“Sustainability” Substituting “Subsistence”?

“Sustainability” Substituting
“Subsistence”?
Analysis of Sustainable Development Discourses at
Pebble (Mine) in Bristol Bay, Alaska
Dylan Elek McFarlane
2009
SD4002 Dissertation in Sustainable Development
Supervised by Dr Tony Crook of the School of Social Anthropology &
Prof Jan Bebbington of the School of Management,
University of St Andrews
McFarlane 2
Cover Page, Top: Bristol Bay Natives working at the Pebble prospect (New York Times 2008);
Bottom: Red Dog Mine port facility, Alaska (EPA 2007)
Submitted as an integral part of the MA in Sustainable Development,
University of St Andrews, April, 2009.
I declare that this dissertation is 14,601 words in length, excluding appendices, bibliography and figures.
I declare that the School of Geography and Geosciences informed me of, and that I have agreed to abide by, the
Ethics, Risk Assessment, and Local Health and Safety rules, codes and procedures associated with this part of my
degree; that I have completed and signed the relevant Ethics Self-Assessment and Risk Assessment forms and that I
have obtained appropriate Ethics Approval for this project.
I certify that I have read the University's policy on Academic Misconduct; that the following work is my own work;
and that significant academic debts and borrowings have been properly acknowledged and referenced
Signature__________________________ Date ___________
McFarlane 3
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................................ 5
List of Figures ........................................................................................................................................................... 6
Abbreviations ........................................................................................................................................................... 7
Abstract ....................................................................................................................................................................... 8
I. Introduction........................................................................................................................................................... 9
A. Statement of the Issue............................................................................................................................... 10
1. Research Questions .......................................................................................................................... 13
2. Literature ............................................................................................................................................. 14
B. Pebble Ownership and Facilities .......................................................................................................... 16
II. Background ....................................................................................................................................................... 19
A. The Three Discourses of Sustainability and Subsistence ............................................................ 20
1. The 2008 Media Battle: Fish versus Minerals ....................................................................... 20
2. Alaska Land Claims and Mine Permitting ................................................................................ 20
3. The Theory of ‘Social License to Operate’ .............................................................................. 21
B. Red Dog Mine in Northwest Alaska ..................................................................................................... 22
III. Research Methods ......................................................................................................................................... 28
A. Limitations ................................................................................................................................................. 30
IV. Mediated Discourse ...................................................................................................................................... 32
A. The Dual Discourse .................................................................................................................................... 34
1. Sustainability Science ...................................................................................................................... 36
2. Subsistence Culture and Society ................................................................................................. 42
B. The Keystone Center ................................................................................................................................. 45
1. Analysis of “The Dialogue”............................................................................................................. 46
2. Concluding Keystone’s Mediation .............................................................................................. 49
V. Alaska’s Discourse .......................................................................................................................................... 51
A. Alaska, the Last Frontier .......................................................................................................................... 52
B. Historical Injustice ..................................................................................................................................... 54
C . Permitting Conservation and Development .................................................................................... 58
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D. Strange Bedfellows and Green Alliances? ........................................................................................ 60
VI. Fish Talk ............................................................................................................................................................ 62
A. “No Net Loss” or The Promise of Salmon ........................................................................................ 66
B. “The No. 1 Source of Life” ...................................................................................................................... 67
VII. Conclusion....................................................................................................................................................... 68
Bibliography........................................................................................................................................................... 70
Websites .................................................................................................................................................................. 77
Appendix A: Ethics Self-Assessment Form................................................................................................. 78
Appendix B: Risk Assessment Forms ........................................................................................................... 86
Appendix C: Ethics Clearance .......................................................................................................................... 91
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Acknowledgements
I am indebted to the time and stimulus shared by Professors Tony Crook and Jan Bebbington;
thank you for your support. Thanks go to all the participants who have developed my
understanding, sustained my motivation, and continue on living and working in Bristol Bay and
beyond. I also express gratitude to the students and staff from the Sustainable Development
class of 2008/9 for help and encouragement. Finally, I am grateful to friends and family who
have seen me through the process.
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List of Figures
Figure 1. Location of Bristol Bay, Alaska in the Northern Arctic..................................................... 11
Figure 2. Location of Pebble claim area within the Nushagak and Kvichak drainage .................... 12
Figure 3. Map of Pebble site relating fish observations to mine facilities ..................................... 17
Figure 4. Communities near proposed Pebble mine development................................................ 19
Figure 5. Poster from the Inupiat Ilitqusiat social movement in 1982 ........................................... 26
Figure 6. Diagrammatical subsistence and sustainability ............................................................... 33
Figure 7. Timeline of sustainability initiatives in the mining industry ............................................ 38
Figure 8. Who owns Bristol Bay? .................................................................................................... 55
Figure 9. Drying salmon at a fish camp in Alaska ........................................................................... 62
Figure 10. Salmon populations at three headwaters of the Nushagak and Kvichak rivers ............ 64
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Abbreviations
ANCSA ...................................................................................... Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
ARD....................................................................................................................... Acid Rock Drainage
BBNC .................................................................................................. Bristol Bay Native Corporation
DNR .............................................................................................. Department of Natural Resources
EIS .................................................................................................. Environmental Impact Statement
LMPT ..................................................................................................... Large Mine Permitting Team
NANA ........................................................................................Northwest Alaska Native Association
NMWC ............................................................................... Nushagak-Mulchatna Watershed Council
PLP ........................................................................................................... Pebble Limited Partnership
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Abstract
The transition towards “sustainable mining” reveals a new discursive field in the interactions
between mining companies and people impacted by mineral extraction. Since 1999, perceptions
of sustainable development have attracted concerted effort by the largest international mining
companies. Indigenous landscapes may not be fixable by new constellations of stakeholders or
engagement models incorporating principles of sustainable development and corporate social
responsibility.
In Southwestern Alaska, a proposal to mine a large, low-grade deposit of copper, gold, and
molybdenum lays at the headwaters to the world’s largest wild salmon fishery in Bristol Bay,
Alaska. During 2008, new legislative initiatives and a $10,000,000 media conflict pitched Pebble
as a classic Alaskan land use battle between conservationists and developers – fish versus gold. I
analyzed this discourse in the media, interviewing moderate and radical “stakeholders”. Issues
of indigenous empowerment and industry best practice were removed from the public dialogue
and replaced by an entertaining spectacle. Yup’ik, Aleut, and Dena’ina Natives, as well as other
Alaskans, engaging in many subsistence practices – most importantly salmon fishing – oppose
the development. I present these interactions differently, as two conflicts, about sustainability
science and subsistence culture and society. The supposed “transition towards sustainable
mining” requires further academic, trans-disciplinary engagement.
McFarlane 9
I.
Introduction
Whether you agree with it or not, we are all implicated in “sustainable mining”. Our lives are
surrounded by built environments which began with one large hole in the ground; and, assuming
you connect to the internet or mobile phone this day, you will be sustaining a connection to over
thirty hard rock mining operations in more than a dozen countries, mostly on lands claimed by
indigenous peoples. In the future, you may be cycling gold and copper from Alaska, and you
might choose now to understand the powerful significance of the Nushagak and Kvichak rivers,
threatened by the world’s next largest mine.
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A. Statement of the Issue
In rural Alaska, the Pebble mine project poses a sustainable development and subsistence
problem. Pebble is a massive copper-sulphide deposit located 200 miles Southwest of
Anchorage, at headwaters to the sustainable Bristol Bay fishery (see Figure 1 and 2).
Pebble is the world’s largest undeveloped copper-gold resource, sitting within spawning waters
of the greatest salmon population left on the planet. Pebble mine is currently at a pre-feasibility
and pre-permitting stage of development, but it faces increasingly rigorous and assertive
opposition. Pebble mine risks destroying renewable resources, cultural identities, and the
prolific sockeye salmon runs, in every sense the source of life in Bristol Bay. How should we
assess these intangible impacts from a mine? What different meanings does the development
proposal entrain? Who controls the powerful discourse of “sustainability”?
McFarlane 11
Bristol Bay
Pebble
Vancouver
Anchorage
Juneau
London
Figure 1 Location of Bristol Bay, Alaska in the Northern Arctic (edited from http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/arctic-mappolitical, accessed 22/4/09)
McFarlane 12
Figure 2 Location of Pebble claim area within the Nushagak and Kvichak drainage (http://www.alaskawild.org/wpcontent/images/pebble_areawide051205_small.jpg, accessed 26/4/09)
I analyzed the Pebble discursive event in order to test the limits of “sustainable development” as
a tool, strategy or ideology imposed on indigenous Alaskans. Specifically, I argue:
1. Mediazation of cultural conflict demonstrates the social encounter between indigenous
people and a mining company.
2. Alaska’s “Large Mine Permitting Process” discourages indigenous empowerment.
3. Stakeholders reflect a specific, contested understanding of sustainability and salmon.
McFarlane 13
These three discourses at Pebble – mediated discourse, Alaskan discourse, and fish talk –
suggest the critical relationship between sustainability and subsistence. Pebble is a land-use
battle that facilitates a greater understanding of the power and practice of sustainable
development and subsistence in Alaska today. This qualitative analysis has relevance for policy
makers and other stakeholders.
1. Research Questions
My principle research aim was to understand how language shapes practice at the Pebble mine
development in Bristol Bay. The critical question was:
Does the discourse of sustainable development substitute for the practice of subsistence?
This entails clarifying the symbolic meanings of these competing ideologies. Further questions
about the former:
What is the language of sustainable development?
How is it used in the Pebble project?
What are the implications?
The practice and ideology of sustainable development1 function differently under sociohistorical inquiry. Over millennia, indigenous Yup’ik Eskimos, Aleut, Alutiiqs, and Dena’ina
Athapaskans2 of Bristol Bay understood, practiced, and experienced some form of sustainable
development. Hunting, fishing, and gathering, their subsistence way of life satisfied physical and
psycho-cultural needs. The social relations introduced by the Pebble proposal lead to questions
about Native subsistence:
1
Sustainable development is defined by convention to Brundtland, as “development which meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Ideology is defined
simplistically as “meaning in the service of power” from (Thompson 1990).
2
Herein indigenous people of Alaska are collectively referred to as Natives or Native Alaskans.
McFarlane 14
Have new western, corporate values extinguished traditional cultural knowledge and
value systems?
How is the encounter at Pebble interpreted by Native Alaskans?
What does “living in two worlds with one spirit” mean to Bristol Bay Natives?
Answers to these questions are explored using discourse analysis, forming the communicative
links between ideology and a practice. The form and function of both sustainable development
and subsistence rely on symbolic discourse to appropriate shared meanings. Ideology is, to
paraphrase Thompson (1990), “meaning in the service of power”. An integrative analysis,
conscience of competing epistemological and ontological positions, complements the practical
challenges of the Pebble development.
2. Literature
This dissertation begins to establish a peer-reviewed literature base for the socio-historicalstudy of resource relations of this area, Bristol Bay, Alaska. Holistic approaches are
recommended for discourse analysis (Hansen, Cottle, Negrine and Newbold 1998, 18) but a
contextualized literature base is more likely to transect key issues relevant to different
disciplines and epistemologies; for Pebble, this includes socio-economic impacts, human and
environmental health. This challenges conventional knowledge production at sites of resource
extraction that drives research (and policy) according to the principle of economic scale. I do not
claim to cover all bases however; important work on biodiversity conflict and rural management
might be included for future study.
The broad literature reviewed for this research spans disciplinary boundaries to reflect emerging
perspectives of indigenous-corporate resource relations analysis. Three examples include
Berger’s Village Journey (1985), the Journal of Cleaner Production Vol. 14 (2006) and
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O’Faircheallaigh and Ali’s Earth Matters (2008). Reviewing the social impacts of the Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, Berger combines legal and anthropological insight to
evoke a powerful assertion of native sovereignty in Alaska. In the engineering field, important
transformations reflecting sustainable development and corporate social responsibility values
driving innovation and technical change are reviewed by the Journal of Cleaner Production Vol.
14. Finally, O’Faircheallaigh and Ali’s compilation gathers geographically disparate studies of
CSR and SD in the extractive industry in a strong attempt to transcend the disciplinary scrum
often polarizing our perspectives. My academic position is sited somewhere between social
impact assessment, stakeholder analysis, ethnographic reflection, or the schools of anthropology
and management.
Context-specific peer-reviewed literature about Pebble mine contrasts between traditional
knowledge and scientific perspectives, seeking an appropriate area-based discursive context.
Three important “local” works came from the fields of law (Parker, Rasin, Woody and Trasky
2008), environmental studies and media analysis (Wilson 2008) and impact assessment/planning
(NMWC 2004). Each reflects a moderate and radical position suggested for political
anthropology (Filer 1999), balancing against the tendencies to either neutralize stakeholders in a
permitting process, or to dramatize opponents in a political setting. The latter effect is achieved
by Sherwonit’s (2008) popular article from Yale University, titled “Alaska’s Pebble Mine: Fish
Versus Gold”, whose rhetorical undermining reduces the credibility (or likelihood) for balanced
bi-cultural opinions3. The law review by Parker et. al. (2008) scientifically deconstructs the
legitimacy of Alaska’s “Large Mine Permitting Team” (LMPT). Wilson’s (2008) “Indigenous
Empowerment: The Pebble Mine and Environmental Justice in Bristol Bay, Alaska” speaks
powerfully, framing analysis of Pebble to directly support concerns of Bristol Bay Natives. Finally,
the Nushagak-Mulchatna Watershed Council in 2004, presented 180 questions about
socioeconomics, human health, and environmental health impacts to proponents, provoking the
reorientation of the project towards local issues.
3
Some would argue this is not even possible. But Lertzman and Vredenburg (2005) have made a powerful case for
cross-cultural dialogue and bi-cultural interlocutors in an ethical business approach to resource extraction with
indigenous people.
McFarlane 16
B. Pebble Ownership and Facilities4
The Pebble mine project is a proposed development of an extensive copper-gold-molybdenum
occurrence (NDM 2009). The mineral resource contains an estimated 72 billion pounds of
copper, 94 million ounces of gold, and 4.8 billion pounds of molybdenum (a metal used to
harden steel). The Bristol Bay mineral accumulation rivals the Grasberg complex of Indonesia,
and is regarded internationally as the “future of US mining and metals”. Discovered in 1988 by
Cominco (now Teck Cominco, operator of Red Dog mine in Northwest Alaska), mineral property
rights were bought by Canadian company Northern Dynasty Minerals (NDM) in 2001. By 2004,
NDM had acquired leases to 153 square miles of state land selected for mineral development,
and applied for water rights permits in 2006. The Vancouver-based company advanced the
exploration project, located another significant mineralization, and initiated broad studies in
anticipation of permitting and construction. NDM is a subsidiary of Hunter Dickinson Gold (HD
Gold), a holdings company also located in Vancouver, with mining developments mostly in
British Columbia. In 2007, NDM entered into a 50:50 partnership with Anglo American plc, and
staffed the Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP) in Anchorage. John Shivley was selected as PLP’s
chief executive officer. Previous commissioner of the state’s Department of Natural Resources
(DNR), Shivley negotiated the Red Dog mine project in Northwest Alaska, the largest zinc mine in
the world, with the Northwest Arctic Native Assocation (NANA).
Since 2001, NDM has been extracting water from the freshwater ponds surrounding the area of
the proposed mine. In 2006, permits were submitted to extract water from three local creeks.
The expected mine model includes:
4
•
An open pit mine two thousand feet deep, covering an area about two square miles at
Pebble West.
•
An underground mine of comparable size five thousand feet deep at Pebble East.
•
A physical mine footprint destroying 30 square miles of wilderness habitat.
All information is available from NDM, PLP, and DNR websites (http://www.northerndynasty.com,
http://www.pebblepartnership.com, http://www.dnr.alaska.gov)
McFarlane 17
•
Totally or partially dewatering 60 lineal miles of aquatic fish habitat.
•
Various stream diversions, embankments, wells and pipelines to transport water, ore and
wastes between the mine area, mill, and waste storage facility
•
Annual use of 35 billion gallons of water drained from South and North forks of Koktuli
River, and Upper Talarik Creek
•
A mill to crush, process, and concentrate the extracted ore.
•
Five earthen-wall dams spanning nine miles to contain 8 billion tonnes of acid-generating
tailings. The largest embankments would be over three hundred feet high.
•
A deep-water port to load ore concentrates onto ocean freighters.
•
A 104-mile road and over 120 stream or tributary crossings to connect port and mine.
•
Two 104-mile ore concentrate pipelines.
•
A new 200-megawatt power plant located outside Bristol Bay.
•
Over 100 miles of undersea cables and transmission lines to transmit power to the mill.
Figure 3 Map of Pebble site relating fish observations to mine facilities (www.renewableresourcescoalition.org, accessed
22/4/09)
McFarlane 18
The varied cumulative impacts are unpredictable, but the mine is likely to generate acid rock
drainage (Parker et. al. 2008). Tailings storage facilities are also threatened by the nearby Lake
Clark fault line, which has to be engineered against in perpetuity. Several billion tonnes of mill
tailings would likely create acid mine drainage (ARD). Waste rock, mixing with air and water to
create the sulphuric acid, which may seep and dissolve copper or other heavy metals, and leach
into fish habitat. Although ARD is scientifically analyzed, estimated, regulated, and mitigated
according to strict state and federal law, the probability of failure, especially at a mine of
Pebble’s scale, is high. A report comparing predicted water quality to actual water quality at
hard-rock mines similar to Pebble indicated that, following National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA) oversight and permitting, the majority (76%) of mines developed ARD (Kuipers , Maest,
MacHardy and Lawson 2006). The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) currently being
prepared for Pebble mine should be expected to fail. Substantive issues of ARD and pollution are
further undermined by procedural issues of inadequate data sampling and reporting (Moran
2007). Even the few relatively certain detrimental affects human and environmental health will
be forced to absorb over generations are complex and varied.
McFarlane 19
II.
Background
In this section I provide a brief introduction to the three discourses I observed in Bristol Bay of
Pebble mine. I also analyze one precedent to Pebble which is located in Northwest Alaska – the
Red Dog mine.
“But who exactly are all these local workers who will fill the 1,000 to 2,000 jobs? In the entire
Lake and Peninsula Borough, which includes 14 towns spread across 24,000 square miles, the
population is just over1,600. More than 43 percent of the population is under 18 or over 65
years of age; three quarters are Alaskan Native.”
(Dembosky 2006)
Figure 4 Communities near proposed Pebble mine development (http://www.pebblerpartnership.com, accessed 20/4/09)
McFarlane 20
A. The Three Discourses of Sustainability and Subsistence
Dubbs (1988, 1992) asserts that in remote, rural Alaska, sustainability competes with a
prefigured world of subsistence discourse and practice. Pebble mine is symbolic to both
ideologies and three discourses appearing in the analysis are briefly framed below.
1. The 2008 Media Battle: Fish versus Minerals
In the summer of 2008, images of Native Alaskans were appropriated for production of a
singular “conflict” around Ballot Measure #4, the Clean Water Initiative, legislation which would
shut down the proposed Pebble development. Social uses of these symbolic cultural forms by
powerful development and conservation forces repressed other communication acts. In the
encounter between Native Alaskans and the mining companies, this repressive communication
obscured important issues, abstracted stakeholders, and increased idealizing: it presented an
impossible choice: fish or minerals. In the media, conflict was the conclusion. More than being a
consumable conflict however, the media spectacle revealed a battle between particularly
powerful and hidden characters. While Pebble is one of the greatest issues linking people of
Bristol Bay to the world today, the more likely antagonisms permeating in the struggle center on
claims for indigenous empowerment, sovereignty, and uncertainty about the metaphysical
construct of “sustainable mining”. More than fish versus minerals, Pebble represents a dual
discourse between sustainable development and subsistence.
2. Alaska Land Claims and Mine Permitting
In 2012, the Pebble mine may be permitted by the State of Alaska as another use of its natural
resource wealth (Figure 3), continuing a pattern of deep rooted colonial development
McFarlane 21
commencing in the late 1700’s (Dubbs 1988). Alaska’s lands and waters have long attracted
extractive industries, chained to perceptions of emptiness, wilderness, or poverty, fought
against by Native Alaskans, who are claiming subsistence rights and indigenous empowerment
today (AFN 2008, Wilson 2008). In 1971, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act created new
entities: Native corporations. Shareholders of Bristol Bay Native Corporation (BBNC),
representing the majority of the 6,000 people from Bristol Bay, strongly oppose Pebble mine, do
not trust the State of Alaska, and fear destruction of their fishing and subsistence way of life
(BBNC 2008). Their resolutions are met by non-Native Alaskans, who entrust government
controls, legislative statutes, and constitutional mandates to regulate during the mine’s life.
From an indigenous perspective, the state fails.
3. The Theory of “Social License to Operate”
In Bristol Bay villages, the discourse of sustainable development and responsibility resonates in
land, culture, and subsistence. However, to both mining and fishing interests, meanings of
sustainability are interpreted differently. For the former, sustainability is granted via production
of the “social license to operate” (SLO), an intangible and transient measure of community
assurance (Nelsen and Scoble 2006). To the fishing industry, sustainability is practically a given
law, but increasing poverty (due to plummeting world prices) and loss of control are rarely
scrutinized. Neither industry affirms indigenous sovereignty claims, although many Natives work
in the fishery. In both cases, “green” ideologies are fixated to ill-defined and ubiquitous claims.
In these resource relations, Native Alaskans have become the bargaining chips in the Pebble
mine development game.
McFarlane 22
B. Red Dog Mine in Northwest Alaska
The Prudhoe Bay oil filed and Red Dog zinc-lead mine are two similarly large, industrial
developments located on traditional Native lands in the North, and Northwest of Alaska,
respectively. Prudhoe Bay and Red Dog provide a context to indigenous-corporate resource
extraction, but are in the unique position of being held entirely by Native corporate interests.
Attention has been paid elsewhere to Prudhoe Bay: state and local economies are dependent on
royalties from oil production. I examine the case of Red Dog however, because it is locally and
internationally promoted as a cornerstone case for corporate social responsibility and
sustainable development. The deposit is located on land owned by Inupiat Eskimos,
incorporated to the Northwest Arctic Native Association (NANA) and has been the largest zinc
mine in the world since 1989. Throughout the last two decades, NANA leaders assert a repeated
claim about the decision to mine zinc at Red Dog: “We Walk in Two Worlds with One Spirit”.
In 1982, three decades after discovery, local conflict, and tough consensus building, Cominco
Alaska and the Northwest Alaska Native Association, NANA, signed a Development and
Operating agreement to Red Dog, the largest zinc mine in the world. The purity of the zinc is
unparalleled in North America – it is nearly 20% of the ore body. Lead and silver are also
extracted from the relatively small mine footprint. Production has increased each year at the
open pit, earning over $1 billion for Canadian-based Teck Cominco and NANA Regional
Corporation. Beginning 2009, NANA will receive 25% of the net smelter return, up dramatically
from their current 4% share, and continuing to rise up to 50% during the next twenty-five years.
NANA shareholders are the majority of the workforce, and subsistence preferences dictate
management decision-making. The socio-cultural impacts of extending Red Dog’s operating life,
after twenty years already, are inconclusive (Aqqaluk Extension SEIS 2008). The two major
demands formulated between the initial opposition at discovery in 1953 and the 1979 NANA
shareholder majority support were 100% Native hire within 12 years, and zero-impact
operations. NANA bargained and won significant control over the resource development,
including 50:50 personal sharing in management, subsistence advisory, and employment
McFarlane 23
committees. The Subsistence Advisory Committee engineered the 52-mile transportation route
between mine and sea port and other facilities, and also reviews all reports and communicates
impacts. During caribou migration, the committee has the authority to stop all transportation,
and similar powers control operations to allow for whale hunting during the spring. Is this a true,
positive story of indigenous-corporate mineral development?
The story of the Inupiat (who form 85% of the region’s 7,500 people) and the mining company
have been highlighted as a relationship demonstrating absolute free, prior and informed consent
(FPIC). This idea is documented in the story told by Mclean and Hensley (1994): “Red Dog Mine is
an example that mining is compatible with indigenous people’s values and the principle of
sustainable development.” Mclean and Hensley characterize the agreement as a static and fixed
document. This idealized state of two consensual parties offends the reality of continuing
struggles and the experience of those marginalized by Red Dog. In Kivalina, the nearest village
downstream of the mine, a group sued Teck Cominco in 2004 for thousands of water pollution
violations under the Clean Water Act. During the same period, NANA and Teck operators applied
for permits to sustain production past 2012 to 2031. These two opposing perspectives of Red
Dog mine sought contradictory fates for the resource development. Does it reveal a power
imbalance between Inupiat or just the increasing impacts associated with proximity to a mine?
Kivalina elders already have a position to oversee and manage environmental impacts and
change, forming the Subsistence Advisory Committee which has the power to stop the mine
traffic during caribou migration, for example. Additionally, Red Dog management is shared
evenly between NANA and Cominco employees. But Kivalina residents experienced
marginalization, and sought alliances with NGOs to differentiate their impacts social impacts
from fellow NANA shareholders. Within Kivalina also, internal conflicts were created, reported
by one resident:
“I am a Kivalina resident, but I do not really support the lawsuit that these six
people brought up. And a lot of people – a lot of people not only in the NANA
McFarlane 24
region, but in the State read about that and they think it’s the whole
community” (Haley, Fay, Griego and Saylor 2008).
Therefore, the dispositional explanation given by Mclean and Hensley (2004), of responsible
corporate practice shared between two different but equal sets of cultural values at Red Dog,
quickly wears down upon closer inspection. The relationship may be strong between NANA and
Teck Cominco today, but “partnerships” are rarely without regular conflict. Teck Cominco, on
the other hand, faces renewed government regulation and wide public criticism now that
Kivalina highlighted Red Dog as being the largest source of toxic pollution in the USA. Discoveries
of anomalous lead, cadmium and other minerals along the 52 mile haul road between mine and
port stirs even greater controversy. Sustainable development and corporate social responsibility,
meaning to “fix” social relations between Native Alaskans and Teck Cominco, fail to reveal
anything more than their brief conceptual social history.
Mclean and Hensley’s (1994) story reveals the ideological assumption between subsistence
culture and sustainability science; documented and completed, the state of sustainable
development is finished. But the decision to mine occurs before subsistence claims will be
practiced: issues of fate control, cultural continuity, ties to nature, and cumulative
environmental degradation, were addressed only after the reality of the mine’s impact could be
witnessed.
Another social survey completed by Haley et. al. (2008) during the mine extension proposal
reflects American positivist research positionality. Although they admit to a definition of human
development uniquely accorded to Arctic Native people, their pre-fixed conclusion,
foreshadowed in their title “social conditions”, mirrors the researchers’ hierarchical obedience
to state practice. Even though there is widespread recognition of Red Dog’s positive impact on
wage employment, education, and health/social service provisioning by NANA shareholders in
Northwest Alaska, the two villages closest to the mine site harbor “feelings of powerlessness
and frustration”. The impacts of fate control and cultural continuity have not been carefully
examined at extractive developments in Alaska, and formal scoping hearings do not provide
McFarlane 25
adequate access to information or a positive forum to discuss environmental management
issues. This might have important implications at Pebble. Linked to this, regulation of “local
knowledge” and socio-cultural effects of Red Dog has encouraged quantitative anthropology,
modeling data collection on the economic-political need to produce achievable outcomes
according to sustainable development principles. In the “social conditions” report, the balance
and structure of NANA subsistence culture achieves a pre-decided, pre-fixed conclusion, that
Natives and non-Natives receive equal representation and accountability beneath State law. It
does not relate the special relationship indigenous maintain in Alaska or North America. Life
histories and experiences are removed, under the development assumption that exposing too
much difference risks the extension of the mine’s life. In response to this, the report does
acknowledge that potential negative cultural outcomes of Red Dog promoted a “proactive
collective response, the Inupiat Ilitqusiat movement, to strengthen Inupiat cultural values and
identity” (Haley et. al. 2008). The long struggle towards this however, continues to slide into
oblivion.
Redmond’s (1998) comprehensive survey of industrial development impact’s on indigenous
Arctic people argues that the Inupiat values have been vital to the corporate culture of NANA
(Redmond 1998). In the Inupiat Ilitqusiat social movement, a sort of cultural revival during the
fight against Red Dog mine, an illumination of Inupiat values and cultural resources demanded a
new, different discursive formation. The lasting symbolic image is related in this poster:
McFarlane 26
Figure 5 Poster from the Inupiat Ilitqusiat social movement in 1982, transforming subsistence and sustainability ideology at
the Red Dog Mine (McLean and Hensley 1994)
This subsistence ideology continues to function at Red Dog operations, where the importance of
responsibility to others is ingrained to mine employees. John Shivley, the non-Native who led
the struggle for the unique benefit-sharing agreement, suggests that significant cross-cultural
transactions require time and tough decisions. Shivley says: “I am responsible to all other
Inupiat”. The natural fight for cultural survival, according to the subsistence worldview, involves
living these values daily. Perhaps the incorporation of Red Dog mine into subsistence livelihoods
McFarlane 27
explains why NAN shareholders have become defensive during the trial of Pebble? A 2009 report
by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suggested that subsistence harvests have
declined in the area near Red Dog. Most of the complaints hurled at that 650-page federal study
came from NANA shareholders, understanding that changes in caribou and whale harvests relate
to improper human and animal relations rather than strictly environmental impacts from Red
Dog’s open pit. Perhaps there is another meaning to the statement, “we walk in two worlds with
one spirit? Inupiat can subsist in the corporate world, harvesting the wealth of the Red Dog mine
in order to maintain social ties and their other world of well-being (Haley and Magdanz in
O’Faircheallaigh and Ali 2008). There is strong indication here that subsistence ideologies cannot
entrain themselves easily into sustainability paradigms such as practiced in environmental
impact statements produced by US federal and Alaskan state agencies. Strict sustainability
programs fail to produce a science which can speak in two languages. I propose a different
analysis to reflect the incongruence of subsistence and sustainability currently practiced by
Pebble permitting agencies.
McFarlane 28
III.
Research Methods
"to interpret ideology is to explicate the connection between the meaning mobilized by
symbolic forms and the relations of domination which that meaning serves to maintain"
(Thompson 1990, p.21)
This dissertation analyzes the Pebble mine discursive event in Bristol Bay, Alaska from a
qualitative perspective. Social science in the US has a distinct positivist epistemology, engaged in
counting, measuring, and one could argue, assimilating, the indigenous-corporate encounter.
My interpretation of Pebble is situational, of a pre-determined domain, and an analysis of power
relations embedded in the discourse form a different, interdisciplinary method of enquiry. I have
used multiple methods to understand the Pebble mine in the context of sustainability and
subsistence including: participant observation, literature review, hermeneutics, media analysis,
semi-structured interviews, and reflection. Being unable to visit Bristol Bay physically, I had to
rely on technically-mediated mass communications – the internet – and constantly weigh the
positionality of authors and organizations. Employing a variety of internet sources, I attempted
to embed myself in the informational “debate” being transmitted in this resource context to
extended places and times. Access to, and appropriateness of, knowledge is a central theme in
the arguments between scientists, regulators, proponents, and opponents. I attempted to
incorporate an exhaustive source of multimedia objects: newspapers, magazines, industry
reports, corporate mailing lists, radio and television programs, online blogs and “you tube”
videos, novels, petitions, legislative filings, live online webcasts, mine permit applications and
baseline data, NGO documentaries and recorded interviews. The enormous online resource
offers challenges and opportunities to the researcher. Like all modern resource developments in
North America, project papers are stacked like mountains. Even public relations vice-president
McFarlane 29
of PLP, Mike Heatwole, said he could not find even recreational time to read Wilson’s (2008)
paper which I found inspirational5.
Wilson, a Bristol Bay Yup’ik, conducted a formal media analysis, showing that Native views are
marginalized in the state’s largest media organization, the Anchorage Daily News. His
quantitative analysis spreads four years and 300 newspaper articles, exposing a perspective to
indigenous empowerment posited on environmental justice (giving a clear right to clean air,
water, and subsistence) rarely considered by others. I have expanded his media enquiry
specifically and broadly, considering more local and international media sources, such as: the
Bristol Bay Times, Los Angeles and New York Times, and The Times from London. The demand
reiterated by Wilson and others seeking greater disclosure from Pebble Limited Partnership
influenced my decision to expand the media enquiry, approaching some form of social auditing.
5
Personal Communication 14/3/09
McFarlane 30
A. Limitations
For the eight months I kept a journal, reflecting on thoughts and feelings, I discovered a
precarious flaw in my method. I had become a walking, talking environmental impact statement,
reifying the claim I meant to challenge about sustainability ideology. I accumulated more
resources and knowledges than I could legitimately claim to manage, mean I imitated the mode
of knowledge production initiated by industry and government permitting processes. One of the
strident criticisms of this process is that it fails the majority of the time, to predict positive
mitigation from environmental impacts (Kuipers et. al. 2006), and historically under-develops
society (Power 2002). Pebble mine will end, one way or another, with one of the largest
accumulation of binders and binders of data for any given project ever in an Alaskan locality.
Despite the mountains of information proponents or myself acquired, we risk a cultural failure of
un-negotiating culture from politics. By focusing on covering every aspect as a sustainability
agenda suggests, and balancing and framing that in a model that is not recognized even by nonNative Alaskans, I have risked ignoring the real stories of struggle taking place on the ground. In
order to resist this “domestication”, I believe the journal kept me honest, observant and critical
(Thomas 1993).
Online videos and webcasts presented unique challenge. I observed over forty videos posted
from Bristol Bay communities, news media organizations, and other stakeholders. “You Tube”, a
public online video network, hosted many videos made by local residents utilizing song, dance,
and drama, and displaying a variety of symbolic forms in pictures and language. Together, they
performed an informal and diverse discursive function versus the formal public hearing
procedure. However, these productions also differentiate Bristol Bay residents who might simply
choose to, and have the ability to, express themselves in this manner. Another new form of
information transmission explored was the “webinar”. In November 2008, I watched and
listened to streaming online audio and PowerPoint presentations of the DNR working groups, a
multi-day set of hearings from consultants researching meteorology, hydrology, habitat,
geochemistry, socioeconomics, etc. This new public-private interaction offers transparency and
McFarlane 31
accountability from the industry and government point of view, but at the same time reifies a
hegemonic discourse, re-making their communicative instruments to impress on others the idea
of substantive change. I had to be critical of the new claim expressed beginning 2007 from PLP,
stating that “we will listen before we act”. Clearly, boundaries are demarcated on who, when,
and to what would be heard, and this justified my long search for alternative or marginalized
voices. Research tends to reflect the researcher and the wealth and magnitude of knowledge
which was available to the analysis of Pebble met a peculiar personal position that sought to
acquire all viewpoints and give a position to the least powerful of Pebble. This limited a clear,
dispassionate enquiry into the situation, and pushed the limits of time and energy. One final
issue is problematic use of “Native” terminology. I am an “Alaskan Native”, but I observe the
term “Native Alaskan” to refer to the self-identified Eskimo, Indian or Aleut person who claims
ancestral heritage, social ties to land, or similar characteristics.
McFarlane 32
IV.
Mediated Discourse
The first discourse I present is the mediated discourse, introducing the diagrammatical
sustainability and subsistence-centered development (see figure 6). ”Mediated” is used to
describe the normalizing mechanisms news and other organizations employ to capture and
mediate ideology and culture in technical, quasi-interactive mass communication (derived from
Thompson 1990). The mediated discourse programmed a symbolic battle – fish versus minerals
– and extended this linguistic form in an expansive time and space world. Television, radio,
internet and other pre-formative acts mediated Pebble mine’s discourse. This indigenouscorporate encounter appropriates cultural symbolism and detaches the “sustainability”
spectacle from “subsistence practice”.
McFarlane 33
Figure 6 Diagrammatical subsistence and sustainability
McFarlane 34
A. The Dual Discourse
“The truth is that sustainability implies something quite different depending on which side of the
bulldozer you are on.”6
During the summer of 2008, I worked for another summer from interior Alaska in the mineral
industry, exploring for deposits similar to Pebble. A poster engaged my interest: “Mining Rocks –
Vote No on 4”. Referring to the Ballot Measure 4 aimed at stopping Pebble mine, the
proposition could have eliminated or radically altered all large-scale mining across Alaska. The
conflict produced in the media that summer on the television, radio, newspapers, internet, and
sign posts cost over $10,000,000 (Bluemink 2008). The images of Eskimos, Indians and Aleuts of
Alaskans dominated the symbolic exchanges from both pro-mining and oppositional camps.
Production of these forms severed the reality of the encounter. As the spectacle spread outside
of Alaska, the cultural dynamic operating in Alaska was avoided, forcing a questioning of the
usefulness of mass communication. Media distributors and industry supporters from California,
New York, Toronto, London and beyond were more impressed by the perceived David-Goliath
biblical struggle: this was Alaska’s biggest land battle, a fight on the last frontier between
conservation and development, the two historical nemesis of sustainable development,
“greenies” and the “greedy”. In the media, critical engagement did not imply any educational
social forum but rather sought political tick marks between two given possibilities: fish or gold.
Stakeholders continue to perform these roles, but I argue that the choice between one industry
or another, between sustainability or development, is not a locally conceived reading.
“At the decibel level the discourse concerning the Pebble Mine is set at, all too easy to imagine
someone getting killed over it.”7
6
Whitmore, A. (2006) ‘The emperors new clothes: Sustainable mining?’ Journal of Cleaner Production 14, 309-314.
McFarlane 35
Managing the Pebble mine, the Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP) and Alaska Division of Natural
Resource “Large Mine Permitting Team” aim towards responsible and sustainable mining; but
the Pebble mine is located at the Nushagak and Kvichak rivers, admittedly the risky location. The
Bristol Bay watershed nurtures the largest, biologically sustainable, wild sockeye salmon fishery
in the world. For all different social histories of this area, people have revolved around the fish.
“The mine” portends a powerful oppositional force.
The sharpened symbolic representations observed in the media removes the possibility of a
complex truth to be discovered locally. In other words, is it appropriate to ask –least of all in a
three-minute televised snap – whether fishing or mining represents “sustainable development”?
The hasty pace of these mass communication exchanges severs any realistic engagement
process. The important questions to ask and decided involve asking: can/should fishing and
mining coexist at Pebble? If so, how, and by whom? These questions are beyond environmental
baseline studies, stakeholder consultancies, or political judicators. Future scenarios are
community decisions, not an individualized, consumable conflict. The proposal from Vancouver
and London is negotiating between subsistence and sustainability. The symbolic choice between
fish or minerals eliminates all dialogue to distant audiences, whereas local meanings are actually
regularly contested. Neither fishing nor mining industry can proclaim itself to be a subsistencecentered development, rather, contested meanings of sustainability continue to define their
self-descriptions. Yup’ik, Dena’ina, Aleut, Alutiiq, and other people of Bristol Bay share localized
meanings about the land where they live and existed for generations, but these voices of Bristol
Bay have been squelched. Over $100 million has been spent by the PLP on socio-economic and
environmental studies – is this the value of traditional knowledge and cultural values? Media
networks communicate quantitative and positivist information, such as how many jobs the mine
will bring, or how much money the fishery industry is worth. But one of the five guiding
7
Dana Stabelow, in the Pebble fictional book Whisper to the Blood, quoted from “The Pebble Blog”
(http://community.adn.com/adn/node/138812?mi_pluck_action=comment_submitted#Comments_Container,
accessed 6/3/09)
McFarlane 36
principles CEO John Shivley is explicitly qualitative: “We will listen before we act.”Exploring this
claim in the media reveals that misunderstandings and contested meanings of “sustainability”
are regularly hidden. How do stakeholders receive, understand, and use “sustainable
development”, or do they occupy in the media, pre-staked out positions of subsistence or
sustainability to act into a development conflict game?
A problem has persisted for many years not between the mining industry, indigenous peoples,
and the emerging concepts of sustainable development. But the story is never as powerful
interests or advocacy groups would lie to admit: at Pebble, there are multiple conflicts and
multiple stories. So far, these differences have only one legitimate process, overseen by a threemember team who has never turned down a large mine permit in Alaska. The media could break
through the disciplinary scrum of Academia and engage stakeholders, reflect power
asymmetries, and assess the impacts of Pebble. Media should capture differences at sites of
resource extraction, rather than pre-determine a conflict. For Native Alaskans, Pebble mine and
sustainable development are rather inconsequential; their subsistence worldview captures
diverse survival strategies over generations, and their struggle towards cultural continuity and
ties to the land is not determined by fights the television presents to us.
1. Sustainability Science
The announcement of a “Transition to Sustainable Mining” demonstrates the rapidly changing
dialogue of the mineral industry. Mass communication technology empowers this ideology of
sustainable development and since the year 2000, the global mining industry has increased its
annual production of “sustainability” literature. Despite envisioning “respect, meaningful
engagement and mutual benefit” with local indigenous people, and committing to a ”particular
regard for the specific and historical situation of Indigenous Peoples” (ICMM 2009), the powerful
discursive form of this “sustainability dialogue” further marginalizes the specific and local
McFarlane 37
cultural meanings of resource extraction. Fearing the growing power of social movements and
environmentalists opposing mineral extraction, sustainability is approached by the industry as a
global phenomenon risking future access to resources. The mining industry has sought to
separate claims made at local and global levels. Anglo American, Rio Tinto, and other mining
transnational companies now publish glossy reports detailing their “green” activities, restricting
accountability mechanisms into reflections of a sustainable development ideology. Corporate
and engineering disciplines translate sustainability into concrete mechanisms. Models, toolkits
and frameworks are applied like tools to a machine at projects around the world. For example,
Anglo America’s SEAT (Socio-Economic Assessment Toolbox) program reduces the description of
various projects to community engagement indicators, such as how many meetings between
company employees and local persons have occurred, or how much money has been spent on
social investments (Anglo American 2009). The science of sustainability suggested here is about
quantity, not quality: these international initiatives flood the market with information and
knowledge. The global mediation phenomenon of sustainability is further reflected in the Pebble
Limited Partnership. Vice-president of public relations Mike Heatwole admitted to the need for
“recalibrating the dialogue” at Pebble – is this dissimilar to the idea of social engineering?
Despite interdisciplinary attempts, conceptualizing corporate-indigenous reciprocity and
sustainability in the mining industry remains, for the most part, the work of consultants and nongovernmental organizations (Miranda, Chambers, Coumans 2005; Whitmore 2006; Danielson
2004; Weitzner 2002; Whiteman and Mamen 2002, Moody 2002). Their growing body of
literature addresses inter-related, complex issues such as “no go” zones, environmental
accountability, human rights, legitimacy, consent, resource renting, risk, benefit agreements and
good governance. Most importantly, it grapples with the global dialogue group – the
International Council for Mining and Metals (ICMM) – founded in 2002 after the two-year
production of the Mining, Minerals, and Sustainable Development project (see figure 7 for a
timeline of sustainability initiatives in the mining industry). The ICMM establishes a global,
systemic program of sustainable development, grounded in principles, reports, and CEO-led
McFarlane 38
assurance mechanisms. Critical engagement between NGOs, consultancies, thin tanks, industry
associations and government agencies is important, but it has also naturalized stakeholder
positionality, de-legitimated localized resource dialogues, and hi-jacked the cultural conflicts
which may be necessary at most sites of resource extraction. Academic perspectives must
challenge the naturalization of sustainable development.
Figure 7 Timeline of sustainability initiatives in the mining industry (Lins and Horwitz 2007)
The science of sustainable mining depends on a stable, regulated social environment. Enter
Alaska, recognized in the mining industry as pro-development with powerful lobbying groups
and entrenched interests from previous industrial developments, such as oil extraction in
Prudhoe Bay. From 1974-1982, Governor Jay Hammond defined responsible resource
development by asking four questions:
•
Is it environmentally sound?
•
Do most Alaskans want it?
•
Could it pay its own way?
McFarlane 39
•
Does it meet our constitution's mandate? (to manage resources for the people's
maximum benefit)8
The four questions guided complex decision-making broadly fitting to the environmental, social,
and economic factors usually associated with sustainable development. Hammond’s colloquial,
Alaskan definition of sustainable development is largely obscured by the globally accepted
Brundtland Commission of 19879. Prudent use of natural resources is a stated goal of Alaska’s
constitution, defended by a long, complex permitting process and environmental safeguards at
modern operations (Redmond 2006). At Pebble, the sustainability conflict focuses on the
impacts and risks downstream to water quality and specifically the salmon fishery. Other
impacts include the mine’s footprint, new infrastructure and industrial developments, air and
noise, loss of livelihoods, tourism, degradation of wilderness, health problems, wage relations,
economic dependency, and loss of Native sovereignty and culture (Bryan 2008). The issues of
acid rock drainage captures the most bitter and costly attention. The dispute in 2008 over the
Clean Water Initiative – Ballot Measure #4 – politicized Pebble. The effect of this dramatization
was perhaps constructive to education and cross-cultural interaction at Dillingham, the regional
hub of Bristol Bay, most entrenched by fishing interests. But overall, the politicization of Pebble
defended the permitting protocols and environmental legislation, orientating sustainability
science to policy-makers, who are mandated to balance costs and benefits, conservation and
development, according to state law. Expanded further, federal inquiry into Pebble is required
under the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) of 1971 that demands multiple
agencies and over sixty permits regulating various mine activities. Who judges the efficacy of the
supposed “rigorous and comprehensive” assessment however? Current environmental and
8
During his time, Hammond oversaw construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System and creation of the Alaska
Permanent Fund Dividend Program, a unique program to invest oil royalties to cover future state budgets, and also
paying out annual oil dividend cheques to every Alaskan resident.
9
Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs. Two implicit ideas might be re-stated: first, the idea of helping the poor
(meeting the needs of the present), and second, the idea of limitations (due to our technological and social
organizational capacities and environmental impacts). These imperatives are translated in the current dialogues
between stakeholders today, usually according to political motivations – or greed – unfortunately. SD is jointly
defined by local and global processes, and in Native Alaskan communities, issues of fate control and cultural
continuity take precedence over economic and environment balancing acts.
McFarlane 40
socio-economic baseline studies and the upcoming Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) are
thousands of pages long, already constituting the largest scientific investigation for any single
project site in Alaska’s history10. At Pebble, hundreds of environmental, engineering, economic
and social scientists are producing the most extensive research ever, and their multi-disciplinary
effort towards “responsible and sustainable mining” will incorporate hundreds of scientific
perspectives, occupy thousands of documents, cost hundreds of millions of dollars and then
cement itself in the EIS. Besides the regular and systemic failure of this scientific endeavor
identified by Kuipers, Maest, MacHardy and Lawson (2006), in 2007, only one in ten employees
at the Pebble property originated from Bristol communities, and mostly employed in menial,
manual labor. The strongest selling point distributed in the media for the Pebble project is the
expected one thousand jobs it will produce, but if these are not being taken not by local labor,
what does this show about the local feeling toward the development? This power differential in
knowledge production is overlooked by most actors mediating the Pebble “conflict”, especially
the state regulatory bodies, further undermining concerns for environmental justice and
indigenous empowerment (Wilson 2008). Localizing the understanding of resource relations can
draw out the cultural impacts of mining, conscience of the links between knowledge production
and power, but self-critical appraisement is not yet a concern to scientific analysis for
sustainability.
A $5 million “Sustainable Bristol Bay Fisheries and Communities” fund and policy of “No Net
Loss” assures investors of commitments to sustainability and local community values; but these
promises provide no further explanations of what sustainable development actually means in
the context of Native Alaskan subsistence culture. In fact, there is no need to polarize the
complex science of Pebble mine into a viewable media spectacle – the real work on the ground
is rather boring. Instead, the scientific community should be utilized to educate, helping to read,
study, review and discuss with society, building trust and relationships between both Pebble
employees and stakeholders. Media distances these encounters, producing opposing
10
See http://www.pebblepartnership.com/pages/environment/environment-pre-permitting.php (accessed
26/4/09)
McFarlane 41
perceptions of the “other”. Further overlapping processes to empower Bristol Bay Natives and
other residents abound, but to date, there is no single process of dialogue and stakeholder
engagement, although the Keystone Center has suggested three: independent science panels,
joint fact finding groups, and a project planning collaboration team (Bryan 2008). Are there
approaches to sustainability resolution which may be suited to Native Alaskans, or have they
already been assimilated into Alaskan politics and identity? Can engagements for sustainability
empower Native identity, culture, and sovereignty? The Alaska Federation of Natives and Bristol
Bay Native Corporation, two indigenous organizations critical of the Pebble proposal, could
suggest alternative procedures. Dubbs (1992) identifies a different development concept for
Northern Arctic communities, incorporating strategies for “lasting and secure livelihoods that
minimize resource depletion, environmental degradation, cultural disruption, and social
instability”. Sustainability science can incorporate some of the following measures, he suggests:
“community-based land use planning, integrated resource management, community education
programmes, community participation on resource management boards, decentralization of
management responsibilities to local governments, legislative change, [and] international
cooperation and recognition” (Dubbs 1992).
Sustainable development remains mostly in the realm of ideas at the international level. The
globalized discourse of “sustainable mining” has been slowly nationalized in the United States
through multi-stakeholder “Sustainable Minerals Roundtable” meetings, and industry dialogues
incorporating various principles and frameworks for their members. The new discursive is
changing the industry, but there’s no indication still how encounters in Alaska are transformed
by these events. Emerging perspectives from different fields could suggest what Brand and
Karvonen (2007) call an “ecosystem of expertise”. Interdisciplinary education is increasing in the
field of mining engineering (Costa and Scoble 2006, Berel 2000), and as previously stated, many
conventional processes are changing, according cleaner production and environmental
efficiency. Is there really hope that the ideas embedded in sustainability science trickle-down to
on the ground truths? McKittrick’s (2006) ground-truth trekking, using GPS satellites and first-
McFarlane 42
hand observations, develops an interesting way of mapping the life-cycle of a mine from a local
perspective. Is “sustainable mining” anything more than the emperor’s new clothes? Whitmore
(2006) suggests that the new phraseology of “life-cycles” and “industrial ecology” are simply
substitutes for “cleaner production” and “environmental efficiency” which emerged after the
environmental movement in the 1960s. Perhaps the new social and environmental impact
assessments are little more than a rational unification of sustainable development ideas, a
heuristic device to satisfy our particular culture’s future scenarios about the world. Is
sustainability abstracting us from reality? One Anglo American employee referred me to a basic
fact of social relations with mineral developments: “Essentially”, the person said, “people are all
the same everywhere you go; they are interested in three things. First, they want what’s in their
best interest. Second, people want clean air and clean water. And finally, everyone wants a
future for their children”11. The science of sustainability at mine sites is building new
perspectives nevertheless, such as joining together mine closure risk modeling (Laurence 2006)
with critical ecosystem risk mapping (Miranda, Burris, Bincange, Shearman, Briones, La Vina and
Menard 2003) for more robust mine risk assessments. Social licensing discourse analysis and
conflict resolution theory might develop into a form of sustainable development impact
assessment. Extractive industries must build completely different mining scenarios, assuming
existence of other, unknown life-worlds which may relate to land, animals, and society,
differently. A new science and art of mining engineering must emerge.
2. Subsistence Culture and Society
Most remote, rural Alaskans hunt, fish, and gather to sustain themselves; engaging in traditional
village activities on the land. Subsistence is more than survival, however. Berger (1985) describes
it thoroughly with words and photographs representing the diverse knowledges and practices of
subsistence ideology. Subsistence is a way of life, a different development strategy, a spiritual
heritage and memory. Although subsistence uses of fish and wildlife are a component of all anti11
Personal communication 16/4/09
McFarlane 43
Pebble mine media campaigning, none go to any length to present a qualitative in-depth
description, even though the subsistence-system is given strategic primacy in Native village life:
“The totality of the subsistence system has sustained generations of Alaska Natives in the rural
homelands for thousands of years . . . This sustenance is inextricably both physical and
psychocultural, and it provides, in my opinion, the single most important anchor in the lives of
rural residents (Dubbs 1988:17).
Subsistence is a cosmological orientation to the land, animals, and social relations, and it is
important across Bristol Bay from small villages to the largest town, Dillingham, location of
salmon canneries and most fisheries-related activities. There, the Pebble mine has been most
vociferously opposed. Salmon canneries have been operating for over sixty years, and the
enormous runs of sockeye salmon and other fish have tied otherwise distinct peoples together.
Broader changes have impacted the worldviews in this locality. Have Native Alaskan’s been
assimilated into the fishing industry? In 1971, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, ANCSA,
changed laws and attitudes in profound ways. Alaskan Native tribes were divided into twelve
regional groups which adopted a corporate form, and over two hundred village corporations
were established. About one billion dollars and forty-four million acres (~10% total land of
Alaska) was divided among the various groups. While many legislators from outside of Alaska
considered this to be a generous and liberal offer from the federal government, many Native
Alaskans were angry and confused, unsure how their one hundred shares they received for their
corporation could substantiate for thousands of years of memory and cultural history. For most
stakeholders engaging Pebble, the ramifications of ANCSA have been ignored, but culture and
spiritual values of subsistence remain important. Native corporation shareholders cannot “sell
out” in the same way other businesses, such as PLP, exchange shares and assets. An assumption
led by CEO Shivley is that corporate values and Native culture are integrated to the same extent
in Bristol Bay as in NANA, when in fact, perhaps there is a “clash” between corporate and Native
values still:
“Absolutely. You cannot base your culture on money. Money makes, unfortunately, the world go
around right now, but we can’t identify who we are by the amount of money we make. If we are
McFarlane 44
a corporation that failed miserable – we had to liquidate everything – we’re still going to be
Alaska Natives. We have no value financially. We’re human beings, and to isolate your culture on
an economic value is impossible. It doesn’t make sense at all. That’s ridiculous. We don’t have a
choice but to try to operate our corporations as Alaska Natives.” (Brad Angasan, in McClanahan
2000)
One sign of the youth group “Rebels to the Pebble”, declares “your land loves you: love it back”.
Another group, Nunamta Aulukestai (Caretakers of Our Land) formed a coalition of villages in
2001 to protest the mine and protect the land from any industrial development. Dillingham-born
Vernor Wilson argues that a unique spirit of community has formed between sport anglers,
lodge owners, commercial fishermen and Native Alaskans, conceiving an ethic of loving the land
which is binding people together in the struggle12.
ANCSA had different effects across Alaska, producing internal differences and various meanings
to corporate and subsistence values. Colt (2001) suggested that both winners and losers were
created by ANCSA, and regions such as NANA, a “new harpoon” economy has not sold out on
cultural pursuits for wage employment, but maintained both strong social ties to Native identity
and pursued what we might consider conventional economic development. Currently, the Bristol
Bay Native Corporation maintains an official neutral position on the Pebble project. The limits of
corporate social responsibility are being tested by increasing claims to cultural sovereignty.
Subsistence cross-cuts many usual dichotomies of public-private, work-play, productionconsumption; it provides “an arena in which membership, allegiance, and role-appropriate
competence are portrayed” (Hensel 1996, p. 104). Subsistence is an identity marker for Native
Alaska’s, patterned on interactions discussing the land, or performing activities on the land. PLP
does not seem to be receiving this important message still. Instead, an outside stakeholder
engagement consultancy was hired to fix the social interaction problem.
12
Personal communication 7/2/09.
McFarlane 45
B. The Keystone Center
In 2007, Pebble Limited Partnership employed the Keystone Center to report on stakeholder
issues and community discussions of “sustainable mining options” at Pebble. In September 2008,
Todd Bryan submitted the draft Stakeholder Assessment and Dialogue Feasibility Study for the
Proposed Pebble Project Southwest Alaska (Bryan 2008). The document categorizes five
stakeholder groups, identifies environmental, social, and economic issues, and recommends a
three-staged “Keystone Dialogue Process”, including independent science panels, joint fact
finding, and project planning collaboration. Although Anglo American discounts the exercise as
“academic”13, Keystone’s involvement signifies two important points: the existence of
competing cultural understandings associated with “sustainable mining” in Bristol Bay, and the
asymmetric power relations in current decision-making processes disparaging cultural conflict.
The idea of free, prior, informed consent (FPIC) for resource development has faded, replaced by
the new sustainability and social licensing heuristics. The Keystone Center is an arbitrator of
sustainable development, and at Pebble, a key leverage point for acquiring their social license to
operate. They claim to inform citizens, develop social empowerment, and help solve society’s
challenging problems; their SD mandate is clarified in documents and their website,
http://www.keystone.org/ :
“The Keystone Center is a non-profit organization founded in 1975 to ensure that present and
future generations approach environmental and scientific dilemmas and disagreements
creatively and proactively.” (Bryan 2008)
Previously, Keystone played in Papau New Guinea, at the Ok Tedi mine dilemma, one of the
worst sustainability disasters of the world (Adler, Brewer and McGee 2007). Ok Tedi earns 20%
of PNG’s gross domestic product, but following twenty-five years of riverine tailings disposal and
chemical spills, massively damaged the lives of 50,000 people along the Fly River system that
were subsisting on the area and its resources. Keystone came to “redress” people on the Fly
13
Personal communication 15/4/09.
McFarlane 46
River system, and fix long-term liabilities towards communities impacted by environmental
destruction.
The significant risks to water and salmon in Bristol Bay have already been studied and shared by
Alaskans outside the state permitting process, including tribal councils, villages, students, and
civic groups14. While Keystone is yet another outside group contracted to help solve the
technical and political environmental risks at Pebble, their expertise is admittedly social,
employed to establish a “long-term, structured stakeholder dialogue process”. Historically
linking to the leader’s of the American Revolution, Keystone assumes their dialogue process
between science and society is a harbinger of social empowerment. Democratic values of
American society are certainly reflected in their prospectus: Keystone provides “independent
facilitation…a [consensus-based] multi-stakeholder steering group…participation that is open to
all and…from a broad range of perspectives”.
1. Analysis of “The Dialogue”
Keystone in 2008 began a social assessment for PLP, to determine stakeholders and dialogue
processes to move the development proposal forward. Is this neutral? The Alaska DNR has a
process in place to ensure management decisions and permitting decisions for such projects
represent broad-based, multiple-use agreement in line with balancing conservation and
development goals. Keystone represents a new sustainable development framework, an
external organization to both Bristol Bay and Alaska. They are the key protagonist in the
"sustainability conflict", and their first proposition is a workshop to introduce Keystone politics,
or as they call it "interest-based negotiation skills" - as a way of neutralizing the existing
polarization created in the media battle of 2008. The timing of Keystone’s engagement program
dovetailed the pro-Pebble results after the Ballot Measure #4 vote. Could it have been a
14
See Andrew 2008 and http://www.ak2uk.com/the-protection-effort.html (accessed 26/4/09)
McFarlane 47
strategy of Pebble, Anglo American, or Northern Dynasy to ignite a polarized media debate? Or
is this the fault of the self-interested individuals and NGO opponents to the project?
The Keystone process suggests openness, transparency, and accountability, the democratic
values Westerners expect of positive stakeholder engagement and responsible mineral
development. Keystone symbolizes good governance, gathering stakeholders and listening to
their issues, informing scientists, planners, and decision-makers of the diverse understandings
and impacts of the Pebble mine proposal. But Keystone also fixates villages, leaders, and Bristol
Bay community groups, locking them into positions either for or against Pebble. For example,
the report’s lead author, Todd Bryan, acknowledges challenges to Keystone’s claimed neutrality
and objectivity:
“In fact, the assessment team discovered a contingent of stakeholders who are so opposed to
the proposed mine, and distrustful of anyone ‘working for Pebble,’ that they would not talk to
assessment team members. We found this with at least two representatives of advocacy
organizations and with three of the Alaska Native communities we hoped to visit (Nondalton,
Ekwok, and New Stuyahok).” (Bryan 2008)
The big question about Keystone's "Independence" is whether, for anthropologists, they
represent the moderate and radical position intended by Colin Filer (1999). Like the MMSD
engagement process, which Danielson (2004) concluded was led by a deadline-drive rather than
a consensus-driven model of sustainable development, Keystone took two weeks for
stakeholder input before they went travelling all across the Bristol Bay and Lake and Peninsula
region to talk with nearly one hundred people. Their assessment derives from the American
cultural vision of Thomas Jefferson (p. 26) that an "informed public is an empowered public".
Their moderate stance might by located in what they do not explicate in detail. The two largest
challenges to Pebble they identify, but do not address. One is the legitimacy and role of
traditional ecological knowledge. They would like to assume this away - as they are more
McFarlane 48
interested in the public-private relationship-building than cross-cultural negotiations - by
suggesting uncertainty about how to integrate science and traditional ecological knowledge
(TEK). The most likely scenario they provide is that individual TEK experts will be placed in the
independent science panels - a prescriptive process! That would entail finding a figurehead
Native from Bristol Bay to sit with other scientists talking a different language. How can
subsistence and sustainability be expected to just merge naturally by placing them at the same
table? The second challenge they do not reconcile is the problem of project planning
collaboration, their third recommendation to follow from the independent science panel and
joint-fact-finding stages. Joint fact finding is about gathering new information, following
recommendations from the science panels. Project planning collaboration assures that a middleground consensus will emerge (most likely to advance the project), because the perceived
"radicals" are kept away. These "outlying groups" represent the extreme positions of groups that
"oppose or see no need for a Dialogue" in an initial stakeholder mapping of the conflict. In
Keystone's assessment, these groups are not "essential for the project planning to move
forward." (Bryan 2008, p.23).
Additionally, Keystone's process explicitly seeks positioning stakeholders so that they represent
individual issues and perspectives. Especially, Keystone specifically enquires into the preordained losses from development, addressing: "commercial, sport, and subsistence fishing and
hunting; habitat loss and degradation; declining public health; and the loss and displacement of
Alaska Native culture" (Bryan 2008, p. 24) .This statement can indicate an assumption that the
mine will fail in those regards already. The proposed project planning collaboration will be
incredibly complex and is incredibly risky - perhaps why the Pebble management is not
committing to the idea. It requires incredible time and resources, and includes very complex
"goals, discussion guidelines, rules for reaching agreements, working with the media, working
with constituencies, and assurances that involvement does not represent acceptance or support
of a propose mine." (Bryan 25). Keystone justifies a failure by Alaskan political and management
processes, although provides no insight - or even mention - of the role played by Alaska Native
corporations since 1971 and the new organizational forms and new corporate worldviews they
have developed (Colt 2001, McClanahan 2006, Berger 1985, Anders and Anders 1986). Keystone
McFarlane 49
produces mediated information, new information, and data management services to the Pebble
industrial development proposal; it can hardly be expected to understand or negotiate issues of
cultural significance to Yup'ik, Aleut, Dena'ina and other tribal affiliations in Bristol Bay.
Keystone’s involvement has been major and fast, rapidly bringing in a wide range of
stakeholders, and leaving as quickly and quietly as it came. Since the autumn of 2008 they
contacted all stakeholders, visited all relevant regions in Anchorage, Bristol Bay, Lake and
Peninsula, and Kenai Peninsula and have recommended a Dialogue process which would
implicitly require their further involvement with the society's concerned. At first, Keystone
reminds a little bit of the story of judge Thomas Berger, visiting Alaskan communities in the late
1970s upset about ANCSA. As villages felt doomed to fail and other lawyers or consultants
swooped in to take advantage of bureaucratic struggles, Berger fought with Natives against the
structural marginalization of bureaucratic channels and federal commissions themselves (Berger
1985). In those journeys, the importance of subsistence was highlighted repeatedly, which
resisted any pre-inscribed models for involving people in resource management. Native
Alaskans, as the first and primary users of natural resources, have a unique understanding and
relation of their own that "sustainability" rarely perceives of beyond romanticizing.
Unconcerned with local culture or history of Euro-American transgressions, Keystone is hurtling
into this local conflict to inform people, but more importantly to mediate a social setting so that
everyone is ready to move forward with a three-stage process. The middle-class consumer may
relate to this model of doing responsible mineral development, and that is exactly what the
Pebble Limited Partnership expects as an outcome to “The Dialogue” at Pebble. This model is
inadequate in registering cross-cultural engagement or protecting environmental justice
concerns of local indigenous. Nevertheless, the intended mediation reflects a hidden cultural
encounter that requires another, different discourse analysis.
2. Concluding Keystone’s Mediation
McFarlane 50
Bristol Bay already has organizations dedicated to long-term decision-making and local,
intelligent processes to engage with the proposed mine. The fight in the media has maybe not
been about polarization (from the local point of view) between fish and minerals, but between
which context in which we understand and negotiate Pebble. Keystone identified stakeholder's
feelings of loss of control resulting from the state land management and planning. Keystone
questions whether the public policy context (managed by the state governor, legislature and
"Alaskan" people) or the technical context (the DNR Large Mine Permitting Team) is conducive
to dialogue. I support that neither of these procedures, nor the Keystone anti-politics machine,
recognize the legitimate socio-cultural meanings that influence perceptions in Bristol Bay.
McFarlane 51
V.
Alaska’s Discourse
“Resolution of land claims with the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) in 1971
accelerated resource development in the state, leading to an era of unprecedented economic
expansion.”
(Berman 2003)
In 1968, discovery of North America’s largest oil field – Prudhoe Bay15, on the North Slope of
Alaska – aligned political and economic interests to settle land claims with Alaska’s indigenous
peoples. Passing the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) in 1971, government
extinguished all aboriginal title to lands as well as hunting and fishing rights. ANCSA established
twelve regional corporations and over two hundred village corporations, obliging Native
Alaskans to the business world as managers and shareholders of capital, corporate assets, and
voting rights. Native Alaskans received an aggregate transfer of 44 million acres of land (about
10% of Alaska) and about $1 billion to share between corporations.
The second discourse in my analysis of the Pebble mine discursive event posits the historical
rights to subsistence worldviews which are undermined by state permitting protocols and a
construction of an “Alaskan” identity linked to hegemonic discourse. I highlight the fluid
positionality of Alaskans contextualizing the Bristol Bay resource encounter. At the Arctic
frontier, Alaska is continually shaped by outside media descriptions, prescribing land values that
balance conservation and development goals. The Alaskan discourse prides itself on a shared,
private ownership of the Pebble decision-making process, affirmed further following defeat of
the Clean Water Initiative, Ballot Measure #4, in 2008.
15
Alaska’s first large-scale industrial development – the Prudhoe Bay oil field – captured international attention in
1989 at the Exxon Valdez oil spill and still evokes battle cries between development and conservation forces in the
state.
McFarlane 52
A. Alaska, the Last Frontier
“It was in the following year, 1968, that I resigned my professorship, sold or gave away all my
possessions, and with my family moved to the Lake Illiamna wilderness.”
Bob Durr (1999) Down in Bristol Bay, p.217
Many of us who live in Alaska like to believe we are somehow different to the rest of the USA,
somehow more independent and self-sufficient, more wild and free. Alaska, the 49th state of the
USA, contains about 1/5th the land mass of the contiguous “lower 48”, and for the most part
does remain sparsely populated and independently-minded. Ideas about Alaska continue to
reflect the frontier ethic, boldly engrained in American literature, populare culture, and history.
The recent movies Grizzley Man and Into the Wild substantiate this construction today of Alaska,
promoting the frontier mentality, a place where one can start a brand new life, where nature
and human meet in raw flesh with no disguise. Neither of these documentaries captures the
dependence and addiction of Alaskans to extractive industries and government bailouts
however. Also, neither film features the one in five of us who are Native Alaskan Indians,
Eskimos or Aleuts. In Hollywood fashion, Alaska retains the wild, free, independent ideal which
appeals to the masses. One could see that Alaska is also fractured, differentiated, socially
diverse, but these relations are concealed in the realm of the Alaskan discourse.
Even literary scholars muddle up an accurate identification of Alaska. Bob Durr’s Down in Bristol
Bay (1999) tells his personal crusade story to prove his manhood commercial fishing in
Dillingham, Southwest Alaska. Durr acknowledges the “ancient wisdom” and subsistence
livelihood of its’ indigenous peoples, but chooses the dangerous and lucrative path with “D Inn
Crowd” of local fishermen philosophers/alcoholics. There is a lack of academic responsibility
incorporated into this narrated text, a lack of critical analysis into the hard issues in that rural
part of Alaska. Alcoholism is the single greatest scourge facing Native Alaskans – it is my
generation’s “Great Sickness”. Velma Wallis, Harold Napoleon, and many other regarded Native
McFarlane 53
Alaskan authors mobilized villages towards healing and community values – but Durr chooses
otherwise. Like other free-minded individualists who visit, tour or move to Alaska, Durr ignores
the actual politics of Native Alaskans and leaves them in a romantic box on a cabin shelf. He’d
rather go killing some fish and Jim Bean instead. Other tourists and mediators of Alaskan
symbolism partake on cruise ships through the Southeast of the state, the famous “Inside
Passage”. There, they wonder at the endless islands carpeted by thick old growth cedar forests,
but they never see the forests on the other side of the islands that have been clear-cut
(Dombrowski 2001). The Alaskan discourse hides meanings of subsistence and sustainability, an
important struggle within the Pebble permitting process. ANCSA is critical to understanding how
Alaskan’s perceive the Pebble project in a holistic, long-term perspective.
McFarlane 54
B. Historical Injustice
The late 1960s were a time of struggle for indigenous people of Alaska. Shortly after oil was
discovered on the North Slope in Prudhoe Bay (the largest reserve in North America), Federal
government sought a settlement of land ownership with the area’s ancestral people. The Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 changed significantly legal and social relations among
Native Alaskans, and between Natives and the white majority. ANCSA divided Alaska into twelve
regions according to broadly identified linguistic and cultural categories – this constituted twelve
distinct peoples sharing common identities. Another group was established for Alaska Natives
living outside of the state during passage of the Act. The thirteen groups were turned into
corporations, the profit-focused organizational entity, and the US federal government granted a
$1 billion sum and forty-four million acres of land, shared equally according to population
estimates. Over 200 native villages were also corporatized. Each Native Alaska living in 1971 of
at least one-quarter blood received 100 shares of regional stock in their corporation, and
another 100 shares under their village corporation.
By the 1980s there was great frustration with how ANSCA was playing out, and great fears about
the future loss of all Native land by gradual non-Native sales of stock. Thomas Berger, an
Canadian ex-Supreme Court judge who orchestrated the comprehensive inquiry into native land
claims under the Mackenzie Pipeline proposal in Northwest Canada , toured throughout Alaska
on a similar expedition. Visiting over 60 communities and hearing hundreds of witness
testimony, his stories in Village Journeys (1985) reflect a serious problem about ANCSA: shortterm political goals to develop on the North Slope usurped traditional tribal communities and
cultures, cutting them off from their subsistence lands.
Additionally, while Title VIII of ANILCA (Alaska National Interest Land Conservation Agreement)
protects Alaskan subsistence rights, the stipulation is “rural” and not “Native” meaning
marginalization of the latter, already impoverished group, is a State priority. It is why the Alaska
McFarlane 55
Federation of Native (political lobby group) aimed their 2008 number one priority in Washington
D.C. (again) as “Protection of Subsistence Hunting, Fishing and Gathering in Alaska.”
Conflicting images of Alaska’s land o
ownership resulted from the land-use
use decisions during
ANCSA. Federally-managed
managed lands, mostly for conservation as National Parks, constitute the
majority of areas, and the state selected certain lands it could to develop for long-term
long
economic and environmental
tal values. Native corporations were designated into the twelve
different regions, but own and manage only a small area. Pebble proponents claim that the land
in Bristol Bay where the proposed mine sits was selected specifically for mineral development,
and
d prudent use should bring the project, at least, to the permitting agency for review.
Figure 8.. Who Owns Bristol Bay? Above, a map locating the twelve Native Alaskan Corporate regions
(www.firstalaskans.org); below,
elow, a legal land status map displaying the dissproportionate share of federal land ownership
and management under the Alaska Constitution of Alaska. The large tan area of Bristol Bay has been earmarked for
mineral development by state and federal institu
institutions. (www.gov.state.ak.us)
McFarlane 56
Since Alaska’s earliest contact between Euro
Euro-Americans
Americans and Native Alaskans, resource
extraction has set the place and pace of social interaction. Bountiful furs, fish, minerals, and
timber
imber lured foreigners to the barren coasts and boreal forests. Fish more than gold was the
issue of foreign ownership upsetting a large enough consensus of non
non-Native
Native Alaskans in 1959 to
declare Statehood. With the rise of environmentalism, conservation llegislation,
egislation, and popular
media disgusted by the perceived consumptive lifestyle of America, another new frontier was
constructed for Alaska, a social last frontier. Without consent of Native Alaskans, resource
management at the Pebble prospect continues to reflect specific values not shared across
cultures.
More than half the world’s mines are built on indigenous land. The social history of these
relations is told in stories,, in most cases, of loss and suffering, extraction and assimilation.
assimilation At
Pebble, the debate centers on environmental impacts and job creation. The prudential use of
natural resources stated in Alaska’s Constitution prescribes a pragmatic view of Pebble:
economic development and environmental conservation. Another key stake
stakeholder
holder – Bristol Bay
Native Corporation (BBNC) – demonstrates strong political and economic agency, as well as a
McFarlane 57
different corporate strategy reflecting its unique position, but BBNC is relegated away from the
permitting process.
Native Alaskans have no legal right to subsistence. Evon Peter, Gwich’in leader of Native
Movement frames history as unjust Western acquisition through theft, exploitation, and
assimilation: “It is a common Western tactic in colonizing indigenous peoples and our lands –
incite division, co-opt leaders, and force assimilation.”16 Within a paradigm of “sustainability”, a
broad and equal array of stakeholder positions are staked, existing as equals under the
environmental, economic, and social umbrella. A new conflict is caused at Pebble mine when
this mechanism forces both conservation and development without regard to other worldviews.
The development and health of a Native community is not necessarily defined by a healthy
mitigated environment, productive and developed economy, or vibrant and diverse society, but
by strategic change and adaptation. Subsistence rights have been extinguished three times in
the short history of Alaska: Treaty of Cession (1867), Statehood Act (1959) and Alaska Native
Claims Settlement Agreement (1971). Strong native regional corporations demonstrate the
resilience, adaptability and continuity of Native Alaskan leaders and their communities.
16
http://www.grist.org/comments/interactivist/2006/02/06/peter/index1.html (accessed 24 March
2009)
McFarlane 58
C. Permitting Conservation and Development
“Let’s talk marketing…the iconic image of Alaska as America’s (if not the world’s) premier wild
fishery – the Holy Water….is a far sexier sell, even as a conservation cause. Glaciers, grizzly bears,
salmon. This is the Alaska we all know of from the Discovery Channel. Pure, wild, and
sacrosanct.”
Joseph Daniel (2009) “The Pebble Mine Nightmare”17
As far as telling a good story about contested developments, one should follow the money trail.
Colt’s (2001) study of the economic value of healthy Alaskan ecosystems calculates that the net
economic value of subsistence (according to substitutes) is $1.7 billion. The existence value of
Alaska, on the other hand (according to substitutes), is $30 billion nationally, or about $180
billion internationally. The simplistic description of these results is that the environment is prized
much more highly than the culture of remote, rural Alaska. Thus, just like the lump sum ANCSA
payments –significant at the time (~$1 billion) –pricing fails miserably to describe the real value
of things. Subsistence practice values things in relation to other things, between humans and
animals. In Alaska, subsistence is over one hundred times cheaper to replace than the image of a
pristine wilderness, and therefore one shouldn’t misunderstand how marketing efforts by
opposition groups will give only cursory – some might say ceremonial – acknowledgement to
Native ideas. However, if the DNR has any interest in locally important indicators of human
development, such as fate control, language retention, or cultural continuity, they might try to
ask different questions during the task working group sessions. When Jay Hammond, a Bristol
Bay resident himself, asked – do the people want it? – he actually went straight to those people
and asked them, regardless of any animosity, fear, anger, or other emotions; the harsh,
pragmatic truth needed to be exposed. Hammond did risk losing political credit, but his unique
style attempted to instill the ideal iterated by Berger (1996): the culture of a people has no price.
17
Daniel, J. (2009) “The Pebble Nightmare” Trout Unlimited http://www.wildonthefly.com (accessed 22/4/09)
McFarlane 59
The DNR supports rational objectives in balancing ecosystem loss with economic gain,
attempting to represent Alaska as a single unitary politic. The state structure de-legitimates
tribal self-determination and discourages cultural politics and Bristol Bay indigenous voices.
Baseline studies reify the struggle between conservation and development, producing prestaked out positions that Natives then come to occupy. We know already what dispositions and
arguments to expect in these performances. Negotiations and cultural conflict must be expected
over any shared natural resource, especially in the frontier of Alaska, but the stereotypes and
characterizations produced via rapid permitting agencies with rushed deadlines situates both
produce and receiver in incomplete social relations. The knowledge gained by the permitting
process is authentic only to the Alaskan’s who are defining authenticity.
McFarlane 60
D. Strange Bedfellows and Green Alliances?
Ali (1999, 2003) analyzes indigenous resource development contexts according to a planning and
land management strategies. Looking at decision-making potential of two mutually opposed
groups – government and industry, and the indigenous and environmental NGOs – he is wary of
the usurpation of subsistence ideology accorded in green alliances. At Pebble, similar
transactions occur, endangering the proposition by DNR of a balanced and neutral stakeholder
engagement and permitting process. According to Ali, the situation is not that at all, and
determining what the best-alternative to the development is often reveals that NGOs do not
have the same bargaining interests as indigenous groups, because they have a better bestalternative. Is the Pebble resistance a case of strange bedfellows or tenuous green alliances? Do
the opponents of Pebble embody the transparency and disclosure principles they demand from
others? Alaska is known for acquiring many strange characters fleeing to the great North, often
in search of their own personally consumption, or piece of the good life.
Bristol Bay lodge-owner Bob Gillam largely self-financed the 2008 media battle against Pebble
mine. He has a vested interest in conserving his private property near the proposed mine site,
even though it is over twenty miles away, on Lake Iliamna. He is a wealthy non-Native resident
who offers financial strings to the anti-Pebble contingency, but it could also be that he is playing
both sides in order to cash in on some settlement later on in the agreement (Bluemink 2008).
Another strange bedfellow of the Pebble resistance consists of the team, directors Travis
Rummel and Ben Knight. Producing the popular film “Red Gold” – which depicts the Native
Alaskan, sport angler, and commercial fishermen coalition fighting Pebble – they have
transformed the perspectives of Alaskans. Rummel and Knight spent a short fishing season
interviewing people in Bristol Bay, and let the story speak for itself in the video, although it was
commissioned by sport fishing company Trout Unlimited and gives most time to the story of the
fly fishing on the Nushagak River. The moving image has been a symbolic force used by Nunamta
Aulukestai and other local organizations fighting the mine. Are these green alliances? What is
the responsibility in relating positions with or without Native Alaskans, for or against the Pebble
McFarlane 61
mine? An Alaskan discourse indicates that Pebble permitting does not integrate a socio-historical
lens into the cultural impact assessment. The state’s large mine permitting team chooses to not
take on board any ideas of indigenous empowerment.
McFarlane 62
VI.
Fish Talk
Figure 9. Drying salmon at a fish camp in Alaska (Wilson 2008)
“I understand that there have been commissions in the past that have said the exact same thing
we are saying. But we can no longer ignore the Alaska Native community. They have to
recognize tribal government in Alaska. If they fail to do that, then I don’t know what the State of
Alaska is going to do because we as Alaska Natives will continue to live, continue the right to
self-management no matter what. I will still hunt. I will still live in the village no matter what rule
or paper they put in front of me. I’ll still be a fisherman.”
McFarlane 63
Brad Angasan, Bristol Bay Native Corporation shareholder18
“Currently, the Bristol Bay watershed is teeming with life -- crystal clear expanses of water and
vast wide open tundra etched with rivers and lakes, pools and puddles. There is little trace of
human presence. Mineral development will bring roads, infrastructure and access routes to
these remote areas, in addition to toxic dust, acidified water, dead fish and deep scars on our
land.”
Bobby Andrew, Nunamta Aulukestai (Caretakers of Our Land)19
The clean, wild salmon of the Nushagak and Kvichak rivers are threatened near the proposed
Pebble mine. But fish embody more than an economic or environmental meaning; Bristol Bay
salmon link sustainability and subsistence discourses at Pebble. This third discourse explores the
centrifugal symbol of Pebble – red salmon - which remain the renewable resource, cultural
identity and source of all life in Bristol Bay. Salmon have always been a source of social conflict
in Alaska. The Pebble mine qualifies the diagrammatical sustainability and subsistence lifeworlds which vie to reshape coastal and rural Alaskan communities.
Bristol Bay remains a marginalized site of today’s globalized markets and overseas competition,
still a “fisherman’s frontier” that shapes social organization and spiritual relationships between
animals and people. In a sustainability discourse, property rights and notions of antiquity link
modern and traditional notions of fishing; it provides common ground to sport, commercial, and
subsistence users who rarely agree on fishery management. Representations of subsistence
ideology is appropriated by many non-Natives seeking to gain an “aboriginal mind”, or some
providential, authentic, primordial wisdom which Native culture assumedly sustains:
“Commercial salmon fishing could be the way to make it out of the world of words and back to
18
Angansan, B. (2000) in McClanahan, A. (2000) Growing up Native in Alaska, Anchorage: CIRI Foundation, p.142.
Andrew, B. (2008)“BLM management plan endangers Bristol Bay native culture” Anchorage Daily News
http://www.adn.com (accessed 24/4/09)
19
McFarlane 64
earth” (Durr 1996, p.5). The valorization of subsistence discourse reflects egoism contained
within sustainability ideology: reflecting from a perception of a broken, unjust Earth, the good
life is constructed through difference. “Frontier” Bristol Bay offer’s an escape from
unsustainable society and culture. Further, justified by its’ own economic make-up, sustainability
offer’s a $30 billion “existence value” to Bristol Bay, whereas subsistence use generates less than
$2 billion (Colt 2001). This discourse of sustainability upholds the existence of Bristol Bay,
marginalizing subsistence practice.
Figure 10 Salmon populations at three headwaters of the Nushagak and Kvichak rivers (Woody 2009)
All major salmon and fish species inhabit the area of the Pebble mine site, mill, tailings
impoundment, and water extraction area (See figure 10). The Nushagak and Kvichak watersheds
McFarlane 65
have been utilized differently and by multiple groups over two hundred years, but they continue
to organize shared understandings and perceptions, such as Pebble mine presents. Bristol stocks
in global perspectives are unique: the amalgam of discrete spawning populations has sustained
their productivity and “biocomplexity” unlike anywhere else on the planet (Hilborn, Quinn,
Schindler and Rogers 2003). The scientific perspective is flawed however, by the polarization it
encounters in the realm of politics. The “sustainability” of the Bristol Bay wild salmon industry (if
it exists economically) is increasingly distinguished by limited access. Fewer Native villagers and
more fishermen from the western states Washington and Oregon, define commercial fishing
practices. The perception of a local, renewable commercial fishery is challenged. Even the
environmental and cultural record might be scrutinized. In the environmental documentary Red
Gold, a seamless connection between Native history and culture with contemporary mixed
fishery practices misrepresents the dualism in Bristol Bay. While Wilson (2008) and other Bristol
Natives applaud the unusual cooperation from the various salmon interests, the concept of
cooperative watershed management has not been at the forefront of the Pebble permitting
process, despite strong efforts by the Nushagak-Mulchatna Watershed Council (2004).
McFarlane 66
A. ”No Net Loss” or the Promise of Salmon
According to the Pebble Limited Partnership, a “no net loss” policy justifies the promise of
salmon and economic development (NMWC 2004). Salmon is the primary subsistence harvest in
Bristol Bay, consumed as the staple diet by nearly every Native and non-Native household
(Wilson 2008). The nourishment salmon harvesting sustain go beyond cultural continuity or
healthy diets to provide an eclectic social mixture of commercial fishermen, Native Alaskans, and
sport anglers. The 42 million salmon returning to their original waters in 2008 offer a shared
livelihood transecting subsistence and sustainability discourse (Woody 2009). The decision to
permit Pebble’s development hinges on understandings and relationships to the sockeye salmon
which empower or disparage these social relations. The “social license to operate” sought by
Pebble’s CEO John Shivley demands differentiating the different meanings of salmon to
prescribed science and cultural values. Accordingly, separate social, environmental, and
economic costs and benefits can be determined, estimated, and mitigated during policing of the
mine. The social licensing process necessitates a dualist construction of industry, against the
emerging engineering theory of industrial ecology. Social licensing requires casting industry
against industry, to gain political capital for the project to advance; at Pebble, this denies the
fishery resource a plural construction via different actors. Pro-mining organizations challenge
the economic sustainability of Bristol, stating correctly that the rise of farmed salmon depresses
the price received by commercial fishermen (Knapp 2004, Clark et. al. 2006, Rand 2008). Social
licensing becomes a cultural practice as well as corporate strategy, neutralizing cultural values
and reducing perspectives to quantitative analysis. Even within this latter analysis, fisheries
biologists have become critical of documentation methods. Carol Ann Woody resigned from the
permitting studies at Pebble mine when her critical insights into complex, long-term analysis was
denied. The “baseline” studies that CEO Shivley champions are perhaps less concerned with
mobilizing economic justification against salmon fishing than to subordinate all knowledge
production to a common social cause, i.e. The Pebble Project.
McFarlane 67
B. “The No. 1 Source of Life”
“Today, perhaps the best that can be hoped for is an increased awareness on the part of nonnative researchers, managers, and politicians of the meaningful organization of Yup’ik social
relations, particularly human/animal relations, according to a cultural logic very different from
their own. Even with such an awareness, conflict will likely continue in the arena of fisheries
development and game management.” (Fienup-Riordan 1990, p.183)
The first Bristol Bay fishermen were indigenous Yup’ik, Aleut, Alutiiqq, and Athapaskans. Their
historic patterns of social organization and unique cultural meanings with salmon still evoke
controversy with Euro-American scholars as we try to understand the aboriginal salmon fishery
(William 2008). In opposing Pebble as they stand in relation to the development, Native Alaskans
play to a sustainability tune which scientists, NGOs, citizen-activists, and policy-makers can hear
in Anchorage, Vancouver, and London. Salmon are the pivotal link between human health,
environmental health, and socio-economic change throughout history in Bristol Bay. The humansalmon relationship integrates multiple perspectives and helps us to understand long-range
change affecting remote, rural Alaskan communities (Loring and Gerlach 2008). The unique
relationship Native’s share with the fish challenge other organizations of principles guiding
resource decision-making. Salmon will be maintained as the number one source of life in Bristol
Bay, fought for by Natives and non-Natives alike.
McFarlane 68
VII. Conclusion
“The only way I’d be assured that it was being done right is for my own people to be doing the
job, and I think in that we do have some protection, some safety… But, the only thing that’s
really constant is change, you know, so you deal with it.”
Eleanor Johnson, Nondalton Resident20
“We think we’re the richest people on Earth, hahaha! It’s just a matter of mindset. If you’re a
poor fisherman, and you can see the beauty in everything, you got a wonderful life!”
Mayor of Nushagak Point21(Red Gold 2007)
In Bristol Bay, Alaska, sustainable development has always existed. At the proposal of Pebble
mine, new terminology risks undermining claims for sovereignty. Bristol Bay Native Alaskans
engage with Pebble at junctures between their historical subsistence culture and the new
encounter with sustainability discourse. Localizing decision-making may increase the perception
of conflict, but the value of sharing and conserving resources over multi-generational
timeframes is represented in Alaskan constitutional mandates and natural communal heritage of
varied people. The three discourses presented here – mediated, Alaskan, and fish talk – offer
only a limited perception of competing realities at the Pebble mine development.
At the end of the North American continent, Alaska has a unique connection to the “outside”.
The economy is dependent on the petroleum sector and federal government, while the
environment is claimed by distant perceptions and values about “the last frontier”. Society is a
20
IDC (Iliamna Development Corporation) (2008) “Bristol Bay Voices” video from Engaging Communities
http://www.engagingcommunities.com/ (accessed 28/4/09).
21
Rummel, T. and Knight, B. (2007) “Red Gold”. Filmed by Felt Soul Media
http://www.feltsoulmedia.com/main.html (accessed 6/11/08)
McFarlane 69
constantly changing amalgam of cultures and traditions. How can competing discourse control
and transform the Pebble mine? Will Pebble mine contribute to subsistence?
The clear opposition from local residents and tribal members of Bristol Bay must indicate to the
State of Alaska and Pebble Limited Partnership that we are not on common ground. But if we reevaluate our discourses, history, positions, and our salmon, we might choose the same water to
swim in together. We must continue striving to educate ourselves and share views about the
Pebble proposal, including subsistence discourse and practices. Every summer in the Nushagak
and Kvichak rivers, salmon in the millions swim together upstream to spawn, surviving the
Pacific Ocean and Brown Bears along their journey, reaching the exact same creek where they
were born. Their prolific struggle culminates in the fertilization of a new generation, and then
their life ends. Support salmon. Subsist on sustainable salmon. Alaskans have to think about
Pebble mine now; you are either sustaining the salmon or subsisting with salmon. Positive
resource relations depend on political risk and cultural survival: subsist with salmon.
McFarlane 70
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BBNC (Bristol Bay Native Corporation) (2007) “Home page” http://www.bbnc.net (accessed 25/4/09)
Bluemink, E. (2009) “The Pebble Blog” http://community.adn.com/adn/blog/61223 (accessed 23/4/09)
Bristol Bay Alliance (2007) “Home page” http://www.bristolbayalliance.com/ (accessed 24/4/09)
DEC (Department of Environmental Conservation of the State of Alaska) (2008) “Red Dog mine”
http://www.dec.state.ak.us/spar/csp/sites/reddog.htm (accessed 2/12/08)
Engaging Communities (2008) “Home page” http://www.engagingcommunities.com/ (accessed 4/28/09)
EPA (Environmental Protection Agency of the U.S.) (2007) “Home page” http://www.reddogseis.com (accessed
4/12/08)
Eye on Pebble Mine (2008) “Home page” http://eyeonpebblemine.org/ (accessed 25/4/09)
Keystone Center (2009) “Home page” http://www.keystone.org/ (accessed 26/4/09)
McKittrick, E. (2007) “Pebble Mine” Alaska Ground Truth Trekking http://www.aktrekking.com/ (accessed 24/4/09)
NANA (Northwest Arctic Native Association) (2009) “Home page” http://www.nana.com (accessed 4/12/08)
Pebble Limited Partnership (2009) “Home page” http://www.pebblepartnership.com/ (accessed 23/4/09)
Pebble Mine Alaska (2008) “Home page” http://www.pebbleminealaska.com (accessed 24/4/09)
Red Dog Alaska (2009) “Home page” http://www.reddogalaska.com (accessed 4/12/08)
Renewable Resources Coalition (2009) “Home page” http://www.renewableresourcescoalition.org (accessed
24/4/09)
Resource Media (2009) “AK2UK Home Page” http://www.ak2uk.com/ (accessed 14/4/09)
Stop Pebble Mine (2009) “Home page” http://www.stoppebblemine.com/ (accessed 24/4/09)
Teck Cominco (2009) “Home page” http://www.teckcominco.com (accessed 4/12/08)
TAP (Truth About Pebble) (2007) “Home page” http://truthaboutpebble.org/Default.aspx (accessed14/10/08)
TU (Trout Unlimited) (2008) “Home page” http://www.savebristolbay.org (accessed 24/4/09)
McFarlane 78
Appendix A: Ethics Self-Assessment Form
Approval Code:
UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS TEACHING AND RESEARCH
ETHICS COMMITTEE (UTREC)
ETHICAL APPLICATION FORM
Researchers
Name(s):
Dylan Elek McFarlane
School/Unit:
Please indicate
Geography & Geosciences/Sustainable
Development
Email(s): [email protected]
Please Tick:
Staff
Postgraduate
Undergraduate
(Module Code):
(double click on the box then click ‘Checked’ for a cross to appear in the box)
Project Title:
Supervisor(s):
SD4002
Discourse Analysis of the Pebble Mine Conflict in Bristol Bay, Alaska
Tony Crook, Jan Bebbington
Date:
08/12/08
Applications should be submitted electronically to either the Secretary or Convenor of the School Ethics
Committee as one single file containing all relevant documents. The email containing the application must
have the Researcher(s)’ name in the ‘subject’ box. e.g. ‘Ethics Application – Smith’
One original hard copy must also be submitted with the signatures of all applicants and supervisors.
Rationale: Please detail the project in ‘lay language’ This summary will be reviewed
by UTREC and may be published as part of its reporting procedures.
Do NOT exceed 75 words - approx 5 lines (for database reasons). Elucidation, if required, can be
given in Q 31.
This project analyzes how different stakeholders (including me) in the Pebble Mine
development project perceive and process various information and symbols during
engagement and negotiation about the mine and concepts of sustainable development.
Semi-structured interviews are an integral aspect in addition to a literature review and
reflective journal.
Ethical
Considerations: Please detail the main ethical considerations raised by the project, concentrating on any
issues raised specifically in the red sections, and addressing, where appropriate, the issue of whether basic
McFarlane 79
ethical criteria has been met in all supporting documentation and if not why not. This summary will be
reviewed by UTREC and may be published as part of its reporting procedures.
Do NOT exceed 75 words - approx 5 lines (for database reasons). Elucidation, if required, can be given
in Q 31
Disclosure of culturally sensitive material, or information of management strategy is
strictly managed through anonymity and disclosure agreements.
If ethical approval has been obtained from the University of St Andrews for research so similar to this
project that a new review process may not be required, please give details of the application and the date of
its approval:
Approval Code:
Date Approved:
Project Title:
Researchers
Name(s):
RESEARCH INFORMATION
1. Estimated Start Date:
10 January 2009
2. Estimated Duration of
1-1.5 months
Project:
YES
3. Is this research funded by an external sponsor or agency?
NO
If YES please give
details:
For projects funded by ESRC please be aware of the Ethical and Legal Considerations found at
http://www.esds.ac.uk/aandp/create/ethical.asp
4. Does this research entail collaboration with other researchers?
YES
NO
YES
NO
If YES state names and
institutions of
collaborators:
5. If the research is collaborative has a framework been devised to
ensure that all participants are given appropriate recognition in
any outputs?
N/A
McFarlane 80
YES
NO
N/A
research, intellectual property, publication strategies/authorship,
responsibilities to funders, research with policy or other implications etc, have you taken appropriate steps
to address these issues?
6. Where projects raise ethical considerations to do with roles in
7. Location of
Research/Fieldwork to
be conducted:
Anstruther, Fife, KY10 3EA Scotland
8. Is this research solely concerned with
a. Published secondary data sources?
YES
NO
YES
NO
curator?
If you have answered yes to Q8a or 8b but the project has other ethical considerations please go to
Q12, Q30 & Q 31. If there are no other ethical considerations please sign and submit the form.
b. Unpublished data but with appropriate permission, e.g. an archive
9. Who are the Intended
Participants (e.g. students)
and how will you recruit
them?
10. Estimated duration of
Pebble Mine development stakeholders (Bristol Bay locals, mining
industry employees, government officials, etc.) recruited via email contact.
1 – 1.5 hrs
Participant Involvement
ETHICAL CHECKLIST
11. Have you obtained permission to access the site of research?
If YES state agency
/authority etc… &
provide documentation
If NO please indicate why.
N/A
YES
NO
McFarlane 81
N/A
YES NO
12. Where appropriate has ethical approval been sought and obtained from an
external body e.g. NRES/LREC or other UK Universities? If YES, please attach
a copy of the external application and approval.
13. Will you tell participants that their participation is voluntary?
14. Will you describe the main project/experimental procedures to participants in
advance so that they can make an informed decision about whether or not to
participate?
15. Will you tell participants that they may withdraw from the research at any time
and for any reason, without having to give an explanation?
16. Please answer either a. or b.
a. Will you obtain written consent from participants?
b. (Social Anthropology Geography/Geosciences & Biology only)
Will you obtain written consent from participants, in those cases where it is
appropriate?
17. Please answer either a. or b.
a. If the research is photographed or videoed or taped or observational, will
you ask participants for their consent to being photographed or videoed or
taped or observed?
b. (Social Anthropology & Biology only)
Will participants be free to reject the use of intrusive research methods such
as audio-visual recorders and photography?
18. Will you tell participants that their data will be treated with full confidentiality
and that if published, it will not be identifiable as theirs?
19. Will participants be clearly informed of how the data will be stored, who will
have access to it, and when the data will be destroyed?
20. Will you debrief participants at the end of their participation, i.e. give them a
brief explanation in writing of the study?
21. With questionnaires and/or interviews, will you give participants the option of
omitting questions they do not want to answer?
If you have answered NO to any question 11 - 21, please give a brief explanation in the statement of Ethical
Considerations on Page. 1, and expand in Q31 if necessary. If you answer YES, it must be clearly illustrated
in the relevant paperwork which must be attached i.e. Participant Information Sheet, Consent Form,
Debriefing Form, Questionnaires, Advertisement, etc…
WORKING WITH CHILDREN/VULNERABLE PEOPLE
Do participants fall into any of the following special groups? If they do, please tick the appropriate answer,
refer to the relevant guidelines and complete Q31.
McFarlane 82
YES NO
22.
a. Children (under 18 years of age)
b. People with learning or communication difficulties
c. Patients (including carers of NHS patients)
d. People in custody
e. Institutionalised persons
f. People engaged in illegal activities e.g. drug-taking
g. Other vulnerable groups
If you have answered YES to Q22 you must obtain Enhanced Disclosure Scotland approval.
Furthermore, you may need to obtain Education Authority, Police, LREC (NHS) clearance.
N/A
YES NO
N/A
YES NO
23. If working with children, institutionalised person(s) or vulnerable people, do you
have:
1. Your Enhanced Disclosure Scotland Certificate?
2. If you have been in the UK for less than a year, equivalent
documentation from the countries you have resided in? Information
on what is required can be obtained from UTREC.
If YES a copy (or copies) must be submitted with this application to be retained
by the School. If NO please explain in Q31.
24. If working with children or vulnerable people, have you constructed appropriate
letters to, e.g. parents, children, headteachers, carers, institutions, police, etc.
RISK AND SAFETY
25. Are any of the participants in a dependent relationship with the investigator e.g.
lecturer/student? If YES, please give full explanation in Q31.
26. Will your project involve deliberately misleading participants in any way? If
YES, give details in Q31 and state why it is necessary and explain how
debriefing will occur.
27. Is there any realistic risk to any paid or unpaid participant(s), field assistant(s),
helper(s) or student(s), involved in the project, experiencing either physical or
psychological distress or discomfort? If YES, give details in Q31 and state what
you will do if they should experience any problems e.g. who to contact for help.
28. Is there any realistic risk to the investigator? If YES, have the appropriate risk
assessment forms been submitted to the appropriate Safety Committee(s)?
29. (Bute Medical School & Biology only) Have appropriate chemical, radiation and
biological (including GMAG) risk assessments been submitted to the
appropriate Safety Committee for approval?
30. Do you think the processes, including any results, of your research have the
potential to cause any damage, harm or other problems for people in your study
McFarlane 83
area? If YES please explain in Q31 and indicate how you will seek to obviate
the effects.
There is an obligation on the Lead Researcher & Supervisor to bring to the attention of the School Ethics
Committee (SEC) any issues with ethical implications not clearly covered by the above checklist.
ETHICAL STATEMENT
31. Write a clear but concise statement of the ethical considerations raised by the project and how you
intend to deal with them. It may be that in order to do this you need to expand on the Ethical
Considerations on page.1.
Disclosure of culturally sensitive material is the most important ethical consideration. Bristol Bay Aleuts,
Intuits, and Athapaskans who participate in interviews have the authority to participate in the study in the
manner they see most fitting, the objective being not research in itself, but “co-research” about the Pebble
Mine, its stakeholders, and sustainable development. Full disclosure, consent, and anonymity will be
clearly communicated. Additionally, data of strategic management or confidential material regarding the
Pebble Mine development will be destroyed as requested. Participation will be conducted with only clear
consent and any measures of anonymity shall be granted to the best of my efforts.
McFarlane 84
DOCUMENTATION CHECKLIST
Please tick as appropriate:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
N/A
YES
NO
Ethical Application For m
Participant Infor mation Sheet
Consent For m
Debriefing For m
External Per missions
Letters to Parents/Chil dren/Headteacher etc…
Enhanced Disclosure Scotland and Equi valent (as
necessary)
8. Advertisement
9. Other
please list:
DECLARATION
I am familiar with the UTREC Guidelines for Ethical Research
(http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/utrec/guidelines.shtml) and *BPS, *ESRC, *MRC and *ASA (*please
delete the guidelines not appropriate to your discipline) Guidelines for Research practices, and have
discussed them with the other researchers involved in the project.
McFarlane 85
(Students only)
My supervisor has seen all relevant paperwork linked to this project.
YES
NO
Researcher(s)
Print Name
Dylan Elek McFarlane
Signature
Date
08/12/08
Supervisor(s)
The supervisor must ensure they have read both the application and the guidelines before signing below.
Print Name
Signature
Date
dd/mm/year
OFFICIAL USE ONLY
STATEMENT OF ETHICAL APPROVAL
This project has been considered using agreed University Procedures and has been:
Approved
Not Approved
More Clarification Required
New Submission Recommended
Referred to UTREC
Conveners Name
Signature
Date:
dd/mm/year
(Please used these additional pages to attached any supporting
documents i.e. Participant Information Sheets, Consent Forms,
Debriefing Forms, Questionnaires, Letters to Parents/Headteachers etc.)
McFarlane 86
Appendix B: Risk Assessment Form
Form FRA 1
School / UnitProject
University of St Andrews
Number:
Fieldwork Risk Assessment Form
NOTES:
1. The associated guidance notes should be read before completing this form.
2. The completed form should be held in an accessible location within the School/Unit
3. This form has been designed to be completed as a Microsoft Word document and is available at
the following URL:
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/services/safety/webpages/forms/index.html
1. School/Unit
2. Title of Project
3. Location of Fieldwork
(Indicate also any FCO warnings.)
School of Geography &
Geoscience/Sustainable Development
Discourse Analysis of the Pebble Mine
Environmental Conflict in Bristol Bay,
Alaska
Upper Flat 11 Shore St., Anstruther, Fife
KY10 3EA; St. Andrews
4. Staffing at Fieldwork Site
Self
5. Dates of Fieldwork:
Jan 10 – Feb 10 (2009)
6. Brief Description of Fieldwork
Please include in this section the objectives of the fieldwork and as much detail as is
reasonably practicable about the work activity.
Major fieldwork involves semi-structured telephone interviews with various
stakeholders in the “Pebble Partnership” for a period of 30 minutes to one hour, a
literature review and reflective journal. The objective is to assess analyze how the
pebble mine conflict is constructed, including postures as to the states of the fishing
and mining industries in Alaska regarding sustainability, their relevant benchmarks,
and what other stakeholders are important, such as private wildlife lodge operators
and subsistence users. This analysis utilizes the work of Fairclough (1992) and
Thompson (1990) on discourse analysis, social change, ideology and modern culture. A
stakeholder map (continually updated) depicts some of the important players and I
will use this to assess the discourse from the "fish" and "mine" camps respectfully.
These results on the construction of the discourse will inform wider questions about
the cultural dialogue taking place, utilizing Mirsepassi et. al. (2003) work on Area
Studies to cast the notion of Sustainable Development within Alaska, asking: What
kind of Sustainable Development do we wish to create? What is “sustainable mining”?
McFarlane 87
The process of critical analysis will be incorporated to critical reflection and
consultation (Filer 1999), and I therefore will keep a journal and seek ways of
engaging with the study subject such as writing letters to newspapers in the objective
of co-researching the prospects for a positive consensus for mining, minerals and
sustainable development.
7. Who is at risk?
Alaskan public, participants, myself
McFarlane 88
8. Hazards and Control Measures
Some risks may remain after all reasonably practicable control measures have been implemented.
These are the residual risks. Please list the residual risks in the left column. In the right column
estimate the “degree of residual risk” using the scale provided in the guidance notes.
Hazards of Fieldwork
Activities
Control Measures to eliminate or
minimise the risks of the hazards
Residual
Risk
Number
(1-36)
Mental/Physical Exhaustion
Study breaks every 2hr min.
9
Disclosure of
mining/sustainability
perceptions/assumptions
Clear confidentiality
agreements
12
(Please list main hazards below)
9. Emergency Actions
This section should detail the actions to be undertaken in the event of an emergency.
Foreseeable Emergencies
Severe exhaustion
Predetermined Actions by
Worker
Rest
Predetermined
Actions by
Supervisor
Rest
10. Contacts
Names of
Participants in the
Fieldwork
Telephone
(Fieldwork Site)
E-mail
(Fieldwork
Site)
Name of Next of
Kin
Next of Kin
Tel. & E-mail
Dylan
McFarlane
07506801029
[email protected].
uk
Alexander
McFarlane
(+001)32167669
19 &
alexander51@b
ellsouth.net
McFarlane 89
Describe Any Special Arrangements for Contact with Fieldwork Site:
N/A Fieldwork contact will have 24/7 mobile phone access within U.K.
Name(s) of Local Contact at Site of Work
Telephone
E-mail
Dylan McFarlane
07506801029
[email protected]
Name(s) of Contact at School / Unit
Telephone
E-mail
Tony Crook (Social Anthropology)
01334462818
Jan Bebbington (Management)
01334462348
[email protected]
[email protected]
11. Insurance
Has appropriate insurance been arranged for this fieldwork ?
YES
If YES, give details:
National Health Service is sufficient to mitigate identified risks.
12. Fieldwork Supervisor
I am satisfied that all foreseeable significant hazards associated with the fieldwork have
been identified and that the related risks are adequately controlled.
Print Name:
Signature:
Date:.
McFarlane 90
13. Other Participant(s) including Undergraduates –
I hereby declare that I have read and understood this risk assessment and that I agree to
comply with the control measures specified.
Name(s)
Signature(s) & Date
..............................................................
...........................................................
..............................................................
...........................................................
..............................................................
...........................................................
..............................................................
...........................................................
..............................................................
...........................................................
..............................................................
...........................................................
..............................................................
...........................................................
14. Approval of the Fieldwork by the Head of the School/Unit
Tick One:
□
□
□
I hereby approve this fieldwork.
I do not approve this fieldwork and reject this application.
In view of the high level of residual risk, I refer this application for consideration by
the University Fieldwork Sub-Committee.
In no instance should the fieldwork be approved where insurance arrangements are not
satisfactory.
Print Name:
Signature:
Date:.
For Completion by the University Fieldwork Sub-Committee
The University Fieldwork Sub-Committee approves / does not approve this fieldwork project.
Print Name:
McFarlane 91
Appendix C: Ethics Clearance
Electronic and hard copies of Ethics, Risk Assessment and Consent forms were submitted in
December 2008 to the main office of the School of Geography and Geosciences.
I sent numerous emails during February; at my last inquiry on 20/4/09, the office still failed to
locate the physical documents or confirm the electronic application. Both dissertation supervisors
have approved ethical clearance.
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2008 13:19:23 +0000
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected] , [email protected] , [email protected] ,
[email protected]
Subject: SD4002 D.MCFARLANE Ethics, Risk, Consent Forms
Part(s):
MCFARLANE - UTREC Ethical
216.90
2
application/msword
Application.doc
KB
132.74
3 MCFARLANE - Risk Assessment.doc
application/msword
KB
4 MCFARLANE - Consent Form.doc
application/msword 32.84 KB
Attached are the UTREC Ethics, Risk Assessment, and Consent Forms emailed to
participants in my "Discourse Analysis of the Pebble Mine Environmental
Conflict in Bristol Bay, Alaska".
Dylan McFarlane
-----------------------------------------------------------------University of St Andrews Webmail: https://webmail.st-andrews.ac.uk