BLM announces key conservation steps in Western Arctic

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA (Jan. 16, 2025) - The federal Bureau of Land Management took important steps for conservation in the Western Arctic today with the release of a report recognizing the harm that oil development causes to caribou populations, establishing the need for new Special Areas in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to safeguard key subsistence areas for North Slope communities, designating subsistence as a significant resource value in existing Special Areas and the newly proposed Special Areas, and implementing interim measures to protect this critical value.

The reserve is nearly the size of Indiana and the nation's largest tract of public land at 23 million acres. The 1976 Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act requires the Department of the Interior to protect high-value landscapes and habitat, including by establishing Special Areas for significant resource values in the reserve. It is a vitally important area for Nuiqsut and other North Slope communities that depend on its diverse wildlife, including caribou, birds and fish.

In response to today's announcement, The Wilderness Society released the following statement from Alaska Senior Manager Meda DeWitt:

"Today's announcement shows that BLM recognizes what scientists have long told us: that we must protect the diversity of plants and wildlife in the Western Arctic, including the calving grounds and migration corridors that sustain the caribou on which local Indigenous communities - such as Nuiqsut - depend to feed their families.

"By seeing the importance of taking steps to conserve wildlife and habitat, BLM isn't just protecting our public lands. It is respecting the region's communities and moving closer to more meaningful engagement with Indigenous peoples on decisions regarding the stewardship of their traditional homelands."

The Western Arctic is the cultural homeland and subsistence area for Alaska Native communities and supports robust, wild ecosystems and resources on which those communities depend: Caribou, geese, loons, salmon, polar bears, bowhead whales and millions of migratory birds.  

The Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act provides for the Secretary of the Interior to determine whether and/or where to lease lands in the NPR-A for oil and gas while also directing BLM to establish Special Areas to protect important values and ensure the "maximum protection" of these areas identified by the Secretary of the Interior as having "significant subsistence, recreational, fish and wildlife, or historical or scenic value."[42 USC § 6504]