Number: 1991-11
WHEREAS, the wetland habitats of the United States provide critical biological functions; and
WHEREAS, continued loss of wetlands and their productivity through activities such as dredging, draining, filling, pollution and other forms of environmental degradation threaten those functions; and
WHEREAS, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) have developed and signed a “no-net-loss” Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) to clarify their long standing applications of the existing provisions of §404; and
WHEREAS, existing §404 regulations are intended to assure that losses of wetlands, when they occur due to permitted activities, are compensated by mitigation measures by the permittee so as to assure that there is no overall net loss in the functions provided, and the MOA is designed to identify a process by which the Corps and EPA evaluate permits under §404 and identify and provide for no-net-loss of wetland functions; and
WHEREAS, while Alaska is fortunate among the United States for still having most of its wetlands intact, there have been significant losses in its coastal wetlands from community development. While oil is unquestionably Alaska’s major revenue source at this time, economic data indicate that it is the fisheries and other wildlife dependent upon Alaska’s wetlands that hold the future to a sustainable economy; and
WHEREAS, these fish and wildlife resources are also the mainstay for Alaska’s rich Native and subsistence cultures; and
WHEREAS, the economic production from wetlands in Alaska has been documented to be worth nearly two billion dollars annually when the production of commercial fishing and wetland-dependent recreation and tourism, such as recreational fishing, are combined; and
WHEREAS, Alaska wetlands share many of the attributes of temperate wetlands, and the differences between individual types of Alaska wetlands are as great as the differences between temperate and Alaska wetlands; and
WHEREAS, most Alaska wildlife species are ultimately Resolution No. 11 1991
controlled by the availability of their habitats in the same way that wildlife species are controlled in other regions of the globe; and
WHEREAS, wetlands habitat protection is a cost-effective means for maintaining fish and wildlife populations and the economic, social and biological functions dependent on wetlands; and
WHEREAS, such production can continue and increase in value indefinitely if wetlands are managed to conserve their diverse biological functions; and
WHEREAS, such production is of greater long-term benefit to the economy, health and welfare of Alaska and the United States than the transient benefits of extractive industries such as the oil and gas industry; and
WHEREAS, the oil and gas industry in the State of Alaska, the Alaska delegation in the U. S. Congress and the Alaska Legislature have advocated exclusion of Alaska from the Corps’ and EPA’s MOA and the President’s proposed national “no-net-loss of wetlands” policy;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation in annual meeting assembled March 21-24, 1991, in Memphis, Tennessee, strongly endorses equal inclusion of Alaska with the remainder of the U. S. in the MOA and the President’s proposed no-net-loss of wetlands policy.