Long shadows leaving the sacred place where life begins
Seven wild women / Quannah Chasinghorse
The dying chimes of new year had hardly finished vibrating when the unexpected astronomical phenomenon struck, an event that no scientist could have ever predicted, a familiar and lustrous constellation momentarily faded, reduced to the flicker from the tongue of a dying reptile, fifty stars whose uniform sparkle momentarily faded, choked behind a cloud of riot dust and flying saliva sprayed from between the gnashing teeth and flapping gums of a tinpot revolution. Whilst the braying hoards were busy making America great again, the rest of the world watched agog, crouched on the edges of ringside sofas, there were no harnesses to this high wire act, Harry Houdini would have been envious of the king clown’s impossible act of reverse escapology, live from Capitol Hill! Cue Entry of the gladiators, the velvet curtains swished open, then instantly fell on Donald Trump hammering the last nail into his own coffin.
The events of the 6th of January 2021 closed an extraordinarily chaotic chapter in American history, it will most certainly be the incident that Donald Trump is most remembered for, however, very little is popularly known about the contempt he held for natural environment during his time in office. Over four years the Trump administration took a wrecking ball to almost one hundred major environmental policies, such as opening up protected land for oil and gas by limiting wildlife protection policies, removing federal laws that reopened hunting season on Grey wolves, he removed laws banning logging in Tongass National Forest in Alaska and dismantled laws that limit toxic emissions from major industrial polluters. It's a lengthy and heart-breaking list chronicling one person's ravenous quest for power and their utter contempt for the natural world. Nonetheless, from amidst the curling flurries of CS gas and cinder, hope steps forth immaculate, unscathed, hope is immortal, it is the singular most powerful human resolve and such power is at its most potent, when wielded by the hands of youth.
Quannah Chasinghorse, an eighteen year old Gwich’in and Oglala Lakota youth, is one of the many young warriors around the world fearlessly leading the charge against advancing corporations and development giants, in an ongoing battle to save what's left of the wild places. Quannah, along with her mother Jody, are fighters, they personify a decades long David and Goliath battle against the oil industry’s attempts to wound ancient sacred land, The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the largest national wildlife refuge in the US. Twenty million hectares of pristine wilderness that contains the highest proportion of biodiversity north of the arctic circle, one corporate argument for the opening of drilling was that there is nothing there, in reality it is home to a dazzling array of wildlife, Mega fauna like Polar, black, brown and Grizzly bear, smaller mammals like Beaver, Lynx and Wolverine, 201 species of bird, 42 species of fish, 42 species of butterfly, not forgetting Grey wolves, the absolute embodiment of wilderness who, like the Gwich’in, for as long as memory permits, have led their lives inextricably intertwined with that of the land, in particularly with that of the 200,000 strong Porcupine Caribou herds that migrate its mountains and tundra. For generations the Gwich’in have fought to save their ancestral land from being punctured by the oil industry, this struggle was ramped up in August 2020 when the Trump administration made the decision to overturn six decades of protection for the ANWR, making available, to the highest bidder, 1.57 million acres of vast coastal plains for oil and gas development, risking total ecological collapse, poisoning waterways and severing migratory routes, including that of the caribou.
In December 2019, the Alaskan Federation Convention (AFC) was cleft in two for over an hour, in a passionate and emotional debate, Quannah and her partner Nanieezh Peters had taken centre stage and embarked upon the unthinkable, a generational conflict of opinion had taken over the conference floor, locking horns with their elder counterparts they pleaded for more robust climate policies and protection of the land and its wildlife, arguing that if the land, the fragile net that cradles them, should be torn, then all will be lost, there will be no way of fixing the destruction that would ensue, the fragmentation of their ancient way of life, the knowledge of the land that millennia had constructed would be lost forever.
Quannah appealed for dramatic change, “I am worried for our generation, we are crying up here, we should not have to come to you worrying about future generations.” emphasising that the arctic was warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, thinning ice was making it dangerous to travel and hunt and that disease was diminishing seal, bird, fish and whale populations. The Alaskan Federation of Natives and industry representatives were being challenged, forced into a corner by the younger generation, demanding that they reinstate a task force that would champion tougher climate policies, advance indigenous voices and officially announce a climate change emergency. Later on, the AFN approved a resolution that did indeed declare a climate change emergency, stating:
Our indigenous lands and waters are warming at twice the rate as the rest of the world. Many communities across the state face hardships directly correlated with Climate Change, such as the extreme warming temperatures which melt the permafrost, causing mass erosion, resulting in the relocation of entire communities along with devastating the natural habitats of our animal and plant relatives. These impacts have disrupted indigenous seasonal hunting and gathering traditions; and in recent years we have lost community members due to unpredictable and unsafe ice conditions, have seen the die off and disease of seals, salmon, migratory birds, shellfish, whales, polar bears, and recognize that these are also our relatives; and we, the Alaska Native youth, are asking our tribal leaders to consider, as is traditional, the future of their grandchildren and the generations to come.
Quannah continues to address senators on Capitol Hill and with her fierce and contemporary approach, promotes a new optimistic dawn for environmental action, inspiring new generations to care, to know that what they hold in their hands is hope, and hope is by far the most powerful weapon in any battle for positive change. We can learn a lot from the fight and spirit of Quannah, Nanieezh, her mother and the Gwich’in people, they are anatomically one with the land, it is a vital organ that life could not go on existing without, this sacred land is known by the Gwich’in as, Lizhik Gwat’an Gwandaii Goodlit, meaning the sacred place where life begins, a wisdom that can be applied to the Earth as a whole, she is our common mother after all.
“The reason I am the way I am is because my mom, grandma, and aunties have always taught me not to take sh*t from [any]one. To do the best for our people, sticking up for our rights and our lands. I’ve learned a lot from the women in my life”