Defenders Condemns Attack on Alaska’s Western Arctic

The Department of the Interior today proposed repealing the Special Areas protections in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, triggering a 60-day comment period which begins tomorrow.  Defenders of Wildlife condemns the proposed recission and is calling on the Secretary of Interior to keep the rule in place.  

“DOI is turning its back on the wildlife and habitat it is required to protect,” said Nicole Whittington-Evans, Defenders of Wildlife senior director of Alaska and Northwest programs. “The Reserve is home to an astonishing variety of wildlife including polar bears, caribou, wolves, wolverines, musk oxen, and millions of migratory birds from every continent on the planet, and all of which are now at serious risk. Defenders will continue to advocate for conserving and protecting these irreplaceable species and landscapes.”

Congress authorized BLM to develop an oil and gas leasing program in the Reserve in 1981. It also required the agency to protect the extraordinary surface values of the Reserve, with “maximum protection” afforded to values within “Special Areas” identified by Congress or BLM. Surface values in the Reserve include extensive calving grounds for two caribou herds critical for local subsistence, threatened and sensitive bird species and habitat, marine mammals including threatened polar bears, and abundant fish species including Pacific salmon.

There are five Special Areas currently identified in the Reserve, and the regulation proposed for rescission today defined the resource values in each and specified the conditions, restrictions and prohibitions that Congress required BLM to provide to protect those values. It also specified that subsistence use of wildlife resources like caribou and fish is  an important value in the Reserve.

“Congress never authorized unfettered drilling in the Reserve; it required protection of its extraordinary values, especially wildlife and habitat,” added Whittington-Evans. “Advocates of drilling claim that environmental impacts are less damaging in the U.S. than elsewhere because of the protections we put in place. Removing those protections through deregulation is shameful and it does not make American landscapes great.”