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dipsydoodle

(42,239 posts)
Thu Nov 29, 2012, 06:19 AM Nov 2012

The Inuit sitting on billions of barrels of oil

After a decade of legal wrangling and spending $4.5bn (£2.8bn), this year Shell Oil was given permission to begin exploratory drilling off the coast of Alaska. But many in the local Inuit community are concerned it could have a devastating impact on one of their main sources of food - the bowhead whale.

Marie Casados shows me the contents on her freezer. Inside there's whale meat, muktuk - frozen whale skin and blubber - a selection of fish and a polar bear foot, which looks like a human hand. She describes it as a real delicacy. But it's more than that - this is her food supply for the winter.

Fishing and hunting are central to the Inupiat way of life - archaeologists have found evidence of humans hunting whales in the area dating back to as early as 800BC.

"We are the oldest continuous inhabitants of North America," says Point Hope's Mayor Steve Oomituk. "We've been here thousands of years."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20310752

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The Inuit sitting on billions of barrels of oil (Original Post) dipsydoodle Nov 2012 OP
I'm sure the oil barons are already plotting how to steal it from them. tclambert Nov 2012 #1
that's the standard procedure... Bill USA Nov 2012 #5
They're doomed. /nt Ash_F Nov 2012 #2
Do you mean tama Nov 2012 #6
Oil is a curse. nt bemildred Nov 2012 #3
Time to invade Alaska. nt OnyxCollie Nov 2012 #4

tclambert

(11,087 posts)
1. I'm sure the oil barons are already plotting how to steal it from them.
Thu Nov 29, 2012, 07:44 AM
Nov 2012

I mean, wouldn't the Inuit really rather live on reservations in Nevada? Surely smart PR flacks can come up with superficially plausible reasons why it's for their own good to move them.

 

tama

(9,137 posts)
6. Do you mean
Fri Nov 30, 2012, 12:47 AM
Nov 2012

that post-Columbus European colonial invaders are forever doomed to be robbers, oppressors and spoilers of Earth, like a force of nature?

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