Protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
- by: WWF
- recipient: David Bernhardt, Acting Interior Secretary; Brian Steed, Director, Bureau of Land Management; Nicole Hayes, Project Manager, Bureau of Land Management
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is home to some of the planet's most spectacular wildlife.
Under the direction of President Trump's Secretary of Interior, the Bureau of Land Management has issued a draft environmental impact assessment for oil and gas leasing in the Coastal Plain. The assessment is being fast-tracked, as the administration wants to accelerate the drilling process.
Drilling in this national natural treasure will disturb wildlife, destroy tundra and wetland habitat, and bring noise in the form of aviation and ground traffic; and marine life will be impacted by the construction of landing docks and ship traffic carrying drilling equipment.
Sign our urgent letter to the Bureau of Land Management today and help us protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Dear officials,
I strongly oppose opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to leasing for oil and gas drilling. The Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) efforts to authorize oil and gas leasing are happening at a speed and level far beyond what BLM is required to consider.
The draft Environmental Impact Statement released by the Bureau of Land Management is faulty and ill-conceived. Among many failures, BLM does not adequately address several major impacts that will be felt across the coastal plain such as the massive volume of water that industry will withdraw from the scarce water resources on the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain. BLM also omits a meaningful analysis of the cumulative impacts of industrial disturbance and degradation of permafrost, increased thermokarsting, altered precipitation patterns and hydrology, shortened winter seasons and other manifestations of a changing climate.
The Arctic Refuge is one of the world's most important protected areas, providing vast, intact habitat for wildlife to roam freely. Birds from every continent traverse hemispheres to nest here. Caribou travelling 3,000 miles annually depend on the Refuge's Coastal Plain for their survival. One of the planet's most imperiled populations of polar bears utilizes the Coastal Plain each year to build maternity dens.The indigenous Gwich'in people have relied on this rich natural heritage for their own cultural and nutritional survival as well.
[Your comments]
Please protect our wildlife and wild places, our natural heritage, and our clean energy future.
[Your name]
