OPINION: Alaska Native tribes urge progress on Ambler Access Project

There are multiple Alaska Native perspectives on the Ambler Access Project. Here is ours.

We represent two of the federally recognized tribes from Northwest Alaska. The proposed Ambler Access Project will cross our traditional homelands. We believe responsible development on and near these lands can provide benefits to our people. The project has the potential to provide jobs, allow road access to deliver fuel and other supplies which are currently flown in at great expense to our people, and fund essential government services in our extremely remote region of the Arctic.

Our tribal members have been hunting, fishing and gathering as stewards of these lands since time immemorial. We believe those of us who live on and use these traditional lands are the best advocates for protecting the animals, plants and environment that have been the core of our Iñupiat identity and way of life for generations.

The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, or ANILCA, created more than 57 million acres of wilderness in Alaska, but also mandated a right-of-way across federal lands between the Ambler Mining District and the Dalton Highway. ANILCA was passed in 1980, and 40 years later, in July 2020, the Joint Record of Decision, or JROD, granted this right-of-way for a 211-mile limited access road. Work on the JROD was started during the Obama administration, and career professionals in multiple federal, state and local agencies were involved in completing the Final Environmental Impact Statement that is a part of it.

We have been engaged throughout this long process. We have invested significant time and resources over many years and our engagement has shaped this project. For example, before the right-of-way application was filed, communities pushed for the road to be a private industrial access road and formed a Subsistence Committee to advise the project.

We were very frustrated by the department’s decision to request a remand of the project for further analysis, and its suspension of the right-of-way permits. The JROD requires continuing feasibility studies and includes stipulations and conditions that must be met before the project can move forward. Field work that was scheduled for 2022 was a part of the process to conduct these studies and meet these conditions.

We are laying the groundwork for responsible economic development so we can continue to live and thrive in our homelands. The department has stated that this additional analysis is intended to benefit tribes, but it is our view that delaying the project hinders our interests rather than promoting them. Instead, we are focused on moving forward with the process laid out in the JROD. It is through this process that our interests will be accounted for. So far, seven of the 11 tribes in our region have passed resolutions in support of the JROD and the processes it lays out.

It is critical that the department clearly identify the additional tasks and have specific timelines to complete further analysis of subsistence, environmental, religious and cultural impacts of the Ambler Access Project. And we believe certain fieldwork should be allowed to continue so we do not lose the short season for that work to be done.

The department is required to consult with federally recognized tribes and Alaska Native corporations, and we expect regular progress updates. We have come too far and invested too much of our limited capacity in the process to have this project placed on the shelf to collect dust or to be dragged out for years to come.

Fred Sun is Tribal President and Chair of the Native Village of Shungnak and Johnetta Horner is Tribal President for the Native Village of Kobuk. Both are members of NANA Regional Corporation Inc.

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