ABSTRACT
In July 2009, a public meeting was held in the village of Kivalina, Alaska. It was an opportunity for community members to voice their opinions and concerns regarding the Red Dog Mine’s development plans and especially the mine’s new waste management permit. Community members were concerned about the mine’s impacts on their land, their health, and their community as a whole. Mining has been a part of Alaska’s history since the 1800s while oil was discovered in the 1960s and drilling began on the North Slope in 1971. Indigenous communities in Alaska and Greenland are constantly adapting to the economic, political, social, and cultural environments they are a part of and their small-scale economies depend on their abilities to utilize informal economic means such as subsistence harvesting. Resource development is impacting subsistence in major ways: by threatening the natural environment and by increasing the cash flow to Indigenous people resulting in changing lifestyles, priorities, and values.
