President Carter Leaves a Legacy of Safeguarding Alaska’s Wildlife

In Alaska’s vast system of federally protected lands, polar bears, caribou and hundreds of migratory birds may find haven from oil and gas and other development thanks to former President Jimmy Carter’s lifelong dedication to environmental stewardship.  

Perhaps it was his childhood days hunting and fishing in rural Georgia, or the learned respect for the land that comes with being a farmer, but Carter was devoted to the environment, particularly in Alaska, until his final days. Defenders of Wildlife celebrates the life of President Carter, who never stopped fighting for the environment.  

Image

During his presidency, Carter recognized Alaska’s wilderness and wildlife resources, and understood that increasing development could put these resources at risk. To protect these towering and impressive landscapes he signed into a law, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) of 1980, that conserves more than 100 million acres (about the size of California) and safeguards subsistence hunting and fishing rights for rural Alaskans. ANILCA established thirteen national parks and sixteen national wildlife refuges, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — the largest wildlife refuge in the country.  ANILCA also designated over 56 million acres of wilderness, 26 Wild and Scenic rivers, two BLM conservation areas and expanded Alaska’s two national forests.  The lands encompassed by ANILCA represent over 60% of our country’s National Parks, over 50% of our country’s Congressionally designated Wilderness, and over 80% of our terrestrial National Wildlife Refuges.  

President Carter called ANILCA the most significant feat of his political career and “one of the most exceptional pieces of conservation legislation enacted by our great Nation or any Nation;” and it’s true. Entire ecosystems were protected under this Act, and Alaska’s wildlife and conservationists around the globe are indebted to the dedication and foresight Carter demonstrated as a world leader when conserving these wild lands.  

Without these protections, logging, oil and mineral extraction and other development would have tarnished and deteriorated many of these lands for future generations. Now, conservationists are fighting to protect Alaska’s unique landscapes from Trump-era threats that favored special interests over wildlife and other significant natural resource values. While protections slowly are being restored, e.g. a formalized process to designate Special Areas in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and the retention of protections across millions of Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act section D-1 acres of land, Defenders of Wildlife continues to push against extraction activities in Alaska.  For example, we are working to restore protections to the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge, and keep oil gas development out of its critical polar bear habitat.  We are also standing alongside the Gwich’in working to protect the calving grounds of the Porcupine Caribou herd in the Arctic Refuge coastal plain.  In a smaller refuge in southwestern Alaska, we are working alongside Tribes to keep a road out of a designated wilderness area at Izembek National Wildlife Refuge that encompasses one of the most important wetlands complexes on the globe that supports waterfowl populations important for subsistence.

In honoring President Carter for his accomplishments it is fitting to give him the last word:  

“Let us celebrate... the rivers and lakes the harbor salmon, the game trails of caribous and grizzly in the Brooks Range, the marshes where our waterfowl summer — all these are now preserved, now and, I pray, for all time to come.”