(Nome, AK) – Leaders across the North Slope have joined together to form a new nonprofit corporation. The new organization is three years in the making. The goal is increase representation for the people and communities across the region.
For many years, leaders of various organizations, including tribal councils, regional Native Corporations, and even state and federal government, have gathered to discuss job creation, policy development and other issues in the Arctic. Teresa Imm works in Policy Support for the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation. “The people of the North Slope felt that they weren’t adequately being included in all of the Arctic discussions,” said Imm.
She said outside organizations try to assist the region’s small communities, but often their help is ineffective, because they don’t understand the challenges of life in the remote Arctic.
“Discussion about the science or traditional knowledge or subsistence impacts or economic impacts should be generated from a local voice, not from an outside voice,” Imm said.
That’s what Voice of the Arctic Inupiat is set up to do. It’s a new nonprofit corporation. Leadership from seven North Slope communities, as well as the North Slope Borough government and the region’s Native Corporations, have joined. Rex Rock is the President and CEO of Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, based in Barrow. He’s also the Board Chairman of Voice of the Arctic.
“All the groups came together and said ‘you know, when we’re out whaling, when we’re out hunting, when we’re out doing things, we work as one,'” he said. “When you speak as one together, and there are more entities, it’s going to carry more weight,” said Rock.
Sayers Tuzroyluk, of Point Hope, is the Voice of the Arctic’s new President. He said members of the organization will travel to all the villages involved to become familiar with specific issues of concern.
“The problem we’ve had is we learn about things, and a lot of times, we’re blindsided by what’s been said by somebody else,” he explained. “[This is] a voice that we’re going to use really well, and it involves all the villages, so we’re not going to miss anybody,” he said.
For now, members of Voice of the Arctic will focus on making sure member communities understand the organization’s purpose.
Teresa Imm said priority issues in the future include potential changes to federal regulations on subsistence species like polar bears, as well as on- and offshore development.
