Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

IDENTIFICATION: Large area of land in northeastern Alaska set aside by the US government for the preservation and protection of wildlife

DATES: Established in 1960; expanded in 1980

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge provides a home for a great many species of marine mammals, birds, and terrestrial animals. Its isolation, biodiversity, and protected status make it an important sanctuary for threatened species such as the polar bear. The possibility that oil exploration could be undertaken in a section of the refuge is a topic of ongoing debate.

Even before Alaska gained statehood in 1959, a movement was under way in the National Park Service and among conservationists to protect a small part of northeastern Alaska permanently from development and commercial interests. The Arctic National Wildlife Range was established as a federally protected area in 1960 by the US secretary of the interior, Fred A. Seaton, in order to preserve the uniqueness of the wilderness and its wildlife. In 1980, passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) expanded the protected area from less than 3.6 million hectares (9 million acres) to approximately 7.3 million hectares (18 million acres) and renamed it the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

The remoteness and protected status of the refuge have limited the human impact on the environment there. It provides important habitat for marine life, which includes seals and whales as well as fish and seabirds, and terrestrial animals such as caribou, wolves, and the three North American species of bear. The refuge is home to many animals that flourish during the short Arctic summer, such as a variety of insects, and a safe haven where migratory birds can rest while moving south each year. The refuge has been a subject of controversy since the 1970s, and supporters of the area’s protected status have fought off many attempts to open it up to oil and gas development.

Geography and Wildlife

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, sometimes called the Arctic Refuge, has greater species diversity than any other protected area in the Arctic Circle. The northern boundary of the refuge is the coastline of the Beaufort Sea and has habitats typical of coastal regions, such as river deltas, barrier islands, and salt marshes. These support wildlife that includes migratory seabirds and varieties of fish; in the summer caribou herds travel there to give birth and raise their young. Also during the summer, in addition to the many insects that thrive there, tens of thousands of migratory birds feed and rest on the coastal plain before traveling south. During the winter months, polar bears create birthing dens and hunt seals on the sea ice that grows along the coast.

Further inland, the coastal habitats give way to a plain, dotted with small lakes and braided rivers, that gradually moves upland to the Brooks Range. The Brooks Range region is made up of the foothills, valleys, and mountains north and south of the mountains and provides habitat for, among others, wolves, ducks, and birds of prey such as falcons and eagles. The region of the refuge on the south side of the Brooks Range consists mainly of the boreal forest characteristic of inland Alaska. Year-round residents of this forest include grizzly bears, lynx, wolverines, and moose; caribou herds spend the winter there, and migratory birds breed there during the spring and summer. On this side of the Brooks Range, the rivers that flow south to the Yukon River, the wetlands of the region, and the forest canopy provide a wide variety of habitats and food for many different species, from fish to mammals to birds.

Protection and Controversy

In 1968 the discovery of oil in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, which is only sixty miles west of the western border of ANWR, began a political controversy that has not abated. When the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act enlarged the refuge in 1980, it also left open the possibility of oil and gas exploration and exploitation on 607,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) of the refuge’s coastline and coastal plain, which are areas of great biodiversity and are of vital importance to many species. Section 1002 of ANILCA allowed an opening for oil exploration in ANWR, but only if mandated by Congress and the president; this provision of the law was an unhappy compromise that each side vowed to change in its own favor as soon as possible.

Since 1980 many attempts have been made to open what became known as the 1002 Area to exploration and drilling, particularly under Republican presidential administrations and by Republican members of Congress. Alaskan local, state, and national politicians have been among the greatest proponents of drilling in the refuge and have generally been supported by their constituents. Taxes and royalties from oil drilling in Prudhoe Bay provide a large amount of revenue for Alaska annually, and each state resident gets a share in the form of a yearly check; in 2000 the amount of this payment was reportedly about $1,900 per person. The refuge is federal land, however, so the issue must be decided in Washington, DC, not in Alaska.

During President George W. Bush’s two terms in office, moves to open the refuge to oil drilling occurred repeatedly in the Republican-controlled Congress, at first in specific proposals to allow drilling and then, when that approach failed, through attachments to major bills, such as defense-spending and energy bills, or additions to federal budgets. President Barack Obama, however, opposed drilling while he was in office. Whether enough oil actually exists in the 1002 Area to make drilling economically worthwhile to the United States and morally acceptable to many Americans remains unknown. What is clear is that the issue of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge exemplifies the modern global dilemma between the need for energy and the need for a healthy planet.

The issue was raised again in December 2017, when Congress passed a tax bill initiated by President Donald Trump's administration that included a provision that required the secretary of the Interior to approve at least two lease sales for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Trump administration further committed to their goal of drilling in the location when they announced in September 2019 that they were advocating for the entire coastal plain to be opened for gas and oil exploration. When the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) submitted an environmental impact statement that allowed leases to be granted by the end of the year, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the BLM had severely underestimated the impact of oil leases on climate change and global warming.

Despite criticism from the public and some private companies, in August 2020, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced an oil and gas leasing program that would allow for future drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In January 2021, however, President Joe Biden counteracted that program by signing a temporary moratorium on oil and gas leasing in the refuge on his first day in office. On September 6, 2023, the Biden administration cancelled the oil and gas leases. In 2024, the Biden adminstration announced that it would restrict new oil and gas leasing in Alaska.

Bibliography

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Boher, Becky, and Daly, Matthew. "Biden Administration Restricts Oil and Gas Leasing in 13 Million Acres of Alaska's Petroleum Reserve." AP News, 19 Apr. 2024, apnews.com/article/alaska-drilling-petroleum-reserve-biden-1dd8c07d2ed6e902ee6ac6298e2eaade. Accessed 24 July 2024.

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