Number: 2004-02
WHEREAS, our nation’s only arctic ecosystem is located in the state of Alaska and is a spectacular and diverse living landscape with mountains, foothills, and a wide coastal plain with dozens of rivers and an untold number of ponds, lakes and wetlands, bounded by marine bays and lagoons; and
WHEREAS, the western region of this arctic ecosystem contains the largest remaining block of federal public land in the nation, the 23.5 million acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), home to a myriad of wildlife such as moose, wolves, brown bears, wolverines, foxes, and two vital caribou herds; birds such as the long-tailed duck, king and common eiders, peregrine falcon, golden eagle, buff-breasted sandpiper, and yellow-billed loon; and habitat such as nesting areas for threatened Steller’s and spectacled eiders, and molting and staging grounds for loons, ducks, geese, and swans, including 20 percent of the world’s Pacific black brant population; and
WHEREAS, Alaska Natives have hunted and fished in what is now the NPR-A for thousands of years and today’s Native Inupiat Eskimos continue to depend on these lands for caribou, waterfowl, seal, bear, fish, and many other species; and
WHEREAS, the NPR-A was originally set aside in 1923 by President Warren Harding as a potential source of oil for the U.S. Navy; in 1976, Congress transferred management authority over the NPR-A to the Department of the Interior but required maximum protection of fish, wildlife, and other surface values; and in 1980, Congress authorized actual leasing and development in the NPR-A but again directed the Department of Interior to mitigate adverse effects on surface values; and
WHEREAS, the Inupiat people of Nuiqsut live within eight miles of currently developed oil fields and have seen their way of life increasingly threatened by the cumulative effects of oil and gas development in the Arctic, including seismic surveys and helicopter flights displacing caribou herds and making it difficult for Native hunters to find nearby caribou; multiple fish species decreasing in numbers and becoming deformed, yellow, skinny, bitter flavored, and plagued by parasites and tumors; and air pollution becoming visible throughout the North Slope, with a yellow haze appearing in winter and nitrogen oxide emissions from the oil fields far exceeding the amount emitted by Washington, D.C.; and
WHEREAS, in 2003, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced a final management plan for the northwest region of the NPR-A that would open every acre of the 8.8 million acre area to oil and gas leasing, disregarding common sense and any balance between oil and gas development and environmental protection; and
WHEREAS, the northeast region of the NPR-A contains the Teshekpuk Lake and Colville River areas, both vital to the Inupiat people of Nuiqsut and Barrow for subsistence hunting and fishing, and is currently managed by the Bureau of Land Management in accordance with a 1998 Record of Decision that makes 87 percent of the 4.6 million acre area available for oil and gas leasing subject to certain restrictions and stipulations, and prohibits leasing in 589,000 acres of key environmentally sensitive land around Teshekpuk Lake used by calving caribou and molting geese, but the Bureau of Land Management has proposed to revise the plan so that leasing could occur in this biologically sensitive area and to remove the existing mitigation requirements attached to lease sales; and
WHEREAS, it is essential that this public land be managed wisely in the future to provide maximum, long term protection for Alaska Natives who depend on its resources for survival during the long winter months, as well as to protect the NPR-A’s fish, wildlife, and wild land values for all Americans,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation, at its annual meeting assembled March 11-13, 2004, in St. Louis, Missouri, expresses its conviction that America’s Arctic is threatened by unnecessary and ill-considered oil and gas development, and reconfirms its commitment to seeking a wilderness designation for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain as a vital component of a sound conservation strategy for the region; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization finds the Bureau of Land Management’s Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Northwest Planning Area of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska unsatisfactory because it places undue emphasis on development interests and disregards the common sense approach of balancing development with conservation and Native interests as required by the various land management directives governing the NPR-A; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization believes that the NPR-A should be managed to provide maximum protection for areas with significant wildlife and subsistence values, including permanent protection of the designated Colville River and Teshekpuk Lake Special Areas, and that any further management decisions should be based on careful consideration and study of the cumulative effects of oil and gas leasing on fish and wildlife habitats, subsistence, and wilderness values, and should specifically address the National Academy of Science’s 2003 study on the cumulative environmental effects of oil and gas activities on Alaska’s North Slope.