Climate Week NYC brings together people from around the world to talk about the climate challenges we face and the solutions we need. But one of the things that stood out during this year’s Climate Week was the importance of listening to the people and communities already living with those challenges every day.
That was the focus of “Working Across Systems for Alaska Communities,” a Climate Week NYC panel hosted by the Northern Alaska Environmental Center. Pacific Environment’s Julia Hnilicka joined Alaska advocates, organizers and community leaders to talk about what it really takes to create change across the many systems that shape life in the state.
Alaska’s landscape is complex, to say the least. Decisions made by governments, institutions and organizations at different levels have a direct impact on people’s lives, livelihoods and connection to the land. Throughout the conversation, panelists shared what they’ve learned from working across these boundaries.
Again and again, the core message came through: this work starts with relationships.
Building trust in Alaska communities
Alyssa Healy Perez, president and chief of Healy Lake Village Council, shared the story of efforts to protect emperor geese, whose population has faced significant declines over the past several decades. Conservation efforts have helped the population recover from historic lows, but recent declines have again raised concerns about the sustainability of the species. At the same time, emperor geese are an important part of the subsistence and cultural practices of some Alaska Native communities. Bringing Tribal members and local residents into the decision-making process helped ensure that both the health of the population and the communities connected to these birds were considered.
DID YOU KNOW?
In Alaska, subsistence refers to the customary and traditional use of wild foods and other natural resources for food and other needs. For many Alaska Native communities, subsistence is closely connected to culture, community and relationships with the land. Hunting, fishing and gathering can be important sources of food as well as ways of maintaining cultural traditions and knowledge.
That same approach is important in Alaska’s energy transition. Alex Petkanas, political director of The Alaska Center, spoke about years of building trust with communities and labor unions around clean energy, while Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition’s Sarah Furman shared how organizers are continuing to show up at utility board meetings and mobilize neighbors to push for renewable energy. When progress at the federal level feels out of reach, they’re finding opportunities to make a difference closer to home. Alyssa Quintyne of Solarize BRITE highlighted another part of that work: Organizations can’t just identify inequities in access to renewable energy, but also need to actively work toward filling those gaps.
For Gussie Lord of Earthjustice, relationships are just as important when communities are facing major development projects and years of litigation. She spoke about the importance of understanding the cultural and political context surrounding a case and ensuring Indigenous perspectives remain central to environmental advocacy. “It is really critical to have the Indigenous voice at the forefront of the environmental movement,” she said.
Melanie Brown, outreach director at SalmonState, brought that perspective to Bristol Bay, a remote region of southwest Alaska where communities have built their lives around salmon and continue to organize against threats to the region through sustained advocacy to protect food security, culture and economy.
Bringing community voices to the decision-making table
Kristen Miller of Alaska Wilderness League shared another example of what can happen when people are brought directly into the rooms where decisions are made. During a campaign to stop offshore oil and gas development in the Arctic Ocean, Alaska residents traveled to Washington, D.C., including nearly the entire Point Lay Tribal Council. They met with White House officials and leaders of major organizations, sharing their experiences firsthand.
Those meetings were deeply impactful, and the campaign ultimately helped lead to a major win: In 2016, former President Barack Obama withdrew nearly 125 million acres of the U.S. Arctic Ocean from future oil and gas leasing.
As Kristen put it, “When people come together and get to know each other and work together, we can do so much.” It was also a reminder that these wins take time, trusted relationships and people willing to keep showing up.
Kristen’s story was a powerful reminder of what can happen when communities have a seat at the table. Julia later spoke about how Pacific Environment works to help create those opportunities at the international level, including through our consultative status at the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the United Nations body responsible for regulating international shipping.
Pacific Environment has been working in the Arctic for decades, including on efforts to address the risks of heavy fuel oil in Arctic waters. A spill in the region could have devastating consequences for coastal communities and the environment, with limited effective ways to clean it up. The communities our Arctic team spoke with already understood those risks. They had seen the impacts of spills firsthand. What they needed was a pathway to bring their experiences and concerns to the international body making decisions about the Arctic Ocean.
Through our work at the IMO, Pacific Environment has been able to help connect Arctic communities and organizations with those decision-making spaces, bringing in groups such as the Bristol Bay Native Association to share their experiences directly. It was a reminder that relationships are not just about building trust. They can also help open doors, connecting communities with the institutions where decisions affecting their lives are made and creating opportunities for people across the Arctic to speak in their own voices and share their lived experiences about the impacts they are witnessing.
Making sure every community has a voice
That work of creating connections between communities and decision-makers matters at every level, including in Alaska’s smallest communities. Krystal Lapp, interim executive director of Northern Alaska Environmental Center, closed out the panel with the story of Wiseman, an off-grid community of just 12-15 people whose ability to hunt and rely on the surrounding land was put at risk by changes to the management of public lands around the community. Residents organized, advocates joined them and organizations came together to help secure an opportunity for the community to continue hunting moose on nearby federal lands.
As Krystal shared the story, she recalled a question from one Wiseman resident that stayed with her. It underscores a larger question about whose voices get heard and whose communities get prioritized:
“I know we’re only a village of 12–15 people, but how many [people] does it take to be impacted for people to actually care?”
That question gets at so much of what Climate Week is all about. The climate movement is global, but the work is local. It takes listening, trust and making sure the people most affected have a real say in what happens next.
And maybe we can all take a page from Alaska’s handbook and bring that same approach to our own communities: listen, build relationships and make sure people have a voice in the decisions that affect them.
