“With Mother’s Day approaching, we are reflecting on the future we want for our children. As Alaskan mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and daughters that care about Bristol Bay, we want our children to grow up with strong cultural connections to rivers that remain full of fish, healthy and vibrant. We want the ability to pass on our fish camp traditions, permits, boats, businesses, and recreational opportunities to our kids and grandkids.”
This week, dozens of Alaskan mothers, grandmothers, aunties, sisters, and friends of the next generation in Bristol Bay sent a letter to Senator Murkowski and the Environmental Protection Agency calling for durable safeguards for the Bristol Bay region.
56 signers from the Bristol Bay region, to Kotzebue, to Ketchikan, signed on to the letter requesting that the Senator and other decision-makers quickly advance legislation, and support Clean Water Act 404(c) safeguards for southwest Alaska. Read the letter here.
Since the proposed Pebble mine was denied its key federal permit in November 2020, Senator Murkowski has made public commitments at the Alaska Federation of Natives Conference in 2020, and the spring 2022 ComFish conference to advance permanent protections for Bristol Bay. The Biden Administraton EPA announced in November 2021 that they would restart the determination process for Clean Water Act 404(c) protections, which if finalized, would protect Bristol Bay waters from mine waste discharge.
Both Clean Water Act protections and Congressional legislation, otherwise referred to as the “dual track approach,” are needed to ensure that future generations have a fish-filled future.
“This dual-track approach will provide the best possible long-term protections so we can focus our energy on building a bright and happy future for our families without the shadow of the proposed Pebble Mine lurking in the corner.”
Last week, stories from women in Bristol Bay who practice subsistence and have traditions around fish, own sport fishing businesses and work as guides, and fish commercially in the region were shared to emphasize the generations of families that have come together around the fishery. Read about guide and commercial fisherman Alexia Paige following in her grandmother’s footsteps of caring for the fishery.
Following in the footsteps of her grandmother, Veronica, Alexia Page is a fishing guide and a commercial fisherman. Read more about Alexia and Veronica here.
On May 8th, Mother’s Day, an ad in the Anchorage Daily News ran highlighting the grandmothers, mothers, sisters, aunties and friends who are active in the Bristol Bay fishery and want assurance that they will be able to pass on fish camp traditions, permits, boats, businesses, and recreational opportunities to their kids and grandkids.
In 2016, over 200 Alaska Native women from the Bristol Bay region sent a letter to the U.S. Senate Natural Resources Committee with grave concern over the formerly proposed Pebble mine and their children’s future with a hard rock mine looming over them. These women are just some of many who have been the loudest advocates for Bristol Bay over the course of the last two decades, and who refuse to give up until they know their children and grandchildren have a fish-filled future.
Thank you to the Alaskans who have spoken up in the fight against the formerly proposed Pebble mine, and who continue to work for permanent and durable safeguards for Bristol Bay.