Aboriginal self-determination and resource development activity - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 198

The VGFN government plays a supporting role in creating an environ-
ment conducive to economic development as opposed to initiating economic
development per se. It is a separate entity from its investment corporation,
which is assigned the task of using compensation dollars to generate eco-
nomic wealth. Instead, the VGFN government is engaged in developing
housing, health care and educational initiatives, as well as dealing with issues
of infrastructure and intergovernmental relations. It was active in a territorial
curriculum review (see the Yukon Education Reform Project 2007) and also
in devising a new land use planning model. In short, it is busy tackling the
day-to-day business of governance in the region and in its traditional territory
as a government. As former Chief Linklater explains it:
In the past, affected First Nations had very little, if any, say in how land
and environmental management worked in the traditional territories.
These practices and the ties to the land had a very important role in First
Nation life and still do today. The First Nations' traditional practices of
land management were largely ignored by government and exploration
companies, who instead chose to impose the Western European values
of the time for land management through ownership and exploitation
for profit. Exploration companies would come into First Nation areas
with Federal Land Use Permits allowing them to explore for various
resources and the affected First Nation would have no voice when it came
to expressing concern about the socio-economic impacts these activities
had on their lifestyle.
(Linklater 2000:1)
Linklater points out that, because of self-government, the VGFN are no
longer at the mercy of the federal government in deciding what issues they
will address or how they will be addressed.
As more and more Aboriginal groups regain political control over settled
lands, they gain an important and strategic voice in resource development.
Nowhere is this more necessary than in the community of Old Crow, which
lies in close proximity to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)
located in Alaska. Although the potential area for resource extraction lies
in another country, the Vuntut Gwitchin have used their position as a self-
governing First Nation to argue in both Washington and Ottawa that the
industrial development of the ANWR would negatively affect their security,
as it would inevitably disrupt the migration of the Porcupine Caribou and
disturb their calving grounds. This is critical because the community contin-
ues to depend on the caribou for cultural and practical subsistence. Hence, the
community stands in opposition to the opening up of any part of the ANWR
region, as it would seriously undermine their security.
First and foremost, the Vuntut Gwitchin stand opposed to the ANWR
development for social, cultural and environmental reasons. They are still