republican tax bill presents grave threat to Alaska's tribal g
For tribal people in northern Alaska, a Republican tax overhaul that was hastily cobbled together in congressional backrooms 3,000 miles away has raised fears that their entire way of life could be erased from this frigid corner of the US.
The Senate’s tax bill may land a decisive blow in a 30-year environmental battle over the Arctic national wildlife refuge, a vast untrammeled area hailed as America’s Serengeti by conservationists, by finally prising open the wilderness to oil and gas drilling. The region’s Gwich’in people fret that their primary food source, caribou, may be lost, and with it the future of the tribe itself.
“We are fighting for our way of life right now,” said Bernadette Demientieff, the executive director of the Gwich’in steering committee, who is spending the week in Washington DC to frantically plea the tribe’s case to Congress.
“Caribou provide 80% of our food, as well as our clothing. This is a sacred place and we will be wiped out if there is drilling there. We live off the land and this is our garden. Take that away and we starve.”
The reliance on hunted food like caribou is practical in an isolated place where a store-bought box of cereal can cost $24. But it is also deeply cultural – the Gwich’in, a community of 9,000 people spread across 15 settlements in Alaska and Canada, revere the animal in song and dance dating back as long as anyone can remember.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/07/alaska-republican-tax-bill-oil-gas-drilling
