In March 2020, PhD candidate and climate justice organizer Maia Wikler traveled to Alaska to meet with Quannah Chasinghorse to report on the human rights and climate crises in the Arctic. Chasinghorse is a Han Gwich’in and Oglala Lakota youth advocate fighting alongside her mother and fellow women in her community to protect their homelands from oil drilling. Long before the designation as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an ecologically diverse swath of 20 million acres, this area has been a sacred calving ground for the porcupine caribou herd. It has been home to Indigenous communities for millennia, and their identity and wellbeing are inextricably linked to the wellbeing of the land. Exacerbated by melting permafrost and increased wildfires from climate change, the Arctic is one of the most vulnerable ecosystems in the world, and previous drilling operations have shown that it cannot withstand the impacts of fossil fuel development. Boldly resisting this, Chasinghorse travels across the country with fellow Gwich’in youth and women to advocate for fossil fuel divestment and a halt to all proposed development. Sharing their story has already prompted five major banks to cease backing future Arctic drilling operations. This intergenerational movement to defend the refuge from the extractive industries and ongoing colonialism causing the biodiversity and climate crises is deeply intersectional. It is strongly connected to their advocacy for Indigenous rights and justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women. Chasinghorse shows us that the power of today’s youth is a driving force for change and reason for hope. This is a collective effort to fight for the protection of the Arctic, the wellbeing of Indigenous communities, and the prosperity of future generations.
