SUBHANKAR BANERJEE on Defending Arctic Alaska /105

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge provides calving grounds to Porcupine Caribou and beluga whales, a place of interlude for hundreds of thousands of migrating birds, denning grounds for polar bears, and sanctuary for over fifteen thousand migrating bowhead whales during the spring and fall. However popular, and political, depictions of the Arctic rarely draw upon the diversity of its vast tundra, wetland, mountain, and forest regions. Instead we are imprinted with a false depiction of these latitudes as one mere stretch of vast, barren, and icy terrain. When we forget the Arctic lives as a birthing ground and a place rich in culture, we allow the hands of petro-capitalism to tighten their grasp around this immense and incredibly biodiverse ecosystem… Music by Sun Araw http://www.sunaraw.com/main.html