****..........Log onto the Web sites of the National Wildlife Federation, the Wilderness Society and other environmental groups and you learn that the struggle to save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska from oil drilling is about more than protecting the environment.
"It is also a human rights issue since the indigenous Gwich'in Indians rely on this important area for their subsistence way of life," says the Wilderness Society's Web site: www.wilderness.org.
But this fall, Petroleum News Alaska — a trade journal — reported a story that environmental groups have not publicized: Over the border in Canada, the Gwich'in Tribal Council joined forces with an oil firm to tap into energy resources on their lands.
"It's time for us to build an economic base," said Fred Carmichael, president of the tribal council in Inuvik, Canada. "Our people can no longer depend on living off the land for a livelihood. That's a fact of life."
For decades, environmental groups have championed American Indians as stewards of the Earth and symbols of conservation spirit. But today, as tribes turn to oil drilling, logging, gambling and even nuclear storage for economic independence, using Indians to promote environmental causes not only is risky and simplistic, but also is stirring charges of cultural insensitivity and exploitation.
"Environmentalists are using Indians the way the French and English used Indians in the French-Indian war: We're their foot soldiers," said David Lester, a Creek Indian and executive director of the Council of Energy Resource Tribes, which represents tribes involved in coal mining, oil and gas drilling, and other natural resource businesses.
Controversy over the Arctic refuge has simmered for years. But today, with the Bush administration pushing to open the region once and for all to energy exploitation, the dispute has reached the boiling point. In August, the House voted in favor of exploring for oil on a small portion of the refuge's coastal plain. The Senate still is weighing the matter.
The Gwich'in flatly defend their right to oppose Alaska drilling while forming an energy company — Gwich'in Oilfield Services. The reason, they said, is simple: Drilling in Canada won't hurt the Porcupine caribou herd, on which the tribe has lived for centuries.
"We will not be drilling on any caribou grazing area that (Gwich'in) people don't want to drill on," said Carmichael. Owning 51 percent of the company "gives us that power," he said.
Scattered across 15 small villages, mostly in Canada, the tribe channels its opposition through a Fairbanks nonprofit, the Gwich'in Steering Committee, that in recent years has received more than $200,000 from foundations and environmental groups. Project director Faith Gemmill said Gwich'in resistance to drilling is homegrown.
"Nobody told us to do this. We had to do it," she said. "If oil development is allowed in the (caribou) calving grounds, it is a threat to the very survival of our culture."
Not far away, Inupiat Eskimos hold an opposite view: They say drilling can be carried out in concert with the caribou. But their position is discounted by environmental groups because the Inupiats have extensive ties with oil companies through their own tribal business: the Arctic Slope Regional Corp.
"The national debate has placed us as caricatures — us, as the tools of the oil industry and them — the Gwich'in — as caretakers of the environment," said Richard Glenn, vice president of lands for the Arctic Slope Regional Corp. "It's unfortunate. And it's not accurate." Source
Alternatively, Aborigines could go out, get a job and work for a living like the rest of us.
In the name of all things decent, the Australian taxpayer is already pouring over $2 BILLION each year into aboriginal welfare without much success.
When and where do we draw the line?
What the welfare liberals will never understand and never admit is that the welfare state kills people.
All of the empty hours generated by welfare endowments have to be filled with something. Often it is with mind altering substances, drugs and alcohol that destroy mind and body.
As Mr. Mundine points out the financial obligations of property ownership discipline a person. If you have a mortgage payment to make you get up in the morning and go to work. If your family’s home depend on your income you don’t party late in to the night and go to work with blood shot eyes.
The proposition has shocked and upset many. It flies in the face of 40 years of land-rights struggle based on the concept of land as communally owned for all time.
The Communal land concept is only possible where the population is living under subsistence conditions and isolated from other cultures by substantial geographic barriers
Anywhere in the world where Communal cultures have come into frequent contact with modern personal property culture that Communal culture has gone into rapid decline.
There will be problems when the individual Aborigines who having become dependant on the government for their subsistence are suddenly land rich decides to take advantage of their windfall and are taken advantage of by land developers.
Transitions are always difficult and people are hurt. It is unavoidable.
Ping for later read. Good stuff.