Last Chance for the Arctic Refuge

Last Chance for the Arctic Refuge:  Groups ask the courts to stop the Administration’s leasing plan Today, the Gwitch’in Nation, together with a coalition of conservation organizations including Wilderness Watch filed a lawsuit to stop the Administration’s decision to lease the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge to oil and gas companies, and to turn America’s wildest landscape into another industrial wasteland. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge embodies the dreams of all Americans who desire to have places set apart, where the evolutionary forces of time immemorial march on unimpeded by modern human interference. The coastal plain of the Refuge is often described as its “beating heart” where over 200,000 members of the Porcupine caribou herd gather in spring to give birth. Arriving in the spring, the massive caribou herd is joined by millions of birds from all over America and 5 other continents to feast and raise chicks so that their story of life on Earth can go on. To look north from the Brooks Range across the coastal plain to the Arctic ocean is to witness a scene unmarred from the beginning of time. In 1980, Congress designated 7 million of the 19 million-acre the Refuge as Wilderness. In 2015, President Obama recommended to Congress that it designate another 12.28 million acres—almost the entire Refuge—as Wilderness.  That recommendation included the 1.7 million-acre coastal plain. Since oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska officials and the oil industry have set their sites on the Arctic Refuge. They were stymied at every turn until 2017, when the Republican-controlled Congress and President Trump pushed through as part of a tax cut bill that contained a provision to open the Refuge to oil and gas development. The bill required the Department of Interior to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) on potential development before leases could be sold. The decision on the EIS was signed last week and recommended opening the entire coastal plain, 1.7 million acres, to oil and gas leasing and development. Wilderness Watch and our allies vow to fight this leasing decision and any development on the coastal plain. "The Arctic Refuge stands alone as America's wildest, most ecologically intact landscape supporting a great diversity of life,” said Fran Mauer, Alaska chapter representative of Wilderness Watch. “It holds an unparalleled place in our nation's conservation history and in our national conscience. If left unchallenged, the decision will bring irreversible damage to the ecological integrity of America’s Last Great Wilderness, including a vast area of northwest Canada and beyond. It would also leave an indelible scar on our nation’s character.”  Read the Gwich’in Steering Committee statement. Read the coalition news release. Read more about Wilderness Watch’s work to protect the Arctic Refuge Wilderness.

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Follow Us Photo: Caribou graze on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, with the Brooks Range as a backdrop. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service P.O. Box 9175  |  Missoula, MT 59807  |  wildernesswatch.org