[notch656a]

A well connected, wealthy person with no real worries about their own access to medical professionals and no real roots in Alaska feigning to act for the good of nature but in the process acting against the interest of these communities? Say it aint so.

[mod]

What does 97 year old Jimmy Carter have to gain from making a stand here?

I cannot come up with any motivations besides the guy actually just wants to protect the wild.

He grew up close to the land, so that makes sense to me.

[notch656a]

He gets to look like he's saving the wilderness while denying advancement in access to medical care to majority native/Asian community.

[drekipus]

Of course it's about race. Naturally he's a white supremacist. If they were white people he would be mowing down the trees himself.

[thrdbndndn]

Jimmy Carter grew up in Alaska? Never heard of that.

I can't find a single occurrence of "alaska" in his Wikipedia article. Got any ref?

Edit: I don't mind the downvote, but could someone explain if I missed something obvious?

[mek6800d2]

Read the comment again ... slowly -- mod has a dense writing style that may be difficult to comprehend on first reading. People can actually live "close to the land" all over the world. Farmers, for example. I think a few may even be found in Georgia.

[DennisP]

"Close to the land" does not mean "close to that particular land."

[thrdbndndn]

Sorry for being obtuse, I genuinely don't get what that means. Don't almost every single person live close to the land?

[frosted-flakes]

Living "close to the land" means to be familiar and comfortable with, and reliant on, what "the land" (that is, nature) has to offer. The opposite of a city-dweller, basically.

[thrdbndndn]

> "the land" = nature

Thanks for your kind explanation. This is the part I didn't know.

In my defence, I did check the dictionary [1] but didn't find anything to suggest land means nature/rural/etc.

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/land#Noun

[bee_rider]

Carter had a fairly rural upbringing.

[WalterBright]

The Alaskan wilderness belongs to all of us.

The people there are welcome to enjoy the wilderness. Not pave it.

[notch656a]

King cove is almost 50% ethnically native, not to mention the rest of whom have have that as their home regardless of the home of their ancestors. Considering that and their historical ties to the land, I'd say they have a little more say than the average lower 48er.

[WalterBright]

They own the land they live on, not the surrounding wilderness, which belongs equally to all of us.

I don't have any claim whatsoever to the lands of my ancestors, either. Nor do I have any claim on the land my neighbors live on, or the nearby park.

[asdfk-12]

This reads like imperialism. Do you think Alaskans should be able to have a say in whether land is developed or improved adjacent to where you live, say, in Alabama? Wouldn't make much sense to me..

[WalterBright]

The wilderness area is under Federal protection. That means we all have a say, not just Alaskans.

[yellowapple]

The Alaskan wilderness first and foremost belongs to the people who have been living as part of it for generations. They are in a much better position to balance wilderness preservation v. the needs of human habitation than you or I. We are welcome to visit, but they are the ones calling it home - and have far more of a vested interest in preserving and stewarding it than we do.