‘Protect our future’: Alaskan Indigenous town fights ‘destructive’ uranium mine project

Students and community members protest Panther Minerals’ uranium mine project in Elim, Alaska, on earlier this month. Photograph: Jasmine Jemewouk

For generations, the people of Elim have subsisted off the forests and waters of north-west Alaska: hunting caribou and bearded seals in the late winter, gathering bird eggs and wild greens from the tundra in early spring, and fishing the salmon run in the late summer.

The Iñupiat community of 350 people lives on one of the state’s most productive and biodiverse fisheries, an inlet of the Bering Sea called the Norton Sound. They refer to their land as Munaaquestevut, or “the one who cares for us”.