Protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Some good news out of Washington, DC. President Barak Obama’s Administration has moved to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, widely considered one of the most spectacular and remote areas in the world.

The Department of the Interior is releasing a conservation plan for the Refuge that for the first time recommends additional protections, and President Obama announced he will make an official recommendation to Congress to designate core areas of the refuge – including its Coastal Plain – as wilderness, the highest level of protection available to public lands. If Congress chooses to act, it would be the largest ever wilderness designation since Congress passed the visionary Wilderness Act over 50 years ago.

“Designating vast areas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as Wilderness reflects the significance this landscape holds for America and its wildlife,” said Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell. “Just like Yosemite or the Grand Canyon, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of our nation’s crown jewels and we have an obligation to preserve this spectacular place for generations to come.”

The President’s decision builds upon years of public engagement by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to revise the Comprehensive Conservation Plan and complete an environmental impact statement for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as required by law. The plan will guide the Service’s management decisions for the next 15 years.

Currently, over 7 million acres of the refuge are managed as wilderness, consistent with the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980. However, more than 60 percent of the refuge – including the Coastal Plain – does not carry that designation.

Based on the best available science and extensive public comment, the Service’s preferred alternative recommends 12.28 million acres – including the Coastal Plain – for designation as wilderness. The Service also recommends four rivers – the Atigun, Hulahula, Kongakut, and Marsh Fork Canning – for inclusion into the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is home to the most diverse wildlife in the arctic, including caribou, polar bears, gray wolves, and muskoxen. More than 200 species of birds, 37 land mammal species, eight marine mammal species and 42 species of fish call the vast refuge home. Lagoons, beaches, salt marshes, tundra and forests make up the remote and undisturbed wild area that spans five distinct ecological regions.

The refuge holds special meaning to Alaska Natives, having sustained their lives and culture for thousands of years. The Gwich’in people refer to the Coastal Plain of the refuge as “The Sacred Place Where Life Begins,” reflecting the area’s importance to their community, maintaining healthy herds of caribou and an abundance of other wildlife.

Since Congress is the only authority able to designate Wilderness areas and Wild and Scenic Rivers, one can only hope that Republicans and Democrats can put aside their differences long enough to turn this dream into a reality.

More information will be available at www.fws.gov

TED on Tuesday: Wade Davis: Wilderness Worth Saving

Two great TED talks for you today―both from National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, Wade Davis. The first is a short (6:35 min) talk called,

Gorgeous Photos Of A Backyard Wilderness Worth Saving, in which Davis urges us to save a stunning wilderness paradise in Northern Canada. Here, sacred headwaters are under threat because they hide rich tar sands. Apart from the tar sands, major energy corporations like Shell are targeting the area for the vast fields of oil and gas the region holds.

If the Keystone Pipeline, and other such developments go ahead, this stunning landscape is going to be changed in ways that are all too familiar. Wade Davis states in his talk that Imperial Metals, one of the largest mining companies in Canada “…has secured permits to establish an open pit copper and gold mine which will process 30,000 tons of rock a day for thirty years, generating hundreds of millions of tons of toxic waste that by the projects design, will simply be dumped in the lakes of the sacred headwaters.”

Davis goes on to say “…Shell Canada has plans to extract methane gas from coal seams that underlie a million acres, fracking the coal with hundreds of millions of gallons of toxic chemicals, establishing perhaps as many as 6000 wellheads, and eventually a network of roads and pipelines and flaring wellheads, all to generate methane gas that most likely will go east to fuel the expansion of the tar sands.”

It is a truly frightening prospect for one of the most beautiful places on the plant.

Wade Davis: Gorgeous Photos Of A Backyard Wilderness Worth Saving

In the following much longer (22 min) 2007 talk, Davis examines some of the worlds endangered cultures, and expresses his concern over the rate at which cultures and languages are disappearing. Fifty percent of the world's 7,000 languages, he says, are no longer taught to children. Further, he argues that indigenous cultures are not failed attempts at modernity, nor are they failed attempts to be us ― they are unique expressions of the human imagination and heart.

Wade Davis: Dreams From Endangered Cultures

In 2009 Davis received the Gold Medal from the Royal Canadian Geographical Society for his contributions to anthropology and conservation, and he is the 2011 recipient of the Explorers Medal, the highest award of the Explorers’ Club, and the 2012 recipient of the Fairchild Medal for Plant Exploration.

More Information

Official Website... 

Cultures on the Edge... 

National Geographic... 

Wade Davis on Wikipedia...