What is at Stake

Is there hope for Alaska’s environment? There are numerous impending threats to its welfare and survival that must be faced and overcome.

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

One of the biggest battles presently being fought is over the status of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain—America’s conservation icon. The Arctic Refuge is an unspoiled wilderness vital to the survival of migratory birds, vast herds of caribou, and the ancient Gwich’in culture, and it is facing a constant threat of oil drilling. It is important to realize that the Refuge contains just six months’ worth of oil, and bringing it to the gas pump would take 10 years or more. Most important, the fact remains that the majority of Americans oppose drilling in the Refuge.

National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A)

Elsewhere in Alaska’s Arctic, there is a move to expand oil exploration and drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A). This 23.5-million-acre area runs from the Brooks Range north to the Arctic coastline; it is the nation’s largest chunk of public land and, despite its industrial-sounding name, a vast Arctic wilderness. Its marshy tundra, rolling foothills, and mountain peaks support world-class populations of raptors, caribou, geese, and a host of other species, and provide essential subsistence resources to North Slope communities.

Global Warming

Another serious threat may come from inaction on global warming. Just months after taking office in 2001, Bush withdrew the U.S. from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on global climate change, and he has mostly ignored and even discounted the issue ever since. A report by an international team of scientists revealed in November 2004 that the Arctic, including Alaska, is warming faster than previously suspected and at nearly twice the rate as the rest of the globe.

Bristol Bay

Energy developers have also set their sights on Bristol Bay, where a moratorium on drilling in federal waters (3-200 miles offshore) was lifted in January 2004. The Bristol Bay drilling moratorium had been imposed in the wake of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, after a long battle on the part of local people for protection of the diverse marine life of the bay. The bay is home to the world’s largest red salmon fishery.

Mining

Meanwhile, another threat to Bristol Bay is emerging on land. Northern Dynasty Mines, Inc., a Canadian company, is seeking to develop the world’s largest gold and copper mine near Iliamna Lake, at the headwaters of two important salmon spawning rivers. The proposed open-pit mine would create 3 billion tons of tailings, some of which the company may deposit in a nearby lake, which would harm the lake’s ecosystem and require diverting the stream that feeds it.

There are other proposed mines around the state as well, including the Pogo gold mine on the Goodpaster River, which supports 11 fish species, and the Kensington gold mine in southeast Alaska, where the mining company plans to dump mine waste into a lake that feeds into Berners Bay via a salmon spawning stream.

Tongass National Forest

The Kensington mine site is located within the Tongass National Forest, part of a 1,000-mile arc of temperate rainforest that stretches from Ketchikan to Kodiak. More than 40 percent of the world’s remaining temperate rainforest is found in Alaska, and most of it lies within the Tongass and Chugach National Forests.

The Forest Service has increased the pace of timber sale planning in the Tongass since Bush exempted the forest in 2004 from the Roadless Rule, a Clinton-era directive that forbids road-building and other development in the most pristine parts of the country’s National Forests. The areas proposed for timber sales include the most important wildlife habitat, commercial and sport fishing, and subsistence areas.