Virtual Lecture: "Defending the Arctic Refuge: A Photographer, an Indigenous Nation, and a Fight for Environmental Justice"

On Wednesday, March 2, 2022 at 3:00 p.m. (ET) author Finis Dunaway will present “Defending the Arctic Refuge: A Photographer, an Indigenous Nation, and a Fight for Environmental Justice” online on the National Conservation Training Center Livestream at https://livestream.com/nctc/events/10180242.

This talk will focus on his recent book, “Defending the Arctic Refuge: A Photographer, an Indigenous Nation, and a Fight for Environmental Justice” (2021). Tucked away in the northeastern corner of Alaska, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of the most contested lands in all of North America. Considered sacred by Indigenous peoples in Alaska and Canada and treasured by environmentalists, the refuge provides life-sustaining habitat for caribou, polar bears, migratory birds, and other species. The potential presence of oil and gas resources beneath the refuge's coastal plain has made this land the focus of ongoing controversy. Defending the Arctic Refuge reveals how unlikely activists, diverse alliances, and grassroots visual culture helped build a political movement that transformed the issue into a struggle for environmental justice. The talk will share stories from the book, feature images from Arctic lands and communities, and trace the history of a movement that is still alive today.

Finis Dunaway is professor of history at Trent University. He is the author of “Natural Visions: The Power of Images in American Environmental Reform” (2005) and “Seeing Green: The Use and Abuse of American Environmental Images” (2015). “Seeing Green” received the John G. Cawelti Award from the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association and the History Division Book Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. His writings have also appeared in American Quarterly, Environmental History, and other scholarly journals and in the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, The Hill, Truthout, and the Globe and Mail.

For more information, please contact Mark Madison (304-876-7276; mark_madison@fws.gov) or visit nctc.fws.gov/history/publiclectures.html.