Alaska Wilderness League

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of the wildest places left in America, a vast landscape of mountains, rivers, wetlands, and tundra that sustains caribou, polar bears, migratory birds, and the Indigenous communities whose lives and cultures are deeply connected to this land. 

But this winter, that landscape could face a familiar and deeply damaging threat: seismic exploration. 

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA), a state-owned agency, could move forward this winter with plans to search for oil beneath the Refuge’s coastal plain. We expect AIDEA to seek federal authorization for seismic testing this winter, potentially bringing heavy equipment back onto a landscape that has been recovering from earlier exploration for decades. The permitting process would likely include an application for an Incidental Harassment Authorization (IHA), which would allow certain otherwise prohibited disturbances to marine mammals, including polar bears, subject to specified conditions. 

The stakes are enormous. Seismic testing threatens the fragile tundra itself, but the potential disturbance of polar bears during their denning season makes this proposal especially alarming. In a warming Arctic where these animals already face mounting pressure, the Refuge should be a place where they can raise their young safely rather than butting up against another industrial frontier. 

Seismic exploration is often described as a preliminary step toward oil development. In practice, it brings an industrial footprint into one of the most ecologically sensitive landscapes in the country. 

To map underground geological formations, seismic crews move heavy vehicles across the tundra in carefully planned grids. Modern three-dimensional seismic surveys can involve massive “thumper trucks,” bulldozers, fuel trucks, support vehicles, and mobile camps. Thumper trucks use heavy plates to send vibrations into the ground, with the returning signals collected by sensors to help create an image of what lies beneath the surface. 

The machinery may only operate during winter, but the damage does not necessarily disappear when the snow melts. 

We know this because seismic exploration has happened in the Arctic Refuge before. During the winters of 1984 and 1985, crews conducted two-dimensional seismic surveys across the coastal plain. The resulting vehicle trails and disturbed vegetation left marks on the tundra, some that have stuck around for decades. Some tracks remain visible today, long after the machinery that created them has disappeared. 

Arctic tundra is exceptionally vulnerable to this kind of disturbance. Its vegetation, soils, and underlying permafrost are closely connected, and damage to the surface can alter drainage, accelerate thawing, and change the conditions that plants need to grow. Recovery is slow, particularly in a region where the growing season is short and temperatures remain low for much of the year. 

Research examining the landscape impacts of seismic surveys in the Arctic Refuge has documented the persistence of these disturbances. Even when crews operate in winter, frozen ground and snow do not guarantee that the landscape will be protected. 

And the proposed exploration would use a more intensive approach than the older surveys. Three-dimensional seismic testing requires a denser network of survey lines to produce a more detailed picture of underground geology. More passes across the landscape mean more opportunities to damage vegetation and soils, while modern equipment can be substantially heavier than that used in earlier exploration. 

The Refuge is still living with the consequences of the last round of seismic testing. We cannot assume it will recover quickly—or fully—from another. 

The renewed threat comes as Alaska doubles down on its push to open the Arctic Refuge to oil development, even as major oil companies have shown limited interest in pursuing the opportunity. 

In July 2025, AIDEA issued a request for proposals seeking support for a multiyear seismic exploration program in the Refuge’s coastal plain. In May 2026, its board approved a budget of up to $175 million for the effort, including permitting and regulatory work. 

AIDEA has been moving through the preparatory stages of the project, and we expect an application for seismic operations as the winter season approaches. Federal authorizations will be required before the proposed work can proceed. The exact timing and scope of any operations will depend on the applications submitted and the decisions made by the responsible agencies. 

This is a significant escalation. AIDEA is using public resources to pursue oil exploration in a place where the industry itself has repeatedly failed to demonstrate strong commercial interest. The agency is betting that better geological data could attract future investment, but the environmental risks begin long before a single barrel of oil is produced. 

Seismic exploration is not the final stage of oil development. It is a step toward making future drilling possible. The data gathered could help companies identify promising locations, setting the stage for additional industrial activity in a landscape that has so far avoided the extensive infrastructure found elsewhere on Alaska’s North Slope. 

The question is whether that speculative promise is worth risking lasting damage to a globally important wildlife refuge. 

The damage to tundra is reason enough to oppose seismic exploration. But the threat to polar bears makes the prospect of this winter’s operations even more troubling. 

The Arctic Refuge’s coastal plain is important habitat for the Southern Beaufort Sea population of polar bears, including females that come ashore to build maternity dens and give birth. As sea ice changes and becomes less reliable, land-based denning habitat has become increasingly important for some bears. 

A den may be buried beneath snow, making it difficult to detect from the surface. Inside, a mother bear gives birth to her cubs and cares for them during the vulnerable first months of their lives. The den provides shelter from extreme weather and a protected space where newborn cubs can survive before emerging into the Arctic. 

Heavy machinery moving across this landscape creates a frightening set of risks. Vehicles could pass near or over hidden dens, potentially causing physical damage or disturbing mothers and cubs. Even when a den is not directly struck, noise and activity may disrupt the animals at a critical point in their life cycle. 

Finding dens is also difficult. Infrared surveys and other detection methods can help identify potential denning sites, but they are not foolproof. A failure to detect a den does not mean a den is absent. 

That is why the prospect of an Incidental Harassment Authorization is so concerning. 

Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, an IHA can authorize certain incidental, nonlethal harassment of marine mammals associated with specified activities, provided the legal requirements are met. It is not a blanket exemption from wildlife protections, and it does not automatically authorize seismic testing. But if an IHA is sought for this project, it could establish a framework under which certain disturbances to polar bears are permitted. 

For bears sheltering in dens, the consequences of getting those protections wrong could be devastating. A mother disturbed while caring for newborn cubs may face circumstances that threaten their survival. And once a den has been missed or a disturbance has occurred, the harm cannot necessarily be undone by changing the route of a vehicle or ending operations. 

We should not treat the potential disturbance of denning polar bears as an acceptable side effect of oil exploration. The burden should be on the agencies and project proponents to demonstrate that wildlife and their habitat will be adequately protected—not on the animals to survive another industrial incursion. 

This is not the first time seismic exploration has threatened the Arctic Refuge. 

In 2021, a previous effort to secure authorization for seismic testing failed to obtain the necessary federal approvals before the relevant window closed. The proposal drew extraordinary public attention, including more than five million comments during the federal review process addressing potential impacts to polar bears. 

That response demonstrated something powerful: people across the country understand that the Arctic Refuge matters, even if they have never set foot on its tundra. They understand that this landscape is irreplaceable, that polar bears deserve a chance to raise their cubs undisturbed, and that the consequences of industrial development extend far beyond the boundaries of a single project. 

Now, the threat could be returning. 

As we approach another winter, the public must be ready to respond to new applications and opportunities to weigh in. Federal agencies must carefully scrutinize any proposed operations, examine the cumulative impacts on the Refuge, and ensure that the best available science informs decisions about wildlife and habitat. Any proposed authorization involving polar bears requires particular scrutiny because of the difficulty of locating dens and the potentially severe consequences of disturbance. 

The future of the Arctic Refuge should not be determined by a state agency’s willingness to spend public money searching for oil that the industry itself has been reluctant to pursue. 

Alaska Wilderness League will continue fighting to keep seismic exploration out of the Arctic Refuge. We cannot allow decades-old scars to become the beginning of a new cycle of destruction, and we cannot accept the risk of disturbing polar bear mothers and cubs for the sake of oil exploration. 

The Arctic Refuge is worth protecting. This winter, we must make sure it is. 

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, also known as AIDEA, is a public corporation of the State of Alaska housed as a political subdivision within the Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development (DCCED). Founded in 1967 by the Alaska State Legislature, AIDEA’s statutes guide the agency “to promote, develop, and advance economic growth and diversification in Alaska by providing various means of financing and investment.”  

But in the 59 years since its inception, AIDEA has become like no other state economic development agency. Instead of acting in an advisory role, as a strategic facilitator, or providing market-based investment, AIDEA has deviated from its original purpose by choosing to directly invest in capital intensive, risky, and politically contentious projects. If you’ve heard of the Ambler Road and oil & gas lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge , you should know AIDEA’s the chief culprit.  

AIDEA’s not just using state money to prop up the oil, gas, and mining industries; it’s costing the state billions of dollars in the process. AIDEA may pay a dividend to the state every year, but set at just $17 million for fiscal year 2027 with AIDEA’s asset base totaling $1.7 billion, it begs the question of whether the state might have better uses for AIDEA’s money.  

As our schools fall apart, class sizes breach 40 students, energy costs skyrocket, and the Alaska Marine Highway System flounders, Alaskans should wonder if the best use of AIDEA’s money is building new mining roads when the state can’t maintain its current road system, and purchasing oil leases in the Arctic Refuge which all other major oil and gas companies withdrew from.  

So how does AIDEA get away with wasting state money, with no legislative oversight, and all while ignoring the public?  

The answer lies in AIDEA’s unique statutes, which give AIDEA “separate and independent legal existence” from the state. AIDEA has used these statutes to justify their choices to invest millions of dollars of state money without legislative oversight or approval. However, legal review has confirmed that AIDEA is indeed a public corporation, and one that is subject to the Alaska Constitution and the legislative appropriations process.  

AIDEA’s governing board also helps the agency get away with its costly decisions. Consisting of seven members, AIDEA makes its investment decisions by the directive of the board. Both the commissioner of revenue and the commissioner of commerce, community, and economic development serve on the board. The other five members are members of the public appointed by the governor. Each public member serves “at the pleasure of the governor” in statute. Each commissioner is a member of the governor’s cabinet. You can see how AIDEA has become a slush fund for the current administration.  

Not only does the board cater to the governor’s wishes, it lacks any real transparency and repeatedly ignores the public. Board meetings happen monthly, with an agenda posted approximately a week before they happen. Public comment opportunities are noticed, but it is common for the board to change timing last minute. At the AIDEA board meeting in September in Kotzebue, Alaska, public commenters were sent away so the board could go into an “emergency” executive session. This is unfortunately common for the agency as they spend the majority of board meetings in executive session.  

By now, AIDEA has been involved in lease sales in the Arctic Refuge for 5 years. The 2017 Tax Act mandated two lease sales in the Coastal Plain area in the Refuge within 10 years. The first occurred on January 6, 2021, in which AIDEA was the primary bidder. The only industry interest the first lease sale garnered was later withdrawn.  

Later that year, the new administration’s Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland suspended AIDEA’s leases on the grounds that there was insufficient environmental review. This decision was upheld in U.S. District Court. In 2023, Secretary Haaland cancelled the remaining oil and gas leases.  

This was not the end of the saga. Both AIDEA and the State of Alaska brought forward legal challenges regarding the canceled oil and gas leases. While these cases remained active, DOI held a second lease sale in the Refuge, receiving no bids. Eventually, in March of 2025, the District Court ruled that Biden-era lease cancellations were unlawful.  

Enter the next Trump administration and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. This prompted the Bureau of Land Management to reinstate the Coastal Plain Oil & Gas Leasing Program and restore canceled leases to AIDEA in October of 2025.  

Now, AIDEA is actively pursuing a seismic exploration program in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge. They approved themselves to spend $190 million to send massive “thumper” trucks across the tundra. Only the first step towards drilling, this seismic exploration harms wildlife, ecosystems, and the people that rely on them. AWL continues to defend against development in the Refuge by fighting AIDEA’s seismic push.  

AIDEA is also behind the financing of the Ambler Road, a 211-mile mining road south of the Brooks Range, connecting the Dalton Highway to the Ambler Mining District in northwest Alaska. The road is not only a massive threat to the land, waters, and livelihoods of the Alaska Native Tribes of the region, but it also has an exorbitant price tag. The road is likely to cost the State of Alaska more than $2 billion.  

Despite this steep price tag, AIDEA continues to pursue a project that many local communities and Alaska Native Tribes oppose. Enough is enough.  

AIDEA under the Dunleavy Administration is coming to an end. Alaska’s next governor might support AIDEA’s current trajectory of risky investments in extractive megaprojects, or one who might appoint an entirely new board. In either post-election day scenario, AIDEA will still serve “at the pleasure of the governor.”  

AIDEA’s investments, particularly over the last eight years, show us that the agency needs more oversight, from both the legislature and the people of Alaska. The purpose of the authority is to promote the prosperity and economic welfare of Alaskans. It’s time for AIDEA to fulfill this promise and stop wasting state money on poor investments in extractive mega projects.  

At a recent National Wilderness Coalition fly-in in Washington, D.C., Kyle Milne was one of two Arctic guides who joined Alaska Wilderness League in meetings with members of Congress to share their firsthand perspectives and advocate for protections for Arctic lands. He shared some of the moments that have shaped his love for Alaska’s Arctic, and what wilderness means from the perspective of someone who makes his living guiding people through it. Below is the text of the speech he delivered in the U.S. Capitol.

I have spent the better part of the last five years falling in love with a place. And perhaps “place” isn’t the right word; the landscapes and wilderness areas I have fallen in love with stretch across the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic some 600 miles east to west, with personalities and characteristics that can differ as much as the desert Southwest from Cascadia.

I could sit here and tell you how my livelihood depends upon wilderness—how wilderness has paid my bills, fed me from fish and game, and provided me with purpose and connection. I could tell you about the ecological significance of the hundreds of thousands of caribou that move across the Arctic North Slope every year.

I could tell you about the people I’ve met living in villages and communities scattered across the north side of the state, who, a quarter of the way through the 21st century, still truly live off the land— foraging, fishing, and hunting—and who make me feel like a foreigner, a tourist, in a place I’ve come to know and love deeply.

I could tell you about all those things, but for me, when I really distill the significance of wilderness down, it comes in the form of short vignettes: memories, experiences, times up North that gave me a cold shiver down my spine.

My time up North is scrambling across hundreds of square feet of fossilized coral, embedded in the bedrock shoreline of the Firth River.

It is waking up in a tent on the toe of the Sadlerochit Mountains, the furthest north mountain range in Alaska, to the guttural grunts, soft clacking tendons, and distinct barnyard smell of 30,000 caribou that have wandered into camp in the middle of the night-less night.

It is a musk ox scratching its hindquarters on my tent at 3 a.m.

It is standing on top of a nameless peak near the Kongakut River and seeing thousands of square miles of rolling tundra hills, then flat and barren coastal plain, then low sand barrier islands, then blue ocean, and finally white sea ice on the northern horizon.

It is what isn’t seen from that same nameless peak: no buildings, no vehicles, no dots on the horizon or boats steaming across the ocean; no evidence that the 21st century has made its way this far north just yet.

It is stumbling upon house pits, flakes, atlatl and spear points, arrowheads, scrapers, whalebone structures, and decomposing driftwood cabins—evidence of the tenacity, ingenuity, and courage of pre-contact Iñupiaq people; people who have been, are, and always will be, a part of the land.

It is a family of ermines fearlessly flitting across ground, feet, legs, dry bags, and packs, coming to say hello to a group of rubber-clad rafters loading their boats.

It is the supreme indifference of Mother Nature as sustained 35-mile-per-hour winds flatten tents, snapping poles and shredding fabric, as July snow stings eyes and exposed skin.

It is awe, and a little fear, in the eyes of a city planner from right here in Washington, D.C., as we kneel on the tundra, staying motionless while a herd of bull caribou with antlers as tall as us walk within touching distance, unaware of our presence.

It is a conversation with a Gwich’in elder in the Wright Air Service terminal in Fairbanks, Alaska—the calm confidence he exudes as he shares the best way to survive a night in the open, with no tent, when winter temperatures dip to 50 degrees below zero.

It is three polar bears, two cubs and one sow, glowing gold in the 3 a.m. light from the sun hovering above the horizon, hopping across the jumble of shore-fast sea ice to avoid getting their paws wet in meltwater ponds.

It is a landscape that demands your presence, your empathy, and your attention.

Kyle Milne is a born and raised Alaskan. He has worked as a fly-fishing guide, wildland firefighter, Arctic guide, and in the nonprofit sector. He first visited Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 2021, and since then it has always had a hold on a piece of him. 

Long before we strung together the words “national wildlife refuge,” people were already paying attention to what made Alaska’s northeastern corner extraordinary. They saw a landscape where rivers ran wild from the Brooks Range toward the Arctic Ocean, where vast herds of caribou moved across the tundra with the seasons, and where the coastal plain provided essential habitat for polar bears, migratory birds and countless other species. For the Gwich’in people, who have lived across what is now northeastern Alaska and northwestern Canada for generations, this landscape is also home—and the Porcupine Caribou Herd that migrates through it is central to their culture, food systems and way of life. 

That relationship with the land goes back thousands of years. Gwich’in communities have followed the seasonal movements of the Porcupine Caribou Herd across the region, relying on caribou for food and passing knowledge about the animals and their habitat from one generation to the next. The herd’s journey between its wintering grounds and calving grounds on the Arctic coastal plain is one of the great migrations of the North, and for the Gwich’in, the coastal plain is more than important wildlife habitat. It is sacred ground—a place where the caribou give birth and begin the next generation. 

That deep relationship is part of what makes the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge so extraordinary. The Refuge is not an empty wilderness waiting to be discovered or developed. It is a living landscape that sustains people and wildlife together, as it has for generations. 

The story of the Refuge is also part of a much larger American idea: that there should be places set aside not for development, but for wildlife. The National Wildlife Refuge System began in 1903, when President Theodore Roosevelt established Florida’s Pelican Island as the nation’s first wildlife refuge to protect birds from plume hunting. Over the decades that followed, the system grew into a network of hundreds of refuges protecting habitat across the country, from coastal wetlands and grasslands to forests, rivers and Arctic tundra. 

These places serve a simple but increasingly important purpose. Wildlife needs somewhere to live, and people need healthy lands and waters that can sustain them. 

For migratory species, that need is especially clear. A bird may spend one season in Alaska and the next thousands of miles away in another state or another country. A caribou herd may travel hundreds of miles across its range in search of food and suitable conditions. Protecting the places these animals depend on means recognizing that wildlife does not live according to the boundaries we have drawn on a map. 

The Arctic Refuge is one of the clearest examples of what that kind of protection can make possible. In 1960, President Dwight Eisenhower established the 8.9-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Range after years of advocacy from conservationists including Olaus and Mardy Murie, who understood that the region’s extraordinary wildlife and wilderness values deserved lasting protection. Twenty years later, Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, dramatically expanding the protected area and creating the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge we know today. 

At nearly 20 million acres, the Arctic Refuge is larger than many U.S. states. Its landscape stretches from the Arctic Ocean across the Brooks Range and into boreal forests, encompassing mountains, rivers, wetlands and the coastal plain. It provides habitat for the Porcupine Caribou Herd, polar bears, muskoxen, Dall sheep, wolves and hundreds of species of birds, including migratory birds that travel thousands of miles to reach Alaska each year. 

For the Gwich’in, protecting this landscape has always been inseparable from protecting the caribou and the future of their communities. The Porcupine Caribou Herd ranges across Alaska and Canada, crossing an international border that means little to the animals themselves. Its annual migration has sustained Gwich’in communities for generations, and the health of the herd remains closely tied to the health of the lands and waters it travels through. The Gwich’in have therefore been among the strongest and most enduring voices defending the Arctic Refuge’s coastal plain from oil and gas development. Their opposition is rooted not only in concern for a particular ecosystem, but in a relationship with the land and caribou that reaches back thousands of years. 

That history matters because the Arctic Refuge is not simply a place we protect for wildlife that people might someday come to see. It is a place where wildlife continues to sustain human communities, where Indigenous knowledge and traditions remain alive, and where the relationship between people and the land is still visible across the landscape. 

Today, that relationship faces growing pressure. The Arctic Refuge has been targeted for oil and gas development for decades, and efforts to industrialize the coastal plain continue despite the risks to wildlife, ecosystems and the people who depend on them. Yet the reason the Refuge exists in the first place has not changed. This is a place where caribou need room to migrate, where polar bears need habitat to den, where migratory birds return each summer, and where Gwich’in communities maintain a relationship with the land that has endured for generations. 

National Wildlife Refuge Week is a chance to celebrate that idea. Across the country, refuges give wildlife habitat to survive while protecting the lands and waters that sustain communities. They preserve places that might otherwise be lost and maintain the ecological connections that stretch far beyond the boundaries of any single refuge. 

And nowhere is that responsibility more visible than in Alaska. 

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is part of a much larger story about what we choose to protect and what we choose to pass on. Its future belongs in the hands of the people, communities and wildlife who depend on it—not the oil companies that have spent decades trying to industrialize it. 

When we protect the Arctic Refuge, we are protecting more than a spectacular landscape. We are giving caribou room to migrate, birds a place to return, bears a place to raise their young and Gwich’in communities the opportunity to continue a relationship with the land that has sustained their people for generations. 

That is worth celebrating this National Wildlife Refuge Week and worth protecting for generations to come. 

Photo credit: Dave Shreffler

It has been a hard-fought year for Alaska’s public lands, and few places have felt the pressure more intensely than the Western Arctic. 

Stretching across more than 23 million acres of federal public land, what is formally known as the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska (NPRA) is one of the largest expanses of public land in the country. It is also one of the most ecologically important places in the Arctic, supporting caribou herds, migratory birds, fish, polar bears, and other wildlife, as well as the Alaska Native communities whose cultures, livelihoods, and traditions are deeply connected to these lands and waters.  

For decades, the NPRA—or what we call the Western Arctic—has been a place where the public has fought to balance the demands of development with the extraordinary ecological and cultural values of the region. 

This year, that balance has been under relentless pressure. 

In March, the Administration held an oil and gas lease sale in the Western Arctic that was devastating to witness. Industry showed up with the money and interest to claim huge portions of this public landscape, with more than 1.3 million acres ultimately leased.  

Familiar names were among the bidders, including ConocoPhillips, which has previously talked about pursuing a “smaller footprint” in Alaska and has relinquished leases in the Western Arctic in the past. ExxonMobil also bid on tracts along the shores of Teshekpuk Lake, one of the most important and ecologically sensitive places in the entire Western Arctic. The largest spender at the sale was Repsol, a foreign Spanish oil company. 

For a region so often invoked in conversations about American energy independence, it is worth taking a close look at who is actually lining up to develop these public lands, and who stands to benefit from doing so. The companies placing bids may have different histories and different corporate strategies, but they share an interest in securing access to some of the most consequential public lands in the Arctic.  

You can read more details in our press release here.  

For those of us who care deeply about public lands, the lease sale was a crushing day. These places are more than mere acreage or parcels available for companies to acquire. The Western Arctic is a landscape of extraordinary scale and ecological importance, and decisions made there reverberate far beyond the boundaries of individual lease tracts. 

But we did not let the lease sale silence us. 

Instead, Alaska Wilderness League and our supporters launched a corporate accountability campaign aimed directly at the companies that had chosen to pursue oil and gas development in the Western Arctic. Thousands of people took to social media to make their views known, flooding corporate accounts with comments and questions and demanding that these companies answer for their plans in the Arctic. It was one way for people across the country to remind these corporations that public lands come with a public interest — and that the American people are paying attention to what happens on them. 

We’re still bringing that energy. Unfortunately, so is Big Oil. 

In July, the Bureau of Land Management proposed another major change that could have consequences across the Western Arctic. The proposal, developed with significant input from the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, would make it easier for companies to advance development projects in the Western Arctic while limiting opportunities for public oversight and participation. 

The proposal comes with the familiar trappings of public engagement: a 60-day comment period, public meetings, and virtual hearings. Those opportunities matter, and people across the country have made use of them. But the substance of the proposal raises much larger questions about what meaningful public participation looks like when the rules governing development are being rewritten to make development easier in the first place. 

The Western Arctic deserves careful review of major projects because the stakes are enormous. The region contains wetlands, rivers, lakes, coastal areas, migration routes, and critical habitat that sustain wildlife and communities across the Arctic. Changes to the way development is reviewed can affect far more than a single project or lease block, particularly when they reduce opportunities to evaluate cumulative impacts and hear from the people who know these lands best. 

So we showed up. 

Members of the public packed hearings and meetings, submitted comments, and made their voices heard. More than 80 people testified during the public hearings, calling in from across the country — from Alaska to Maine and communities in between. Their messages varied, but the concern was unmistakable: decisions about the future of the Western Arctic deserve meaningful public scrutiny, and people expect the federal government to listen before making changes that could shape this landscape for decades. 

Those comments have been submitted to the Bureau of Land Management, and the public comment period remains open through November 9. 

If you haven’t yet weighed in, you can take action here. 

The proposed BLM rule is only one piece of a much larger effort to change how development happens in the Western Arctic. 

The Administration has also moved toward codifying a categorical exclusion for certain exploratory activities in the Western Arctic, a step that could allow these efforts to move forward without undergoing the full environmental review typically required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). 

Environmental review is one of the primary ways the public gets to understand what a proposed project could mean for wildlife, habitat, communities, and the broader landscape before decisions are made. It provides a process for identifying impacts, considering alternatives, and bringing information into the public record. 

Eliminating that review means reducing opportunities to ask hard questions before bulldozers, roads, drill rigs, and other industrial infrastructure arrive. 

Taken together, these changes point toward a broader shift in how the Western Arctic is being managed. Longstanding safeguards are being reconsidered or dismantled, opportunities for public participation are being narrowed, and the rules governing development are being rewritten in ways that could make it easier for industry to move forward. 

The Western Arctic has spent decades at the center of debates about how much development is appropriate on public lands and where the lines should be drawn to protect places that are especially important for wildlife and communities. Those debates are not going away, but neither should the public’s role in them. 

It can be easy, after another lease sale or another proposed rule change, to feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of threats facing Alaska’s public lands. But the scale of the challenge is also a reminder of why public engagement matters. 

The Western Arctic belongs to all of us. 

It belongs to the people who live closest to it and depend on its lands and waters. It belongs to the caribou that travel across it, the birds that migrate thousands of miles to reach it, and the fish and other wildlife that depend on its interconnected wetlands, rivers, lakes, and coastal waters. And as public land, it belongs to the millions of Americans who may never set foot in the Arctic but still have a stake in what happens there. 

That public interest deserves a voice in every decision that shapes the future of this extraordinary place. 

Sometimes that means showing up when the government hands us the microphone. Sometimes it means creating enough public pressure that decision-makers have to listen. Sometimes it means holding corporations accountable for the choices they make on public lands. And sometimes it means doing all three at once. 

The fight for the Western Arctic has been long, and this year has brought more than its share of difficult days. But across the country, people continue to speak up for these lands. They are submitting comments, showing up at hearings, calling out corporate actions, and reminding decision-makers that the Western Arctic is worth protecting. 

We are deeply grateful to everyone who has stood with us through this fight. 

There is still a long road ahead, and there is still plenty of work to do. But we’re here for it — and we’re not going quietly. 

Photos: © Florian Schulz / visionsofthewild.com