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JAY TREATY: INDIGENOUS RIGHTS OF FREE CROSS-BORDER PASSAGE...
Nations and Indigenous tribes from Alaska, has influenced environmental
policies in both US and Canada despite facing bureaucratic difficulties caused
by the border. In addition to serving its primary function, the Council also
strengthens the Indigenous nations’ sovereignty.
Indigenous peoples also emphasize that extraction industries endanger
both human and other-than-human animals, including the Porcupine caribou,
that play an important role in the life of the Gwich’in people who are at the
forefront of caribou protection efforts. The Porcupine caribou are migratory
animals whose traditional behavior is disrupted by the resource extraction
activities in the area. Furthermore, oil drilling has severe impacts on the
herd’s calving activity and the caribou population is quickly diminishing.
The Gwich’in Steering Committee was established in 1988 with the aim
of preventing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge where the
Porcupine caribou have their calving grounds. The Gwich’in have been in
charge of the caribou’s protection via effective cross-border management.
Similarly to other international cooperation efforts, the Gwich’in also face
major challenges, including the inability of some members to cross the
border to attend the biennial Gwich’in Gathering.” Their efforts have been
further complicated in the last few years due to the Trump administration
allowing oil and gas drilling in the protected Arctic Refuge, thus effectively
endangering both the caribou and Indigenous people living in the area. Polar
bears, wolves, and musk oxen are also endangered by this policy.*' The latest
substantial measure implemented by the Committee has been the creation
of a Youth Board consisting of four young advocates as it is primarily their
generation’s future that is in question.”
Last, the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) and the Arctic Council have
to be mentioned as exemplary cross-border initiatives that contest the
established borders by uniting Inuit from Canada, Alaska, Greenland, and
Chukotka in the ICC and peoples from Canada, Alaska, Siberia, Iceland,
Denmark and northern Finland, Sweden, and Norway in the Arctic Council.
The ICC was founded in 1977 with the aim of “address[ing] increasing attacks
on the Inuit way of life, environment, and human rights that were initiated
by industry, states, and others with interests in the Arctic.”°* The Arctic
50 Starks — McCormack - Cornell, Native Nations, 72-75.
Steven Mufson — Juliet Eilperin, Trump administration opens huge reserve in Alaska
to drilling, The Washington Post (2019), https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate¬
environment/trump-administration-chooses-most-expansive-approach-to-oil-gas¬
exploration-in-alaska-wildlife-refuge/2019/09/12/cfac63cc-d597-11e9-9610-fb56c5522elc_
story.html (accessed 4 April 2020).
Gwich’in Steering Committee, Protecting “Ihe Sacred Place Where Life Begins,”
http://ourarcticrefuge.org (accessed 4 April 2020).
ICC, Inuit United Voice of the Arctic, https://www.inuitcircumpolar.com (accessed 4 April
2020).
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