This last week, residents have had opportunities to hear about potential impacts of mine development at the Chilkat Valley Mining Forum and an economic presentation by Gregg Erickson. This weekend Lynn Canal Conservation presents Dr. Lori Lambert, a medical ecologist who will speak about her research on the human health impacts of mining. Dr Lambert is a community research associate at the University of Montana in Bozeman and the founder of the American Indigenous Research Association. Claire Stremple has the story.
Dr. Lori Lambert is visiting Haines to speak to the community about her research on the human health impacts of industrial mining. But her first stop on this trip is the Klukwan School. She greeted the teachers warmly in Tlingit, and came with gifts of fruit and jam for the elders.
After a lunch of moose stew, she met with students to talk about their connection to the local ecology. She asked them about their relationship to salmon, and told a story about how the salmon came to the people.
It’s a long trip from Montana, but her goal is to build awareness about what keeps people and communities healthy. Dr. Lambert studies the health disparities of native communities in Montana and Alaska.
“A medical ecologist looks at the environment and how it affects human health. A medical anthropologist, which is my other degree, looks at populations and how they react to environmental change and toxins and other issues,” she explained.
She was invited by Lynn Canal Conservation, a group that left the Chilkat Valley Mining Forum in 2017. Dr. Lambert says the negative ecological impacts of mining have an outsized impact on rural and indigenous communities.
“I think they depend on the land more, ” she said. “The ancestors of indigenous communities have laid down the lives for the land. They have sacrificed for the land. If this generation doesn’t keep it what’s the use of all the ancestors from time immemorial fighting for the land? It disgraces them.”
The legacy of the elders that she’s talking about is preserving a way of life for the generations to come.
In 2017 the Chilkat Indian Village of Klukwan joined a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management for failing to consider the environmental effects of mineral exploration by Constantine Mineral Resources, a Canadian company. They say hardrock mining is a threat to Chilkat wild stock salmon and the sustainability of their community. Lynn Canal Conservation is also part of that lawsuit.
Dr. Lambert says that when international companies extract local resources, it’s the people who live there get stuck with any mess that’s left behind. She says the environmental impacts don’t just affect the physical health of the community, but the mental health as well.
“When the elders see their environment getting destroyed, they get depressed. And when their plants are gone. They use those plants. They watch animals use those plants. It’s a long history of ethnobotany for communities,” she said.
At the Klukwan school, that’s a living history. Eight children are gathered in a semi-circle around Dr. Lambert. They tell her about the trees and plants they saw on a morning nature walk. Students list their identifications: dog-tree, fireweed, cottonwood, and spruce.
Outside the classroom, the sun shines almost blindingly off the Chilkat River.
Dr. Lori Lambert will give her talk “Our Children’s Legacy” at 5:30 on Saturday night in the Chilkat Center lobby.
