IN ARCTIC VILLAGE, high in the Alaskan tundra on the edge of the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge, the Gwich鈥檌n people are trying to hold their culture
together. They have just completed a new written version of their language. It
will be taught in a school where a generation ago the use of Gwich鈥檌n was
discouraged by the Alaskan government. They have resisted plans for a road to
the village, and prohibited alcohol. Most of all, like the rest of the 7000
Gwich鈥檌n people in the mountain villages across Alaska and north-west Canada,
they are determined to keep their tradition of hunting the huge caribou herd
that passes through twice a year.
The Gwich鈥檌n villages all lie on the 1500-kilometre migration route that 130
000 caribou take from their winter mountain retreat to the Arctic coastal plain
inside the wildlife refuge. 鈥淲e are caribou people. That is how we identify
ourselves. We care more about caribou than money,鈥� says Sarah James, head of the
Gwich鈥檌n inter-village committee, at a caribou cookout.
But it is a way of life that is threatened. Global warming is already
changing the animals鈥� migration. Now BP, the oil company that last week
rebranded itself as being 鈥渂eyond petroleum鈥� wants to put some decidedly
old-fashioned oil rigs on the pastures that sustain the caribou herd.
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These days, when people go hunting the journey is longer than it used to be.
Arctic Village, called Vashraii Koo in Gwich鈥檌n, was established where the
caribou crossed a tributary of the Porcupine River. 鈥淏ut the migration has
changed. I haven鈥檛 seen them cross the river here for 20 years,鈥� says village
elder Trimble Gilbert.
The annual trek of these caribou is one of the last great mammal migrations
on the planet. For thousands of years the herd has survived grizzlies, golden
eagles, wolves and the human hunters that follow them. But the success of the
migration is critically dependent on two things: the timing of the spring melt
that clears their path, and the absence of humans on the coastal pastures where
the Caribou give birth to their calves in the first days of June. Both are
threatened鈥攖his year as never before.
Global warming has dealt the caribou a double blow. First, warmer summers
mean the pastures are often past their best by the time the caribou reach them.
To make matters worse, warmer winters are triggering heavier snowfall in the
mountains. This means the migration is delayed by deep snow and by raging rivers
as the snow melts. This year, snowfall was 50 per cent above average, and the
snow and ice cleared more than a month late.
This year, for the first time, none of the females made it to the coast
before their June calving, says Fran Mauer of the US government鈥檚 Fish and
Wildlife Service in Fairbanks. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the latest they鈥檝e ever been. They were
giving birth en route,鈥� he says. Gwich鈥檌n in the village of Old Crow, across the
Canadian border, reported that calves a few days old were forced to swim the
mighty Porcupine River. Appalled, the Gwich鈥檌n called off hunting for the
season.
Many calves didn鈥檛 make it. I watched for days, camped out on the edge of the
calving grounds at the end of June, weeks after the caribou should have passed
through. Thousands of males arrived, but I saw only two calves. The females and
their calves finally reached the coast at the start of July, but there were
fewer than half as many calves as cows, a record low.
Poor migrations due to the unfriendly climate have been taking their toll for
many years now, says Don Russell, a Canadian biologist with the International
Porcupine Caribou Management Board. In 1989, there were 178 000 caribou in the
herd; last year there were just 129 000. 鈥淭his year will be worse. Their
migration is no longer coinciding with the fast seasonal changes in vegetation,鈥�
says Russell. If numbers fall much further, he says, the Gwich鈥檌n may have to
consider cutting down on the 4000 animals they usually hunt in a year.
The Gwich鈥檌n have always left the coastal pastures alone. They regard them as
sacred, as well as vital to the survival of their quarry. Others, too, have kept
away. While much of the Alaskan north shore has been turned over to oil, the
Porcupine calving grounds have been protected within the wildlife reserve. But
after two decades of discreet lobbying, BP Amoco, the largest company on the
North Slope and operator of North America鈥檚 largest oilfield at Prudhoe Bay,
could be close to getting access to the sacred pastures. The Republican
candidate in the US presidential elections, George W. Bush, is backing a plan
put up by Alaskan senators to open the reserve coastline to oil exploration. It
is part of a scheme to reduce American reliance on foreign oil at a time of high
global oil prices.
Is this a threat to the caribou? Absolutely not, says BP biologist Ray
Jakubczak as we tour the Prudhoe Bay field, which has around a thousand wells.
鈥淭he Porcupine caribou would continue to calve even if we developed their
calving grounds on the scale we have here.鈥� He seems to have a point. We watch
as caribou from the Central Arctic herd, a distinct herd native to the Prudhoe
Bay area, cross the road ahead and duck under a pipeline that takes oil south to
the Pacific port of Valdez. 鈥淲e get up to 4000 caribou just around this oil
field some years,鈥� he says. 鈥淭his is not a wildlife issue. The wildlife would do
just fine.鈥�
But many biologists insist it is a wildlife issue. Ray Cameron at the
University of Alaska at Fairbanks, says: 鈥淩ound Prudhoe Bay you will see males,
but you don鈥檛 see females with calves. We have shown that they will try and keep
at least four kilometres from roads. If development is too dense they run out of
options.鈥� Russell agrees: 鈥淭here is no calving in or around the oil complex
苍辞飞.鈥�
At Prudhoe Bay, the coastal plain is about 100 kilometres wide, so the
caribou have moved inland. But the calving grounds of the Porcupine herd are on
a narrow 10-kilometre strip. 鈥淚t won鈥檛 take much to destabilise the Porcupine
herd,鈥� Russell says. 鈥淭he big danger is that it will get squeezed between global
warming and oil development.鈥�
The stakes are high for all concerned. 鈥淎laska operates like a BP company
town,鈥� says Randall Snodgrass, chief lobbyist for the World Wildlife Fund in the
US. Oil provides 85 per cent of the state鈥檚 revenue. But BP is proud of being an
environmental leader. It is about to announce the oil industry鈥檚 first corporate
policy for protecting biodiversity. 鈥淭hey are better than the others, though
that鈥檚 not saying a lot. But they have to recognise that some areas should be
left alone,鈥� says Snodgrass. He asks: 鈥淲ould Britain let BP drill for oil in
your Lake District?鈥�
Even so, there is more to the argument than a straightforward natives versus
multinational debate. Not all Alaska鈥檚 indigenous communities oppose oil
development. The Inupiat (Eskimos) in the coastal town of Kaktovik, who hunt
more whales than caribou, mostly favour oil development. They have already
become richer than the Gwich鈥檌n by taking money and jobs from the oil companies,
and a few years ago they secured ownership of some of the most promising
oil-bearing land within the reserve. George Tagarook, fire chief and deputy
mayor in Kaktovik, stood on the drive of his fire station with its three
gleaming engines, surveyed the new school, clinic and post office, and beamed:
鈥淭his is all built with oil money. We have a company that owns oil land. Many
people here are shareholders. Without oil this place will go down.鈥� But with it,
so too might the caribou.
