DOI Trades Away Alaskan Refuges, Sells Out Public Lands

The Trump administration dealt a blow to the National Wildlife Refuge System by removing protections from the Arctic and Izembek National Wildlife Refuges.  

During what Defenders of Wildlife dubbed “Selling Out Alaska Day,” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum opened the entirety of the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge to oil and gas leasing, threatening the most important onshore polar bear denning site in the country. Burgum also announced that the Department of the Interior has moved forward with a land exchange within Izembek to facilitate road construction between King Cove and Cold Bay – a move that illegally transferred land out of the Refuge and Izembek Wilderness Area.

“The administration is not content to bulldoze the White House; no, it must defile America’s most cherished landscapes by bulldozing a road through the heart of one of Alaska’s untouched refuges,” said Nicole Whittington-Evans, Defenders of Wildlife senior director of Alaska and Pacific Northwest programs. “We cannot stand by and idly watch as two of our largest national wildlife refuges are sold out to private interests that threaten to degrade treasured biodiversity hotspots and imperiled wildlife habitat.”