Hi, Momoko,
My name is Meda DeWitt. I don't usually write messages like this—but this one's personal.
I am Tlingit, a traditional healer, and the Senior Manager for Alaska at The Wilderness Society. I live and work on the ancestral lands of the Dena'ina people. The focus of my work is on the Arctic. It's not some distant landscape—it is "Nuna", a living relative. One in which we are all dependent on that keeps the earth systems in balance. But right now, the Arctic is being treated like a sacrifice zone.
Oil and gas lease mandates are being pushed forward in the fragile, sacred Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. These mandates are a deep betrayal: violating ancient agreements, ignoring science, and undermining sovereignty and subsistence lifeways. They will cause irreparable harm to the Porcupine Caribou Herd—wildlife that have thrived on these lands, and sustained the lifeblood of the Gwich'in Peoples, for millennia.
When we work to defend these lands, we are not just protecting wilderness. We are protecting the sacred. And right now, we urgently need your help.
Will you join me for The Wilderness Society's very first Giving Day and power our fight for the Arctic? Your early gift will strengthen our work to defend public lands and stop this egregious giveaway to the fossil fuel industry. Because your support is so important right now, your gift will be DOUBLED—and if you make your gift monthly, it'll be matched every month through the end of 2025.
Let me be clear: this is extractive policy at its worst. Oil and gas development is being forced through without the consent of the people it will affect the most, the Gwich'in, threatening the heart of one of the last large intact ecosystems on Earth. Leaders in Congress, the Trump administration and its allies, fossil fuel corporations—they all look at this sacred land and see nothing but bargaining chips.
But the Arctic is not a frontier to conquer. It's a living sanctuary for caribou and other vulnerable wildlife … a place of profound Indigenous resilience … and a warning bell for the planet.
Right now we have a chance to say: not on our watch. And it will take all of us, in solidarity, to do what's right.
Please, help us get a jumpstart on our goal of 500 donors by making a generous, tax-deductible gift today. Until midnight on September 3, every dollar you pitch in will have double the impact, going twice as far to power our defense of the Arctic Refuge and all of our beloved public lands in Alaska and across the nation.
Together we can safeguard this special place that's like no other—where the cryosphere breathes, the caribou still run, and our future ancestors hunt, gather, and live culture.
Gunalchéesh (Thank you) for standing with us,
Meda DeWitt, MA., TH. (Jánwu Tláa, Tigigalook)
Senior Manager for Alaska
The Wilderness Society
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