by Gloria Simeon
This is the testimony to the US Senate Committee on Indian Affairs delivered on November 11th, 2023 by Gloria Simeon, a citizen of the Orutsararmiut Traditional Native Council, a woman of the Kuskokwim River and an ultimate end-user of salmon, upon who the burden of conservation has been placed.
I preface my remarks with a gentle reminder that the United States Government is the trustee of all matters pertaining to American Indians and Alaska Natives. This includes our very being, our tribal rights, our land and resources as well as our health, education and welfare. Furthermore, to protect these rights for generations to come. This obligation is a trust responsibility.
The United States has the most laws to protect the environment and agencies to enforce these laws. The fact is these laws have actually hastened environmental degradation and oppression and are made to favor industry. These agencies have sole discretion to issue permits. We have found that they are not always neutral in granting their permissions.
The State of Alaska, as we know, is controlled by pro-extraction industry. Pro development and industry are prioritized over the best interests of the 229 Tribes and their Native citizens. Decisions are made impacting us and our ability to survive on our own Homelands. Laws and regulations are passed, threatening our access to resources we have relied on since time immemorial, threatening not only our survival, but the survival of our future generations.
Regionally, our own regional, sub-regional and village corporations also threaten our survival. When Tribal interests and survival are in conflict with the ANSCA corporations and resource development, corporations win. At what cost? What do we truly lose when we lose our land, water and the food that sustains us? We belong to this land. It has sustained us for millennia. We have nowhere else to go. Subsistence is not a “way of life” it is our Life.
The looming threats to our survival and ability to access our resources are:
• Climate change
• Deep sea trawling and bycatch allocations
• Proposed Donlin
These are a threat to our ability to subsist on our traditional and customary foods, most importantly, salmon. We are still discovering the far reaching ripple effects of climate change. The skin of our tundra has become very thin and unstable, our river banks are eroding at an alarming rate, increasingly hot summers have left our land vulnerable to lightning strikes and fire.
Mitigation can be achieved with the trawling and extraction based development that threatens the first People of this land.
Deep sea trawl by-catch can be controlled by regulation as well as stopping development of the proposed Donlin mine. This is not the time or the place to develop the world’s largest open pit gold mine on the backs of the Tribal Nations of this region.
These Nations have already spoken. In 2019, 35 Tribal Nations of the AVCP region, opposed the proposed Donlin open-pit mine. Let their voices be heard. Failure to do so is a death blow to my River, My People and our survival. We are being threatened into extinction. Quyana
Gloria Simeon is a resident of Bethel, Alaska.
