Later this month, Congress is set to decide, after almost 30 years of contentious debate, whether to allow oil exploration to proceed in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. If this passes, oil rigs in the refuge will decrease the already-dwindling herd of caribou by drilling in their calving ground. It will also herald the slow death of the Gwich'in Indian tribe's 13,000-year-old subsistence culture, the last of its kind in North America.

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