Nature Observation in Alaska - Footprints in the Last Wild Place (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine February 2003

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Footprints in the Last Wild Place (Cont.)


	Fresh tracks and a winter den left behind by a polar bear and her cub in the refuge's 1002 region, March 2002

ARCTIC VILLAGE WAS the starting point for an expedition into the Arctic Refuge on which I had been invited by Subhankar Banerjee, an enterprising 35-year-old conservationist and photographer from Calcutta, India. Subhankar has spent the last two years engaged in a documentary project to help rally support against oil exploration and drilling in the refuge. Departing Arctic Village on July 13, 2002, we would make a ten-day camping trip down the Kongakut River through the refuge's remote northeastern region, from the north slope of the Brooks Range and across the tundra to the Arctic coast. As a lifelong environmentalist deeply alarmed by the aggressive anti-environmental attitudes of the Bush administration, I signed up at once.

This return to the Alaskan Arctic was my first visit since May of 1957, when I accompanied a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The 22-year battle is far from over. With the Republican takeover of Congress came the stated intention to resurrect the Bush energy agenda, including oil development in the Arctic Refuge. The future of North America's last great stronghold of wildlife will depend on a few key votes.

pilot on a polar bear survey along the icebound coast east and west of Point Barrow while researching a book called Wildlife in America. Three years later I traveled to Nunivak Island, in the Bering Sea, on an expedition to capture musk ox calves for an experimental herd that might strengthen the economy of the Inupiat—the Alaskan Inuit, or "Eskimo," of the northern coast. In Anchorage that year, the saloons were jammed with Indians and oil prospectors. Eight years later, the largest oil field in North America, with an estimated reserve of 9.6 billion barrels, was discovered just west of the Arctic Refuge at Prudhoe Bay. The discovery threatened the Inupiat as well as the Gwich'in, since both peoples, in different seasons, were hunters of the caribou which calved on the coast plain; the potential disruption of the fragile tundra ecosystem would precipitate them into the struggle to protect it. By June 20, 1977, however, the first Prudhoe oil was flowing south to Port Valdez, and oil leases, public royalties, and revenues became a serious political consideration.

The Carter administration's monumental Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980, a farsighted triumph for conservation, virtually doubled the refuge area to nearly 20 million acres, setting aside an inviolable wilderness of 8.9 million acres. Unfortunately, most of the designated wilderness lay in the barren mountains, leaving the coastal region containing the Porcupine calving ground entirely vulnerable. The relevant fine print in the Lands Act was Section 1002 (known as the "Ten-Oh-Two"), which directed that this critical 1.5-million-acre coastal area be placed in an "undecided" category while being assessed for its fossil fuel potential and biological significance.

Oil drilling in the 1002 seemed inevitable until the night of March 23, 1989, when the oil tanker Exxon Valdez went aground on an offshore reef in Prince William Sound, leaking 11 million gallons of oil and destroying the ecology of well over a thousand miles of Alaska's coast. Though the oil industry lay low during the ensuing investigations, the first President Bush would make drilling in the Arctic Refuge a plank of his energy policy. However, his 1991 attempt to forward drilling stalled in Congress, and his successor, President Clinton, vetoed a draft of the national budget that contained a drilling provision. Undaunted, the second Bush administration has been promoting an "energy initiative" that includes an estimated $27 billion in subsidies for fossil-fuelers, with a special provision that would permit drilling in the refuge—what the oilmen refer to as "the AN-war."

Though the Bush energy bill was approved by the House in August 2001, the inclusion of the drilling provision was rejected by the Senate in March 2002. However, the 22-year battle is far from over. With the Republican takeover of Congress this past November came the stated intention to resurrect the Bush energy agenda, including drilling for natural gas in certain national parks, and oil development in the Arctic Refuge. The future of North America's last great stronghold of wildlife will depend once more on a few key votes.

Subhankar Banerjee's invitation presented a wonderful opportunity to behold the lower Kongakut—a mere 15 miles from the border of the 1002 and part of the same coastal tundra ecosystem—while it is still pristine and intact.

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