Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 12, Number 11, 1 Nowemapa 1995 — Our Readers Write [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Our Readers Write

Gwich'in interests clarified My thanks and congratulations to Deborah Ward for a remarkably descriptive and balanced depiction of the facts and politics in the case of Congress' attempt to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil and gas exploration and development. There is indeed a great, yet undetermined potential for supplies of natural resources in this vast unspoiled home of natural v> onders - biological and cultural. One area of Ms. Ward's article, however, needs to be explained or corrected. While huge tracts of the North Slope are already open to drilling by the multinational resource companies like Chevron, Texaco and British Petroleum, the Gwich'in nation is attempting to preserve only a small area of the ANWR, the coastal "1002 area," whieh is not owned or controlled by the Inupiat Eskimo (Inuit) people whose corporate board is attempting to open even this vital caribou calving ground (so sacred it is kapu for Gwich'in to travel there during calving season) to exploitation. In a statement, the Gwich'in Steering Committee declared that "The lands of the Kaktovik Inupiat Corporation and Arctic Slope Regional Corporation are immediately north of the '1002 area,' extending to the Arctic coast. They are within the Arctic Refuge but outside the '1002 aiea' we want protected." It appears obvious that the greed of the oil industry and the corporate boards representing the Eskimo are in no mood to compromise and delete the small parcel of calving grounds from the drilling map. Those who truly care about the preservation of traditional mdigenous lifestyles must let their federal representatives

know their position on oil and gas drilling in this sacred land. Rich Weigel Honolulu