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How One Inuit Community Won Against Big Oil

  
Via:  Split Personality  •  6 years ago  •  10 comments


How One Inuit Community Won Against Big Oil
... and what it means for other environmental efforts.

Sponsored by group SiNNERs and ButtHeads

SiNNERs and ButtHeads

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T





In April 2018, the Trump administration announced Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was open for business. By June, two Alaska Native Regional Corporations and a small oil company had already jointly applied to conduct extensive seismic testing in the refuge next winter.
Seismic blasts—loud sonic explosions fired through the ocean—map the seabed floor for oil and gas deposits to extract. Opponents, like the Wilderness Society and the group Polar Bears International, say the testing has deleterious effects on the land and the wildlife. The Canadian government has opposed opening up ANWR for these reasons as well.
Some Alaska natives support the oil exploration for its economic potential, while others, like the Gwich’in nation, argue that it would disrupt the caribou herd upon which their traditional diets—and much of their culture—depend.
Thousands of miles across the icy North, on the east coast of Canada, Inuit hunters several years ago worried about the same outcome in their own oil battle. They fought back—and won. As ANWR exploration draws nearer, the Canadian Inuit victory hints at an alternate path: lessons from a rare win for tribal communities fighting outside interests.


read the article here https://newrepublic.com/article/151559/one-inuit-community-won-big-oil





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Split Personality
Professor Guide
1  seeder  Split Personality    6 years ago

A brief history of one Canadian tribe and a rare win for any tribe in court...

 
 
 
Krishna
Professor Expert
1.1  Krishna  replied to  Split Personality @1    6 years ago
A brief history of one Canadian tribe and a rare win for any tribe in court.

Great news! :-)

 
 
 
Split Personality
Professor Guide
2  seeder  Split Personality    6 years ago
With the help of its new partner, Greenpeace, Clyde River installed solar panels on their community center last summer, to meet some of the village’s energy needs. The panels are owned by the community, and several locals were trained on how to install and maintain the arrays.

In the meantime, the Inuit of Clyde River waited for the Supreme Court to decide the fate of their community.


The battle was called Justin Trudeau’s first major environmental challenge , but it resonated outside of Nunavut and around the world. The decision would set a precedent for existing and future indigenous land disputes, and it would also likely have implications for other seismic testing battles around the world, such as in New Zealand and Peru .

The Court heard Clyde’s case on November 30, 2016. A few weeks later, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a promising announcement : all Arctic waters would be “indefinitely off limits to future offshore Arctic oil and gas licensing,” subject to review every five years.

But Trudeau’s new rule only applied to future oil and gas permits. The residents of Clyde River continued to wait for the court decision, which they feared they would lose. “I am thinking it will be against us,” Nick Illauq said in early July 2017, interpreting the federal government’s move to educate communities on natural resource regulatory systems as a bad sign.

Then, after eight months, the decision came through. In a unanimous decision handed down on July 26, the court ruled that the National Energy Board consultations with the residents of Clyde River were “significantly flawed” and did not take into account the massive impact the oil exploration would have upon Inuit lives.

The Inuit had won. Seismic testing would not proceed.
 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Expert
4  MrFrost    6 years ago

Excellent article SP, thanks for this. 

 
 
 
Split Personality
Professor Guide
4.1  seeder  Split Personality  replied to  MrFrost @4    6 years ago

I was surprised by the source, but then, one might reason that most conservatives would also be conservationists while not necessarily being environmentalists. maybe?

I agree it was a good read and well written.

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Expert
4.1.1  MrFrost  replied to  Split Personality @4.1    6 years ago

My dad is a far right wing conservative republican.. Made his living, for 60 years, cutting down trees. Irony? Most loggers are conservationists...I know how odd that sounds, but it's true. 

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
5  Kavika     6 years ago

Gotta love it.

 
 
 
Split Personality
Professor Guide
5.1  seeder  Split Personality  replied to  Kavika @5    6 years ago

We do.

 
 

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