The decision this community faces humbles and awes me. I am new here. I want to build a life here. I can envision a thriving, abundant Chilkat Valley a hundred years from now, in which everyone is provided for. Ultimately, we all want the same thing.
I grew up in Anchorage, lived in West Virginia for a few years, and now live in Haines. I wish I could take the entire community on a field trip to West Virginia to see what happens 150 years after the decision to rely on industrial-scale mining for economic growth. We would also study the ways in which multinational extractive corporations have historically used, abused, and then tossed the people who love the land in question.
There are infinite paths forward. Wealth and prosperity for all can be created in ways that are regenerative rather than destructive. Industrial-scale mining isn’t the answer and neither are industrial-scale cruise ships. The answers aren’t easy. But this is the challenge facing all of humanity at this moment. How do we learn to live on this planet in a way that is less harmful? Are we reckoning with what we will leave behind?
In coming decades true wealth will increasingly be measured in clean water, clean air, abundant salmon, thriving wildlife, and ecosystem integrity. This place is special.
May we have the difficult conversations being asked of us, judge no one, respect everyone, and come together in creating opportunities that foster economic growth and ecological health simultaneously.
Tyler Yarrow