{"id":28230,"date":"2017-11-23T08:05:24","date_gmt":"2017-11-23T13:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=28230"},"modified":"2017-11-23T08:05:24","modified_gmt":"2017-11-23T13:05:24","slug":"trump-eyes-arctic-wildlife-refuge-for-oil-drilling-alarming-gwichin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=28230","title":{"rendered":"Trump Eyes Arctic Wildlife Refuge for Oil Drilling, Alarming Gwich\u2019in"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 id=\"page-title\" class=\"page__title title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmog.ca\/2017\/11\/22\/trump-eyes-arctic-wildlife-refuge-oil-drilling-alarming-gwich\">Trump Eyes Arctic Wildlife Refuge for Oil Drilling, Alarming Gwich\u2019in<\/a><\/h3>\n<article class=\"node-12366 node node-blog node-promoted view-mode-full clearfix\">\n<div class=\"field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.desmog.ca\/sites\/beta.desmogblog.com\/files\/styles\/full_width_blog_image\/public\/blogimages\/Desmog%20-%20ANWR%20Story-1215_preview_1.jpeg?itok=jspgICAq\" alt=\"ANWR oil and gas caribou trump\" width=\"826\" height=\"473\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"new-horizontal-social-bar clearfix\">In the remote north-eastern corner of Alaska, just under 20-million acres have been set aside\u00a0as a federal protected area since 1960. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has recently come under threat, however, with President Donald Trump\u2019s Department of the Interior <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/09\/16\/climate\/trump-arctic-refuge-drilling.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">proposing lifting restrictions on seismic\u00a0exploration.<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<p>The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain has been described as<a href=\"http:\/\/www.audubon.org\/conservation\/arctic-national-wildlife-refuge\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> America\u2019s Serengeti<\/a>, and is the year-round or migratory home to numerous species that are uniquely adapted to the conditions found within this rare expanse of undeveloped wilderness along the Arctic\u00a0Ocean.<\/p>\n<p>Over tens of thousands of years, both the Porcupine Caribou herd and the Gwich\u2019in people have come to depend on the integrity of that coastal plain for their\u00a0survival.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"dquo\">\u201c<\/span>The Gwich&#8217;in call this area \u2018Iizhik Gwats&#8217;an Gwandaii Goodlit,\u2019 the Sacred Place Where Life Begins,\u201d explained Vuntut Gwich\u2019in Councillor Dana Tizya-Tramm via\u00a0email.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"dquo\">\u201c<\/span>It is a keystone in the ecosystems of the Arctic, and the heart that beats outside of the Gwich&#8217;in\u00a0chest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Oil and gas lobbyists have had the Refuge in their sights from the outset. For decades now, for every push to open up the wildlife refuge to oil and gas development, multiple generations of Gwich\u2019in have stood up to protect the land and the herd that has sustained their way of\u00a0life.<\/p>\n<p>Disturbance to the landscape can upset a delicate balance between the wildlife that makes its home on the coastal\u00a0plain.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.desmog.ca\/sites\/beta.desmogblog.com\/files\/Desmog%20-%20ANWR%20Story-0436.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Brooks Range mountains tower behind lush arctic tundra in Yukon&#8217;s north slope region. Photo: Matt Jacques | DeSmog\u00a0Canada<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"dquo\">\u201c<\/span>In a miracle of phenology [the interaction of climate, habitat and plant\/animal cycles], Porcupine caribou cows arrive at the coastal plain just as the first flush of spring growth provides a burst of nutrients to them, just as they all deliver their calves at once,\u201d said Yukon Conservation Society energy analyst Sebastian Jones in an emailed response to questions from DeSmog\u00a0Canada.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trump Eyes Arctic Wildlife Refuge for Oil Drilling, Alarming Gwich\u2019in In the remote north-eastern corner of Alaska, just under 20-million acres have been set aside\u00a0as a federal protected area since 1960. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has recently come under threat, however, with President Donald Trump\u2019s Department of the Interior proposing lifting restrictions on seismic\u00a0exploration. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[17138,5317,17137,1019,827],"class_list":["post-28230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-arctic-wildlife-reserve","tag-desmog-blog","tag-matt-jacques","tag-oil-drilling","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28231,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28230\/revisions\/28231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}