Yukon MP Larry Bagnell is calling on government leaders to take every effort to protect the Porcupine caribou herd, which will be threatened if the United States moves to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling.

“The life blood, the spiritual survival, the culture, the food and the clothes of the Gwitchin people in Yukon, N.W.T. and Alaska have for eons been integrally connected to the Porcupine caribou herd. It is their soul,” he said in a statement in the House of Commons late this morning (Yukon time).

“I therefore call on all parliamentarians, indeed all Canadians, to do what they can to preserve this iconic Canadian heritage and treasure, and the life line at the heart of the Gwitchin people.”

The Porcupine caribou herd migrates across 250,000 square kilometers of land in northerneastern Alaska, the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Much of this area comprises undeveloped land that is protected by ANWR in Alaska, and the Ivvavkik and Vuntut National Parks in Canada.

Still, there are handfuls of regions where development is happening or may happen that will disrupt the herd.

One such area is a swath of coastal plain along the Beaufort Sea in Alaska, referred to as “1002 lands.”

The decision about whether to allow oil and gas exploration in this parcel of land was deferred when the wildlife refuge came into being in 1980.

The question of drilling in the region was set aside during the Obama administration, but with Republicans soon to take control of the Senate and the House of Representatives, it is back on the table.

Alaskan Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, who is chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and who was re-elected in the Nov. 8 U.S. election, is a champion of Arctic oil and gas development.

All of Alaska’s legislators, two senators and one representative, are Republicans. They are “strongly in favour of drilling, and critical of anyone that’s not,” Bagnell told the Star in an interview after question period today.

Last week, Bagnell hosted Murkowksi and political leaders from around the circumpolar North in Ottawa for a meeting of the Standing Committee of Parliamentarians of the Arctic Region.

There, Murkowski told Bagnell that as soon as president-elect Donald Trump is sworn in, she will reintroduce legislation to open up ANWR to drilling.

“She actually left early, and I just explained to the other delegates that this was one of the differences we had with the United States,” said Bagnell.

In his one-minute address to the House, Bagnell said disturbing lands where the caribou give birth, specifically by drilling for oil on the coastal flats, “could lead to their extinction, and end the way of life of the Gwitchin people.”

The statement garnered applause, and afterward, Stéphane Dion, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, asked Bagnell for a copy to reference when he’s asked about ANWR in the future, the Yukon Liberal MP said over the phone from Ottawa.

“Today’s statement was to sort of widen the net of people that were aware of the issue, because most people in Parliament wouldn’t even be aware of it because it is pretty local to us and the Northwest Territories,” he said.

“I think I got that message out broadly to parliamentarians and to all the people watching on TV, so they also know that we need them on side.”

Indeed, Bagnell has been working diligently to get the word out to the U.S. government that the 1002 lands must be protected from oil and gas exploration for the sake of the caribou and the Gwichin people.

He brought it up with David MacNaughton, Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., in person and in writing. He’s waiting to hear back about the ambassador’s next steps on the issue.

Bagnell also sent a letter to the incoming Democratic caucus chair in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, which said he hopes senators will filibuster (a tactic whereby representatives block or delay a proposed bill by discussing it exhaustively) any proposed action to drill in the arctic refuge.

President Barack Obama could shield the coastal plain inside ANWR from drilling by making it a national monument, said Bagnell, but it would be uncharacteristic of a so-called “lame duck” president to take such dramatic action.

“We tried that with (former president) Bill Clinton, when he was just leaving (in early 2001), to protect it before he got out, and he didn’t do that,” said Bagnell.

“We’re hoping Obama would do that, protect it ... but outgoing presidents don’t always make major decisions, and this is a major decision in the United States.

“It was, at times, the biggest environmental issue in the entire United States.”

Earlier this month, indigenous leaders from the Yukon and Alaska went down to Washington to lobby Obama to protect the caribou calving grounds before he leaves the White House.

Lorraine Netro of Old Crow was there as a representative of the Vuntut Gwtichin government.

Neither Netro nor Chief Bruce Charlie of Vuntut Gwichin could be reached for comment before this afternoon’s press deadline.