People in the isolated Gwitchin community of Old Crow, Yukon, are using plastic bags — more precisely, the absence of them — to help make a stand against oil drilling in neighbouring Alaska.
Earlier this month, the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in Old Crow reached an agreement with the local Northern Store to stop using plastic shopping bags.
Instead, paper bags and reusable bags are being offered at a cost to shoppers at the Northern Store, which is only grocery store in the community.
"It's a small success toward a greener Old Crow," said Shel Graupe, the First Nation's director of natural resources.
"There was a real need to get rid of that stuff and keep the land clean. I mean, we even found plastic bags laying around at people's camps and whatnot. So it was becoming a real issue and we're really happy to see … no more white plastic bags flying around."
The move came two years after Vuntut Gwitchin members passed a resolution to ban plastic bags in their community.
Graupe said plastic bags require a lot of natural resources to make, including oil. That point is important to the Vuntut Gwich'in, which has been fighting to keep oil companies out of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
The refuge is considered to be the calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd, which is essential to the Gwitchin and other northerners.
Pro-development politicians in the United States have ramped up efforts recently to drill for oil in that area, in light of rising global fuel prices.
Graupe said there should be a worldwide ban on plastic bags.
"If each of us reduced the number of [plastic bags], even 10 bags … a year, actually, I think it worked out to over three billion barrels of oil that would be saved," he said.
Graupe said the First Nation's next local battle is to convince residents to use community recycling bins.
