Resisting extraction in Indigenous land

The Gwich’in are the northernmost Indian Nation living in fifteen small villages scattered across a vast area extending from northeast Alaska in the U.S. to the northern Yukon and Northwest Territories in Canada.

The Gwich’in Steering Committee was formed in 1988 in response to proposals to drill for oil in the Sacred Place Where Life Begins, the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It has presented testimony in front of the US Congress, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples, and public hearings to bring attention to the human rights issues of the Gwich’in.