It is our privilege to introduce Earth Shaper, Sarah James, Gwich’in International Spokesperson.

VoiceYourself thanks our friend and member Carol Hoover, for her nomination and statement of support for Sarah.

Sarah James is a Gwich’in from Arctic Village, Alaska. Sarah was born 60 some years ago and considers America, its customs and language, secondary to her ancestral heritage in the far North. The Gwich’in are an Athabaskan tribe that for millennia have had an inextricable bond with a huge herd of caribou (now estimated to be about 100,000 strong). Called the Porcupine Caribou Herd, they are the last large animal herd on Earth that still has its original migration range. This herd is so named because of a river they swim across every spring to get to their birthing grounds on the coastal plains of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They consider these grounds sacred, and no humans should go there. With great respect, they do not hunt in the birthing grounds, ever. This past spring, over 50,000 caribou were born in this pristine ecological treasure.

“And this is ground zero where the US Government, and multinational oil corporations, want to drill for oil and gas and despoil the only protected coastline left on the northern coast of Alaska. " Sarah is a tireless speaker and advocate for her people. What is astounding about Sarah is her visionary wisdom. She was one of the first outspoken speakers about global warming many years ago. She sees through the BS that the politicians spew in DC. She is very intelligent and formidable, and when she is faced with senators and corporate mouthpieces, they pale against her stern logic and evident truths. She’s strategic, courageous yet shows reverent thanks to the spirits, has a great sense of humor and knows when to have fun and just enjoy. She loved meeting Woody!

I’ve learned so much from her – she’s shown me her homelands, we’ve danced and had caribou meals together, and then we’ve found ourselves in New York at the United Nations, in San Francisco at the Goldman Awards and we’ve spent a lot of time united in cause working in Washington DC.

Sarah has won numerous awards, traveled and walked (Peace and Dignity march, 2003) all over the United States to educate people about the tragic ecological consequences and futility that this drilling legacy would leave behind not only for the Gwich’in, but for all of us.  I’m very proud to have her as my friend and comrade, and to introduce her to you here on VOICE YOURSELF – Thank you!

Carol Hoover, Eyak Preservation Council, Board Member

EARTH SHAPER Sarah James is a Neets'aii Gwich'in Indian from Arctic Village, Alaska, the northernmost Indian tribe in North America. Home for these people is the exquisite pristine spot on earth known as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). They call this place Lizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit, which roughly translated means “the Sacred Place Where Life Begins”. Besides being the important birthplace to the caribou, it is the denning area for Polar Bears, nesting area for 135 species of migratory birds and year round home to musk oxen. The community is a cluster of cabins, a school for 50 children, a water tank, a gigantic freezer for preserving meat, a community center, and a tiny, beautiful Episcopal log church.

Sarah grew up traditionally, following the caribou migration ,speaking her native language, naturally motivated to care for her land and her people. For two decades, James quietly served as a community healthy aide and founded a preschool.
This nation of “caribou people”, numbering only in the thousands, was fragmented and culturally drained until a proposal to drill oil in one of the last in tact eco-systems galvanized the community. In 1988, the elders and spiritual leaders of the entire Gwich’in nation chose her to become the public spokesperson for preserving the caribou, the land and the Gwich’in culture. Thanks to her extraordinary style and abilities the Gwich’in voice is being heard. “Loss of the caribou would mean the end of my people, much like the loss of the buffalo resulted in the decimation of many indigenous cultures in the Great Plains over a century ago,” she says.

Leadership is inherent to these people, by the nature of their legacy; it is a unique blend of humility, consultation with the elders and setting an example by doing. Before Sarah takes a public stand, she must consult with her people and receive their consent. “My work in addressing this issue, as directed to me by my Tribal Elders, is to educate people about the consequences of their actions and to speak out to defend our human rights and protect our culture and way of life,” she explains. “This includes educating both the ‘outside’ world as well as our own people.” Most of her work is done as an unpaid volunteer.

For more than 25 years now their homeland, coveted by petroleum companies, has been the focus of a largely cynical debate over oil drilling. This is a debate that has other tribes standing in opposition to the Gwich’in view. This is a particular challenge in the debate but one she tackles head on. Not only does the issue of oil extraction, conservation vs. consumption, present a threat to a wide array of wildlife and an indigenous way of life but such proposals have long distracted our country from aggressively developing a sound 21st century energy policy. Now, a more receptive political climate offers an opportunity to affect positive change. Sarah James is that vanguard and she zealously guards the rights of her land, her people and the sacred earth.

ACHIEVEMENTS
As a gifted alliance builder Sarah is able to reframe the emotional debate about environment v. oil to include the question of cultural survival. She travels the world, eloquently reprising the story of her people, indigenous rights, human rights, and environmental issues. Close to home she has educated the Gwich’in about bioaccumulation of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), especially in cold artic regions, and how this disproportionately affects indigenous people who consume large amounts of fish and meat. She mentored a young, man from her community, who eventually attended United Nations-sponsored international treaty negotiations for the elimination of POPs. He is now a statewide spokesperson and organizer on the issue. She has worked with Arctic Village and neighboring Venetie to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and strengthen their traditional culture by using renewable resources such as wind and solar power.

In the summer of 2001, this vision became a reality with the installation of solar panels that produce power in the two communities. “This is the start of creating our own energy independence,” she says. Sarah James engaged her community to start up a radio station powered by renewable energy to be broadcast conventionally over the airwaves, and also on the Internet – in her people’s indigenous language as well as in English. This use of technology, she believes, will help preserve her people’s language and traditions. And then many Gwich’in voices will reach around the globe –

When she speaks, people listen.

“Our human rights – the ability to live off the land and provide for our families the way our ancestors have done for thousands of years – are not considered in this debate.” Moreover, the issues “may be viewed as minority rights versus majority rights.” But, she points out, “we have a legal relationship with the U.S. government, based on our uninterrupted use and occupancy of this land and two centuries of case law and international treaties signed by the U.S., which protects our way of life and ability to choose to continue to live by hunting and protecting the caribou.”

Her crusade has brought people from all over the world to her Gwich’in villages to meet the Caribou People and better understand their way of life. To share the Gwich'in's message, she has performed caribou drum and traditional songs at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City and at the first "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. She has been a keynote speaker at conferences and symposia around the world and has provided testimony to both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. She is a board member of the International Indian Treaty Council, recruiting help for the Gwich'in and supporting other Indigenous efforts to protect land and culture and she is a national representative for the Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments, a special advisor to the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council and a member of the indigenous people subcommittee of the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Environmental Justice Advisory Council.
“But the truth is, that we only must look down to the ground and see that we are standing on the same ground. We drink the same water, breathe the same air. We all have children and they have children and we want them all to survive in a healthy and just world…. We are all caretakers of the earth.”

HONORS
Her personal vision, perseverance, aptitudes, selfless will to ensure a better future for all people has earned her many accolades, including: the 2001 Ford Motor Co. Fellowship grant for "Leadership for a Changing World", The 2002 Goldman Foundation Award and The 2004 Buffet Award for Indigenous Leadership.

LISTEN
Hear the language and nature’s sounds from Gwich’in natives.

Instrumental by Mattew Lien

LOOK
See the majesty of this place, the wildlife and what is at risk - oil on ice

National Film Board of Canada video enroute with the herd

LEARN
Migration routes and history go to the Gwich'in Steering Committee's homepage

An Educator’s Guide

Caribou Commons

Alaska Wilderness League January 2007 statement

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