Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Ignoring Indigenous peoples—climate change, oil development, and Indigenous rights clash in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Climatic Change Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Cite this article

Abstract

The politics of climate change are the politics of energy and in turn the politics of Indigenous people’s rights. The clash of these political realms is nowhere more vivid than the north slope of Alaska, where the acute impacts of climate change to the livelihoods of Alaska Indigenous peoples places energy development decision-making in a new light. Considering the elevated exposure and sensitivity to the impacts of climate change, the development of oil and gas resources in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska will exacerbate the acute livelihood challenges already being faced by the Indigenous peoples of this region. The tendency to marginalize the rights of Indigenous peoples in US natural resource development planning, moreover, constitutes a missed opportunity for advancing development decision-making toward more effective socio-ecological planning in the context of climate change. Indigenous communities in the North are uniquely qualified, both as sovereign peoples and as knowledge holders, to enrich government policy and decision-making about development in the context of climate change, constituting strong justification for their involvement in the planning process. This article integrates recently published research with an in-depth in-person interview with the Executive Director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee. We argue that accommodation of the cumulative threats posed by climate change and development to the rights of Indigenous communities in oil development plans for the Coastal Plain area of the ANWR will be essential to protect the livelihoods of these communities and the ecosystems within which they live.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. In a few jurisdictions, Indigenous peoples enjoy a higher level of protection and greater inclusion in decision-making regarding environmental issues, climate change, and resource development projects. While Canada has been dealing with its own dark history of injustices toward Indigenous peoples (Youdelis 2016; Mosby 2013), the rights of Indigenous peoples here do appear to have greater levels of protection than in the US, perhaps in part due to the codification of the duty to consult Indigenous peoples concerning new resource development in the Constitution. The courts have upheld this obligation, most recently overturning the government approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project due to governmental failures to adequately consult with Indigenous peoples. In Canada’s Northern Territories, devolution has led to more equitable processes (Natcher 2001). Here, legislative examples may be found in the “Umbrella Final Agreement” of ANWR-bordering Yukon (Council of Yukon First Nations 1993) and the “Yukon Forum,” which are regular meetings between the Yukon Government, Yukon First Nations, and the Council of Yukon First Nations—in June 2018 the Yukon Forum added fish and wildlife to its joint priority action plan (Yukon Government 2018). Opportunities for inclusion of Indigenous groups in decision-making can also be used to leverage and assert Indigenous sovereignty and governance. For example, community-based monitoring (CBM) agreements between the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council (YRITWC) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) represents an opportunity for self-governance and maintaining a sense of stewardship. This transboundary collaboration between Alaskan (USA) and Yukon (Canada) Indigenous groups is supported by a memorandum of understanding with the USGS to jointly cooperate in a water monitoring program using USGS protocols and methods, while respecting Indigenous knowledge and worldviews (Wilson et al. 2018). For additional examples of water management and climate modeling that include Indigenous peoples, see Tan et al. 2012 (Australia) and Bark et al. 2012 (USA and Australia).

References

  • Alaska Regional Assessment Group (1999) The potential consequences of climate variability and change: Alaska. Center for Global Change and Arctic Research, University of Alaska. December, Fairbanks

    Google Scholar 

  • Anaya JS (2015) Report of the special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples on extractive industries and indigenous peoples. Arizona J Int Comparative Law 32:109–142

    Google Scholar 

  • Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) (2007) Arctic Oil and Gas 2007. Oslo, Norway

  • Bark RH, Garrick DE, Robinson CJ, Jackson S (2012) Adaptive basin governance and the prospects for meeting indigenous water claims. Environ Sci Policy 19-20:169–177

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berkman PA, Vylegzhanin AN (2013) The challenges of oil spill response in the Arctic. In: Berkman PA, Vylegzhanin AN (eds) Environmental security in the Arctic Ocean. Springer, Netherlands, pp 255–279

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Brace C, Geoghegan H (2011) Human geographies of climate change: landscape, temporality, and lay knowledges. Prog Hum Geogr 35(3):284–286

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brinkman TJ, Hansen WD, Stuart Chapin F III, Kofinas G, BurnSilver S, Scott Rupp T (2016) Arctic communities perceive climate impacts on access as a critical challenge to availability of subsistence resources. Clim Chang 139:413–427

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Council of Yukon First Nations (1993) Umbrella Final Agreement, c. 12. https://cyfn.ca/ufa/. Accessed 19 Jan 2019

  • Couzin J (2007) Polar science: opening doors to native knowledge. Science 315(March 16):1518–1519

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dunlap RE, van Liere KD (1984) Commitment to the Dominant Social Paradigm and Concern for Environmental Quality. Soc Sci Q 65:1013–1028

  • Ford J (2012) Indigenous health and climate change. Am J Public Health 102(7):1260–1266

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gerrard E (2008) Impacts and opportunities of climate change: indigenous participation in environmental markets. Native Title Res Unit 3(13):1–14

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilberthorpe E, Hilson G (eds) (2014) Natural resource extraction and indigenous livelihoods: development challenges in an era of globalization. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Global Affairs Canada (2018) Agreement between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America on the conservation of the porcupine caribou herd. http://www.treaty-accord.gc.ca/text-texte.aspx?id=100687. Accessed 19 Jan 2019

  • Green D, Billy J, Tapin A (2010) Indigenous Australian’s knowledge of weather and climate. Clim Chang 100:337–354

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gwich’in Niinstayaa 2012 (2012) Resolution to protect the birthplace and nursery grounds of the porcupine Caribou herd. Gwich’in steering Committee. July 27, 2012. NWT, Fort McPherson

    Google Scholar 

  • Gwich’in Steering Committee (2019) Caribou People. http://ourarcticrefuge.org/about-the-gwichin/caribou-people/. Accessed 19 Jan 2019

  • Hahn R, Passell P (2001) The economics of allowing more U.S. oil drilling. Energy Econ 32(3):638–650

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hassol SJ (2004) Impacts of a warming Arctic: Arctic climate impact assessment. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Houseknecht DW, Bird KJ (2006) Oil and gas resources of the Arctic Alaska Petroleum Province. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1732-A. https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1732/pp1732a/pp1732a.pdf. Accessed 24 Jan 2019

  • HR 1146 Statement (March 26, 2019) Statement of Bernadette Demientieff, Executive Director, Gwich’in Steering Committee to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources, Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources hearing “The Need to Protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain” on H.R. 1146, The Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection Act

  • Hulme M (2011) Meet the humanities. Nat Clim Chang 1(4):179

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Indigenous Environmental Services, Jeffries S, Devagiri (2008) A changing climate: indigenous engagement with climate change – impacts, related regulation and the green economy. University of Technology Sydney, Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, pp 1–27

  • IPCC (2018) 2018: Summary for policymakers. In: Masson-Delmotte V et al (eds) Global warming of 1.5°C. an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva

  • Kotchen MJ, Burger NE (2007) Should we drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? An economic perspective. Energy Policy 35(9):4720–4729

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laidler G (2006) Inuit and scientific perspectives on the relationship between sea ice and climate change: the ideal complement? Clim Chang 78(2)

  • Laidler G et al (2009) Travelling and hunting in a changing Arctic: assessing Inuit vulnerability to sea ice change in Igloolik, Nunavut. Clim Chang 94:363–397

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Larsen JN, Anisimov OA, Constable A, Hollowed AB, Maynard N, Prestrud P, Prowse TD, Stone JMR (2014) Polar regions. In: Barros VR et al (eds) Climate change 2014: impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. Part B: regional aspects. Contribution of working group II to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Leduc T (2007) Sila dialogues on climate change: Inuit wisdom for a cross-cultural interdisciplinarity. Clim Chang 85(3)

  • MacInnes A, Colchester M, Whitmore A (2017) Free, prior and informed consent: how to rectify the devastating consequences of harmful mining for indigenous peoples. Perspect Ecol Conserv 15(3):152–160

    Google Scholar 

  • Mosby I (2013) Administering colonial science: nutrition research and human biomedical experimentation in aboriginal communities and residential schools, 1942–1952. Soc Hist 46(1):145–172

    Google Scholar 

  • Natcher DC (2001) Land use research and the duty to consult: a misrepresentation of the aboriginal landscape. Land Use Policy 18(2):113–122

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nursey-Bray M, Palmer R (2018) Country, climate change adaptation and colonisation: insights from an indigenous adaptation planning process, Australia. Heliyon 4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2018

  • Pacyna JM, Cousins IT, Halsall C, Rautio A, Pawlak J, Pacyna EG, Sundseth K, Wilson S, Munthe J (2015) Impacts on human health in the Arctic owing to climate-induced changes in contaminant cycling –the EU ArcRisk project policy outcome. Environ Sci Policy 50:200–213

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parlee BL, Caine KJ (eds) (2018) When the caribou do not come: indigenous knowledge and adaptive management in the Western Arctic. UBC Press

  • Parlee BL, Sandlos J, Natcher DC (2018) Undermining subsistence: barren-ground caribou in a ‘tragedy of open access’. Sci Adv 4(2):1–26

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pennesi K, Arokium J, McBean G (2012) Integrating local and scientific weather knowledge as a strategy for adaptation to climate change in the Arctic. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Chang 17:897–922

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pincus R, Ali SH (2015) Diplomacy on ice: energy and the environment in the Arctic and Antarctic. Yale University Press, New Haven

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Riedlinger D, Fikret Berkes F (2001) Contributions of traditional knowledge to understanding climate change in the Canadian Arctic. Polar Record 37(203)

  • Sandlos J, Keeling A (2016) Aboriginal communities, traditional knowledge, and the environmental legacies of extractive development in Canada. Extractive Ind Soc 3:278–287

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shearer C (2011) Kivalina: a climate change story. Haymarket Books

  • Southcott C (2015) Some observations on the social economy in northern Canada. In: Southcott C (ed) Northern communities working together: the social economy of Canada’s north. University of Toronto Press, Toronto

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Tan P, Bowmer KH, Baldwin C (2012) Continued challenges in the policy and legal framework for collaborative water planning. J Hydrol 747:84–91

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • United Nations General Assembly resolution 61/295 (2007) United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, A/RES/61/295

  • United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) (2012) Overview of refuge purposes. https://www.fws.gov/refuge/arctic/purposes.html. Accessed 26 April 2019

  • United States Geological Survey (1998) Fact sheet 0028–01: online report - Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 1002 area, Petroleum Assessment, Including Economic Analysis. https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0028-01/fs-0028-01.htm. Accessed 24 Jan 2019

  • United States Government Accountability Office (2003) Alaska native villages: most are affected by flooding and erosion. December. GAO-04-142. https://www.gao.gov/assets/250/240810.pdf. Accessed 5 May 2019

  • US Government (1995) House Document 104–141. Veto of H.R. 2491. December 5, 1995. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CDOC-104hdoc141/pdf/CDOC-104hdoc141.pdf. Accessed 26 Apr 2019

  • van Tuyn P (2014) Peak oil and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In: Gates JE, Trauger DL, Czech B (eds) Peak oil, economic growth, and wildlife conservation. Springer, New York, pp 171–190

    Google Scholar 

  • Walsh NE, Griffith B, McCabe TR (1995) Evaluating growth of the porcupine caribou herd using a stochastic model. J Wildl Manag 59(2):262–272

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weatherhead E, Gearheard S, Barry R (2010) Changes in weather persistence: insight from Inuit knowledge. Glob Environ Chang 20(3)

  • Wesche SD, Chan HM (2010) Adapting to the impacts of climate change on food security among Inuit in the Western Canadian Arctic. EcoHealth 7(3):361–373

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson NJ, Mutter E, Inkster J, Satterfield T (2018) Community-based monitoring as the practice of Indigenous governance: a case study of Indigenous-led water quality monitoring in the Yukon River Basin. J Environ Manag 210:290–298

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wright S (2014) Our ice is vanishing / Sikuvut Nunguliqtuq: a history of Inuit, newcomers, and climate change. McGill-Queen’s Native and Northern Series 75

  • Youdelis M (2016) “They could take you out for coffee and call it consultation!”: the colonial antipolitics of indigenous consultation in Jasper National Park. Environ Plan A 48(7):1374–1392

  • Yukon Government (2018) Yukon Forum. https://yukon.ca/en/your-government/find-out-what-government-doing/yukon-forum. Accessed 13 Jan 2019

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Bernadette Demientieff, Director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee “Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit” (The Sacred Place Where Life Begins) for her participation. The authors are grateful to Jacob Fooks, Kaitlynn Ritchie, Sandeep Mohapatra, two anonymous referees, and the editor for their insightful comments which improved this article.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology, University of Alberta, 515 GSB, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2H1, Canada

    Emilie Zentner, Maik Kecinski, Angeline Letourneau & Debra Davidson

Authors
  1. Emilie Zentner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Maik Kecinski
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Angeline Letourneau
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Debra Davidson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

Zentner contributed to the design, interview, and writing of the manuscript; Kecinski contributed to the design, interview, GIS map, and writing of the manuscript; Letourneau contributed GIS map and writing of the manuscript; Davidson contributed to the writing of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Debra Davidson.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Zentner, E., Kecinski, M., Letourneau, A. et al. Ignoring Indigenous peoples—climate change, oil development, and Indigenous rights clash in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Climatic Change 155, 533–544 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02489-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02489-4

search

Navigation