There’s a lot of talk about what you get from Ambler Road. But what do we lose?

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My name is Shield Downey. I am Inupiaq. My parents were reindeer herders around Noavik, Serawic and the Baldwin Peninsula, so I grew up in a nomadic lifestyle. I live in Ambler now. I am a Registered Tribal Member of Ambler Aboriginal Village, First Chief of the Tribal Council and a shareholder of NANA Regional Corporation. I am also a member of the Area Elders Council and chair of the Kobuku Valley Livelihood Resources Committee.

My feelings about Ambler Road are sad. It’s sad people don’t think about how this Ambler Road will open up an entire mountain range for mining. Miners continue to explore, building roads, mines, and tailings ponds. Our leaders don’t think about how this development will affect the indigenous peoples and our culture. am. If we allow this, we have no control over anything.

Ambler Road is going to affect all of our habitats, all the way down to Kotzebue. people aren’t paying attention. That copper mining uses cyanide, which is very toxic. And they’re going to build a tailings pond on top of the mountain. It can rain all summer long. Sometimes it snows all winter long. If the tailings pond is full and overflows, it will not produce good water. All that mining is upstream of us. It affects the entire basin. our river! That’s our bread and butter.

People try to carry booze down this road and get stuck drunk — and who will help them?

Caribou are down to 164,000. It sucks. I haven’t heard why it suddenly dropped. Caribou cannot be endangered. We spoke with people living in the Mint, the road leading to the oil pipeline across Alaska. Fairbanks people drive there to catch moose. As such, it had a significant impact on the moose hunts of the indigenous peoples. Outside hunters have already affected us, flying to the north side of the Brooks Mountains to turn back the caribou.

People who tend to think about development and work are not ready for it. Our culture is not ready for that. All of our villages have social vices. I am also concerned about the education system. Young people are less likely to get jobs. i’m so scared of them We are not up to par and cannot compete with the outside world. Our employees already have plenty of opportunities to run small businesses and make money, but that is not the case. The road does not help us at all. No amount of money can help us. We plan to be renters on our own lawn someday. People will bribe us if we are not careful. If you want to practice self-sufficiency and stay aboriginal, you can pick up berries, fish, and caribou to keep it going. But once they let us walk on, that’s it. finished.

I have visited Northern California and they are worried about all the rivers drying up. Wally Hickel talked about the pipeline that sells water to Lower 48. Clean water is precious.

Since the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was enacted, sovereign tribal governments have been kind of trampled. They never really practiced the old ways of governing their communities. When I was growing up, we never walked in front of our elders. We used to ask the elders to go ahead and buy food for us. Modern people do not respect their elders. In fact, there are cases where elderly people are being abused. Young people now live away from their grandparents. Pretty sad. We need to focus on our cultural values. For me, leaders who represent us should not drive development. They shouldn’t look to money. They are supposed to represent us and our survival. NANA leaders haven’t given a clear idea of ​​how the road will affect indigenous peoples.

It’s not money or work for me. I want my people to be treated fairly. I don’t want corporate people to make decisions for us. I want them to think about our fish and have decision-making power.

shield downey He is a registered tribal member of the Ambler Indigenous Village, the first Chief of the Ambler Tribal Council, and a shareholder of NANA Regional Corporation. She is also a member of the Regional Elders Council and is the Chair of the Valley’s Livelihood Resources Committee.

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