Portage Glacier as seen from Portage Pass in Chugach National Forest in Alaska, U.S. July 7, 2020. Picture taken July 7, 2020. REUTERS/Yereth Rosen

By Gram Slattery

WASHNGTON (Reuters) -An Alaska Native official who helped oversee the federal agency in charge of U.S. arctic research policy has quietly departed her post in recent days, according to a source familiar with the matter and documents seen by Reuters.

The departure of Elizabeth Qaulluq Cravalho, who until earlier this month was a commissioner on the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, or USARC, is the latest sign of turmoil within the Arctic research and policymaking community since Republican U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January.

The precise nature of the departure of Cravalho, who had been appointed to the post by former Democratic President Joe Biden in 2021, was not immediately clear, though the source said she had been dismissed by the administration.

Cravalho's departure comes as Trump has deprioritized climate change-related research in the Arctic, while boosting the U.S. government's focus on military and energy security. He has also resumed his long-standing attempts to wrest Greenland away from Denmark, while making concrete moves to secure access to Arctic critical mineral deposits.

The departure also comes as some Alaska Natives - as indigenous peoples of Alaska are often referred to collectively - have expressed public unease about an Alaska Native-owned corporation's partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Cravalho is the vice president of lands for NANA Regional Corporation, an Inupiat community-owned entity that was set up in the 1970s to administer indigenous land claims in the Arctic.

Despite its core mission, NANA derives significant revenue from its role overseeing immigrant detention facilities. The corporation has preferential access to some federal government contracts as a result of legal codes meant to boost economically or socially disadvantaged communities.

While those ICE contracts date back years, some NANA shareholders have expressed renewed unease about the contracts, according to media reports that have been published in recent weeks. Among those reports was a Bloomberg Businessweek feature published in late October, in which Inupiat shareholders in NANA said the ICE contracts contradicted their communal values.

Reuters could not determine if Cravalho's departure was connected to the increased media coverage of Inupiat complaints about the ICE contracts.

The Trump administration, the USARC and Cravalho did not respond to requests for comment. However, Cravalho has updated her LinkedIn profile to reflect her dismissal, and her profile had been removed from the USARC website as of Tuesday.

ARCTIC RESEARCH IN FLUX

It was not clear precisely what policy impact Cravalho's dismissal would have. ARCUS, an independent federal agency, still has eight commissioners in place, according to its website.

But the administration could in theory replace Cravalho with an individual who closely hews to the administration line on issues such as climate change and the need to absorb Greenland.

This is not the first time a USARC commissioner has departed or been terminated before the end of their official mandate. The Biden administration broke with decades of precedent by removing several members of the commission who had been appointed by Trump during his 2017-2021 term.

Still, those individuals had few obvious personal or professional connections to the Arctic. They included Jon Harrison, who served briefly as Navy chief of staff during Trump's current term before being dismissed, and Julia Nesheiwat, who briefly served as Trump's homeland security adviser during his first term.

In May, the administration removed references to climate change in a key Arctic planning document that had been promulgated under the Biden administration.

In September, a separate, not-for-profit corporation focused on Arctic research known as the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States, shut down after the National Science Foundation slashed its funding.

In late October, the administration announced a series of steps to open up Alaskan wilderness to energy and infrastructure development

(Reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Aurora Ellis)