Washington, D.C. — Today, the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) moved to protect from development about 28 million acres of public lands in Alaska—a massive area 37 times the size of Yosemite National Park. The move, outlined in a final environmental impact statement, comes after the Trump administration attempted to open these lands for industrial development and potential transfer during its final weeks in office. Most of the federally recognized Tribes in Alaska have formally called on the Biden administrations to keep full protections—known as “D-1 withdrawals”—in place. Also today, the BLM issued its final record of decision rejecting the Ambler Access Project. This plan for a 211-mile private industrial road through the Brooks Range and the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve would have caused irreversible environmental and subsistence harms as it crossed hundreds of rivers and streams in remote Alaska wilderness.
In response, Drew McConville, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement:
Today, President Joe Biden is answering the call of Alaska Native communities and protecting lands and waterways that have sustained subsistence traditions for thousands of years. These actions represent historic progress for conservation in Alaska and an embrace of common sense, too. Reckless industrial development should have no place in the nation’s most sensitive and treasured public lands, particularly when Alaska is already warming two to three times faster than the rest of the planet.
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