Number: 1999-18
WHEREAS, the Copper River Delta, located at the confluence of the Copper River and the Gulf of Alaska, is one of the nation’s wetland crown jewels, a place of spectacular beauty and uncompromising wildness that encompasses 700,000 acres and is the largest wetlands complex on the Pacific coast of North America; and
WHEREAS, the Delta is a critical staging area for over 16 million shorebirds and other species of waterfowl, is one of the most important shorebird habitats in the western hemisphere and has been designated a hemispheric site in the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network; and
WHEREAS, the Delta is an emphasis area in the North American Waterfowl Management Plan and is the essential and primary breeding ground for the Dusky Canada Goose, a species whose population is significantly below Pacific Flyway objective levels; and
WHEREAS, the Delta supports world-renowned salmon runs; is home to grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, mountain goats, moose, mink, wolverines, otters, sea lions, harbor seals, and the world’s largest population of beavers; houses the Pacific coast’s highest concentrations of sea otters and nesting trumpeter swans; and has been designated a State Critical Habitat Area by the State of Alaska; and
WHEREAS, subsistence hunting, fishing and trapping is an integral part of life for the people who live on the Delta, particularly the Eyak natives for whom the Delta is ancestral home; and
WHEREAS, commercial fishing, which is dependent upon the salmon runs of the Delta, is the economic mainstay of the Delta community; and
WHEREAS, the Chugach Alaska Corporation (CAC) proposes building a road across the Delta that would cross over 250 streams, including more than 50 salmon streams, to clearcut its inholdings; and
WHEREAS, the Delta as a whole is threatened by oil and gas and large-scale tourism projects as well as incremental development of many types; and
WHEREAS, the proposed CAC road and other development will result in air and water pollution and increased stream sediment loads, disrupt stream flows and hydrology, destroy habitat, and increase access and human disturbances, and therefore severely impact the fish and wildlife populations of the entire Delta as well as the Delta’s tremendous wilderness values;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation in its Annual Meeting assembled March 18-21, 1999, in Houston, Texas, opposes the construction of a road across any portion of the Copper River Delta, and encourages the Chugach Alaska Corporation, the U.S. Forest Service and conservation organizations to work together to organize the purchase of a conservation easement on CAC’s Delta inholdings; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation supports designation of the Copper River Delta as a wilderness or comparable conservation system unit.