Photo by acacia.johnson / Mountains meet tundra plains in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. On January 6, the Trump Administration began to auction off drilling rights for the refuge's coastal plain, the calving grounds for the porcupine caribou herd that has sustained the region's Indigenous people for millennia. The Gwich'in people, who call the plains the "Sacred Place Where Life Begins" and rely on the caribou for food security, are adamantly opposed to the sale. “Oil and gas development in the coastal plain is wholly incompatible with the Gwich'in worldview. Our identity, culture, and way of life our at stake," said Honorable Galen Gilbert, chief of the Arctic Village Council, in congressional testimony. "Like our ancestors, we will never give up." Follow me at acacia.johnson for more stories from Alaska and beyond. #anwr #alaska #arcticrefuge #arcticnationalwildliferefuge