A female caribou runs near Teshekpuk Lake in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska on June 12, 2022. The Teshekpuk Caribou Herd gives birth to its calves in the land around the vast lake, the largest on the North Slope. Photo: Ashley Sabatino / U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

The federal government will continue to prohibit mining, drilling and other forms of development on 28 million acres of federal land spread across Alaska, the Interior Department announced Tuesday. (Reference: 113,312 square kilometers, or 6.6% of Alaska's territory).

The move, hailed by environmental groups and scorned by Gov. Mike Dunleavy and the state’s congressional delegation, reverses an action taken in the final days of President Donald Trump’s administration.

That administration sought to open the land to development, but after President Joe Biden took office, the Interior Department said that the Trump administration’s process was flawed and it would redo the work.

Earlier this year, the Bureau of Land Management published an environmental impact statement saying that the agency was inclined to keep the old rules in place.

Map of ANCSA Section 17 (d) (1) withdrawals with BLM lands in green and hatch marks illustrating the D-1 withdrawal lands currently impacted by agency actions to open areas to mining and other extractive activities. Source: Audubon.

The land in question is collectively known as “D-1 lands” because it was withdrawn from development under Section 17(d)(1) of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

In public comments, more than half of the state’s federally recognized tribes urged the federal government to keep the land undeveloped.

The United Tribes of Bristol Bay was one of several groups celebrating Tuesday’s action, with the organization stating by email that the decision is a significant victory for the Tribal communities across Alaska whose voices have been crucial in advocating for the protection of these lands.

Anaan’arar Sophie Swope, executive director of the Mother Kuskokwim Tribal Coalition, said the decision announced by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland “is an important step toward a future full of healthy lands, waters, and people who thrive on wild salmon, waterfowl, other migratory animals, and seasonal plant life.”

Gov. Mike Dunleavy, in a statement posted on social media, denounced the decision, calling it a “sanction against Alaska.”

Dunleavy has supported mining and drilling, calling it beneficial to the state’s economy and in turn, its people. 

Joe Plesha, a spokesperson for Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, noted that both Murkowski and Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, supported the Trump administration’s actions, which were issued as public lands orders.

Under this administration, PLOs have become ‘political land orders.’ Alaskans have been completely railroaded as the BLM goes back on their own recommendation and commitment to return Alaska’s lands to federal multiple use status,

Plesha said by email.

That they won’t lift a single PLO on a single acre belies belief that this is anything other than election-year politics.

Based on: Alaska Beacon, Audubon

Also read the publication:
Norway Sets Dates for Zero Emission Shipping in Fjords