Lay off the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

I know that with oil prices near record highs, people want to drill everywhere.

And I know that many politicians have been trying for decades now to open up the refuge.

But as a member of the Gwich’in Nation, the northernmost native people in America, I also know how devastating such drilling would be.

We Gwich’ins rely on the porcupine caribou herd as our main source of food, and if development occurs in the refuge, it’ll destroy the herd, and so goes our culture.

It would also destroy one of the last pristine ecosystems in the country. We Gwich’in have tried to protect it. We need your help.

The United States has destroyed Indian Country from the East Coast all the way to interior Alaska. The Gwich’in’s 30-year fight to protect the refuge is the last stand for Indian Country in the United States. So please call your elected officials and pass on this message: Stop promoting fossil fuels and start investing clean renewable energy. Please think and act sustainably — for our planet, and for the dignity and way of life of our First Americans.

The world is now at the crossroads. Do we continue toward our destruction, and nature’s destruction? Or do we choose a different road, one that leads toward a future where all our societies are green, generated by renewable energy, sustainable and clean, and where justice, human rights, economic equality and peace reign supreme?

We are faced with these two roads.

You are faced with them, too.

An individual can make a difference: You can choose the higher road for yourself and your children.

Please do.

It’s time to say to Mother Nature, “We’re sorry, and we want to change.” Mahsii (Thank you).

Matt Gilbert, a member of the Gwich'in Nation, is getting a master’s in rural development at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He can be reached at pmproj@progressive.org.