200 Days

No one knows for certain how much commercially recoverable oil there is in the Arctic Refuge, however best estimates by the US Geological Survey indicate it would fuel current US consumption for less than 200 days. How do you trade the that for the life of a caribou herd that has migrated across the north for tens of thousands of years? For an aboriginal culture that has flourished for thousands of generations?

You can't.

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A Mirror to the Past

There are many similarities between the caribou of the Arctic and the buffalo that once lived on the Great Plains of the US and Canada. Both buffalo and caribou are migratory species that travel in great herds. The both require large healthy ecosystems to survive as they were meant to. They both defined the heart of the subsistence needs and cultural way of life of the indigenous people who lived along with them. The Gwich'in people pray that the caribou do not go the way of the buffalo.

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