Native Movement Blog
Alaska to Colombia: 2024 Peace & Dignity Journey begins
May 21, 2024 | Video and Text By: Jeff Chen
In early May, Native Movement had the privilege of supporting the northern hemisphere's opening ceremony of the 2024 Peace & Dignity Journeys prayer run.
A group of runners set-off from Lower Tanana Dene lands in Fairbanks and began their 7-month journey to Colombia, where they'll join together with another group that is running the length of the southern hemisphere. The intercontinental intertribal run will connect Indigenous communities along the route to strengthen ties and uplift intergenerational healing.
"The journey comes from a prophecy from the relatives from the South," run coordinator Jose Malvido says, "about the Eagle and Condor coming together."
Neets'aii Gwich'in elder Sarah James ran in the 2004 journey and was also with the group at this year's opening ceremony and throughout the Alaska route. The group has now made it halfway through Canada, and they're kindly asking for donations to their gofundme. If you'd like to run or get involved, please reach out! They keep an updated Facebook page.
Links below!
Website: www.pdjrun.com
Donate: https://gofund.me/bbc8bd42
Daily updates: https://www.facebook.com/PDJ2016
Salmon crisis prompts Senate committee hearing in Bethel
November 21, 2024 | Written By: Jeff Chen
Declining salmon populations along Alaska’s Arctic, Yukon, and Kuskokwim Rivers, pose a significant threat to the cultural and traditional livelihoods of Alaska Native communities.
On November 10th, 2023, Senator Lisa Murkowski visited Bethel to participate in a United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs public hearing and listening session, where the concerns surrounding salmon declines and its impacts on the health, culture, and well being of indigenous communities were discussed.
The turnout at the public hearing in Bethel was substantial, numerous individuals and community representatives testified their concerns with a broad range of topics which included climate change, excessive catch limits for ocean fisheries practicing trawling, and bycatch while our subsistence living communities face harsh restrictions, and concerns brought on by the proposed Donlin Gold development.
In order for all of our voices to be heard, it’s important that you know the public has until this Friday, Nov. 24, 2023, to submit comments via email for inclusion in the hearing’s public record. Concerned citizens and stakeholders: please take a few moments of your time to contribute your perspectives on this critical issue. Your comments and concerns can be submitted via email to: mailto: testimony@indian.senate.gov
Tribes from the Yukon-Kuskokwim region interested in amplifying their sovereign voices of opposition to the Donlin Gold mine are encouraged to join the Mother Kuskokwim Tribal Coalition. If your tribe is looking for additional information or a draft resolution, please reach out to Anaan’arar Sophie Swope by phone at tel: 545-4764 or via email at mailto: sophie@motherkuskokwim.org, using the subject line “Joining Mother Kuskokwim.”
What's it like to be a community organizer in Alaska during Pride Month?
What’s it like to be a community organizer in Alaska during Pride Month?
Meet Sasha Kramer, Gender Justice & Healing organizer at Native Movement, and follow their work as they help create a couple exciting June Pride events in Alaska! Find out about our future events by signing up for our newsletter: https://www.nativemovement.org/joinus
Alaskans demand transparency in historic Hilcorp-BP oil deal
On Jun 28, over seventy Alaskans spent the day holding corporations and regulators accountable as the Alaska Supreme Court heard oral arguments in City of Valdez v. Regulatory Commission of Alaska. Native Movement stood with our partners at Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition (FCAC) and Alaska Public Interest Research Group (AKPIRG) to share about the complex case between Valdez, the RCA, and some of the world’s most wealthy and powerful oil companies, culminating in a powerful rally outside the courthouse in Anchorage, that featured the sharing of stories and experiences in this fight.
In the courtroom, the legal representation for The Regulatory Commission of Alaska (RCA), a state agency, teamed up with oil industry lawyers representing Hilcorp and BP, who all maintained that keeping all Hilcorp assets confidential is simply normal procedure. The Justices must call out the RCA’s decision to keep this information private, and make a precedent-setting decision that makes it transparent who pays for the decaying fossil fuel infrastructure in the state. Robin Brena, legal counsel for Valdez, summed up the key issue, “the courts don’t know, I don’t know, we don’t know as the public…there has never been a transfer of assets of this scale, and Alaskans do not know if Hilcorp, a Texas-based private company, has even $1000 in its bank account.”
We stand with AKPIRG and FCAC and look to the court to hold the RCA, Hilcorp, and BP accountable to Alaskans and set the precedent that decisions regarding the energy future of Alaska must be transparent. While we await the judges' decisions, we ask that our community keep fighting for an equitable future that doesn't rely on extractive industries.
If you haven’t done so already, please sign the petition to ensure Hilcorp pays their share of taxes and to end fossil fuel subsidies in Alaska!
They Don't Hear Our Cries: Salmon and Herring Protectors unite in ceremony
In April 2023, Salmon and Herring Protectors united in ceremony to protect what is sacred.
Communities along the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers in Alaska have been unable to meet subsistence needs for the past several years, due to the lack of salmon returning to their home rivers. Climate change, trawler bycatch, and inequitable fisheries management policies that favor commercial interests over the subsistence rights of Alaska Native communities have impacted over 100,000 people along these rivers.
In April 2023, the Herring Protectors hosted a Yaaw Koo.éex' in Sitka to honor the herring. In the midst of the ceremony, Herring Protectors gifted a tináa to Yukon and Kuskokwim River communities to show solidarity in their fight to protect their salmon.
Visit www.nativemovement.org/sponsored-partners to support the work of each of the groups involved in protecting salmon and herring for our communities: Herring Protectors, Smokehouse Collective, and Tlaa Deneldel. Thank you!
Nuiqsut City and Tribe oppose the Willow project
To read the full letter, click through to the PDF: Letter from the Native Village of Nuiqsut and City of Nuiqsut stating opposition to the Willow project and dissatisfaction with the outcome of the process.
Cover photo by Keri Oberly.
Trickster Times: Indigenous fashion shines at AFN
Here's the last episode of our Trickster Times AFN coverage this year! Take a look at just some of the amazing Indigenous fashion at AFN this year, and also a look into the subsistence resolutions that seek to help chum and king salmon return back to healthy populations in Western and Interior Alaska. Thanks for watching!
Despite local outcry, state sells Nenana land to highest bidders
NENANA, ALASKA, October 20 – The State of Alaska opened the sealed bids yesterday and announced the outcome of the Nenana-Totchaket land sale: 160 bids were received on 24 of the 27 parcels. This sale moves to privatize public land despite concerns raised by local residents. Numerous statewide entities joined local Nenana and Native leadership in asking that Alaska Department of Natural Resources pause the Nenana-Totchaket land sale until appropriate analysis and Tribal consultations can be completed.
“The land sale - if we do get a parcel, it’ll be bittersweet. That means the sale went through – which, we didn’t want it to. We didn’t think the land sale was viable – environmentally, technically, or economically. It’s bittersweet because it means other people are coming into our lands.” said Nenana resident and Alaska Native community leader, Eva Dawn Burk, when asked about the sale before the auction.
Burk is the director of the Tlaa Deneldel Community Group, a Nenana-based community group focused on food sovereignty and cultural revitalization. Tlaa Deneldel is administratively supported by Native Movement, a state-wide non-profit organization. Native Movement placed bids in the auction on behalf of Tlaa Deneldel Community Group in an effort to protect ancestral lands. The group was able to crowd-source funding from donors throughout Alaska in order to bid. Native Movement was announced as the winning bidder on two parcels, while also losing the bid on other parcels.
“The vision for the Tlaa Deneldel Community Group is to help, not just my own village, but other villages as well, to develop land use or land management plans. I like to call them land relationship plans. The goal is to show other tribal entities that we can train our young people on how to get back to traditional use areas and regain skills that are still useful today,”said Burk. “[Engaging in this auction] gives us an opportunity to show other tribes what food sovereignty means in the future. We’re just at those crossroads right now, and I’m really fortunate to be Alaska Native. We have the last wild king salmon runs in the world and I'm gonna keep fighting for the fish.”
Ultimately, Burk says “What’s so disturbing is the amount of money being spent without foresight… This environment isn’t meant for that type of agriculture. Industrial agriculture will ultimately destroy this environment.”
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Native Movement
Native Movement supports grassroots-led projects that align with our vision, that dismantle oppressive systems for all, and that endeavor to ensure social justice, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and the rights of Mother Earth. Native Movement is dedicated to building people power, rooted in an Indigenized worldview, toward healthy, sustainable, & just communities for ALL.
Contact:
Lindsey Mailard, lindsey@nativemovement.org 907-987-6567
Enei Begaye Peter, enei@nativemovement.org 928-380-6296
Trickster Times: finding unity to defend our ways of life
Not at AFN this year? The Trickster Times brings you a video recap of Day 1 at AFN, the Defending Our Ways of Life rally, a few policy updates, and some updates about Ambler Road, the Nenana Totchaket land sale, and nuclear energy.
Trickster Times: In-person AFN and Elders & Youth? We love to see it!
AFN and Elders & Youth are already so much fun this year! Here's our first Trickster Times video with a partial re-cap of all the goodness we witnessed at Elders & Youth. We only say partial, because there is just so much happening this week! Big shout out to First Alaskans Institute for creating this critical convening for our communities to come together. And tune in for a peak at some of the awesome vendors at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention.
A bright new mural builds Indigenous Joy on Lower Tanana Dene lands
Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day — we are celebrating the joy of community art creation and representation.
The art wall at the Native Movement Fairbanks office features Minto elder Vernell Titus and the knowledge she shared this summer with young people at the Nenana culture camp. The mural text reads, "What the hands do, the heart learns."
Gratitude to everyone who helped create and celebrate — an expression of Indigenous joy today and every day — Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day!
Gratitude for the collaboration between Native Movement, NDNCollective, Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition, and so many community members!