Within the Energy Source newsletter, “Will Trump unleash Alaska’s oil and gas?” (FT.com, February 13), Alexandra White overlooks crucial voice within the national conversation about energy and resource development policy in Alaska: the Indigenous communities whose lands, local economies, and traditions will likely be most impacted by federal policies. Because of this, many Americans don’t understand that as Alaska’s North Slope Iñupiat we support an economic development strategy of frequent consultations and engagements with elected leaders about our land.
The North Slope Iñupiat have stewarded their land that now includes the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A) and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) homelands, for over 10,000 years. Today, 4 of our eight communities are the one villages positioned within the NPR-A and one, Kaktovik, is the only village inside ANWR’s 19mn-acre expanse. Similar to our ancestors, we use our lands to sustain our communities and culture, and we understand them higher than anyone. Yet our voices and self-determination are incessantly ignored by those with no connection to our lands or people.
This omission can generate significant real-world consequences
for the North Slope Iñupiat. Greater than 95 per cent of our region’s tax base is derived from the taxation of resource development infrastructure — not output — and is used to fund essential modern services. This includes amenities which might be ubiquitous to the “Lower 48” — because the contiguous US is known as — but have only recently arrived on the North Slope, including modern water and sewer systems, schools, health clinics, and wildlife research and management departments to preserve our subsistence resources for future generations.
The impact of those services has been profound. In 1969, our average life expectancy was just 34 years. Today, we are able to expect to live to a median of 77 years. That is certainly one of the biggest increases of its kind within the US and is due largely to the economic advantages of development projects in our region.
President Trump’s executive order to “unleash” energy production on the North Slope is a positive step in the suitable direction. Nevertheless, it is crucial that the administration works collaboratively with the North Slope Iñupiat to construct durable policy solutions providing long-term stability for our economy, communities and culture. The one solution to achieve this
is by listening to our Indigenous voices, by including us on the policymaking table, and unleashing our Iñupiaq self-determination in our homelands.
Nagruk Harcharek
President of the Voice of Arctic Iñupiat,
Anchorage, Alaska
