“Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather...
Today, Cook Inletkeeper joined four Native Tribes in a legal challenge to the Dunleavy Administration’s decision to let Donlin Gold build a 315 mile-long gas pipeline across hundreds of fish streams from Cook Inlet to Donlin’s mine site next to the Kuskokwim River. Lawyers from Earthjustice filed the lawsuit in Alaska Superior Court in Anchorage...
The Iditarod is truly the Last Great Race. But it has also struggled for funding in recent years, and in 2016, it capitulated to major sponsors – including Donlin Gold – to install a “gag rule,” which prohibits mushers from criticizing race sponsors, among others. Rule 53 of the Iditarod Official 2020 Rules states: “All...
Inletkeeper recently reported about Alaska’s unenviable status as the most toxic state in America due to pollution from large metal mines. Today, a new report issued today by Earthworks pulls back the curtain on Alaska’s phony permitting scheme, with key findings about pollution violations from large Alaskan mines that include: 100% -...
It’s curious why any Governor would continually poke a stick into the eye of his constituents, but Mike Dunleavy seems to have a unique penchant for it. In just the past several months, Mike Dunleavy’s apparent distaste for coastal Alaskans has taken a variety of forms, including: Loss of Ferry Service: In perhaps his biggest blow to coastal...
Youth Voices are Integral in Creating a Just Transition to a Regenerative and Fossil Fuel Free Economy in Alaska by Satchel Pondolfino When you walk into a decision-making space, take note of who is in the room. The decisions that come out of that room are going to reflect those people and their world views. I think we all know what the typical...
In 1984, a cyanide gas leak from a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of people in what’s been called the world’s worst industrial disaster. Less than a year after the Bhopal disaster, a Union Carbide plant in Institute, West Virginia, suffered another chemical leak which sent dozens of people to the...
This is the second piece in a series of Inletkeeper's staff reflections from their experience at the Alaska’s first-ever Just Transition Summit Alaska’s Just Transition is about getting from where we’re at to where we want to be. We’re in a single revenue source, fossil-fuel based economy that is unsustainable for workers and the environment. We...
On January 28, the National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) announced it had been overestimating the number of endangered beluga whales for years in Cook Inlet, and said the “population is estimated to be smaller and declining more quickly than previously thought.” Two days later, Inletkeeper joined the Center for Biological Diversity in a...
UPDATE - FEBRUARY 3, 2020. Today, Goldman Sachs responded to the letter (see below) from over 550 Alaskans applauding its decision to stop funding fossil fuel projects in the Arctic. In a short letter, Goldman Sachs Chairman & CEO David Solomon wrote "climate transition is a critical priority" for the company. While this of course is a small...
