Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or Arctic Refuge is a national wildlife refuge in northeastern Alaska, United States, on traditional Iñupiaq and Gwich'in lands. The refuge covers an area of in the Alaska North Slope region, with a northern coastline and vast inland forest, taiga, and tundra regions. ANWR is the largest national wildlife refuge in the country, slightly larger than the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is administered from offices in Fairbanks. ANWR is home to a diverse range of endemic mammal species; notably, it is one of the few North American locations with all three endemic American bears, the polar bear, grizzly bear, and American black bear, each of which resides predominantly in its own ecological niche. Besides bears, other mammal species include moose, caribou, wolves, red and Arctic foxes, Canada lynx, wolverine, pine marten, American beaver, and North American river otter. Further inland, mountain goats may be seen near the slope. Hundreds of species of migratory birds visit the refuge yearly, and it is a vital, protected breeding location for them. Snow geese, eiders and snowy owls may be observed as well.
Just across the border in Yukon, Canada, are two Canadian National Parks, Ivvavik and Vuntut.
History
The Arctic Refuge is part of the traditional homelands of many bands or tribes of the Gwichʼin people. For thousands of years, the Gwich'in have called the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge "Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit".Climate change is rapidly affecting the Arctic region, with melting polar ice caps leading to rising sea levels and warming due to the albedo effect. The potential oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge threatens the Porcupine caribou herd's calving grounds, while climate change forces polar bears to change their hunting and denning patterns. Additionally, the unique marine ecosystem of the Arctic basin is being disturbed by industrial noise and oil exploration. The Inupiaq village of Kaktovik, a community that has adapted to this harsh environment over thousands of years, also faces potential disruption.
The National Wildlife Refuge System was founded by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903, to protect immense areas of wildlife and wetlands in the United States. This refuge system created the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 which conserves the wildlife of Alaska.
In 1929, a 28-year-old forester named Bob Marshall visited the upper Koyukuk River and the central Brooks Range on his summer vacation "in what seemed on the map to be the most unknown section of Alaska."
In February 1930, Marshall published an essay, "The Problem of the Wilderness", a spirited defense of wilderness preservation in The Scientific Monthly, arguing that wilderness was worth saving not only because of its unique aesthetic qualities, but because it could provide visitors with a chance for adventure. Marshall stated: "There is just one hope of repulsing the tyrannical ambition of civilization to conquer every niche on the whole earth. That hope is the organization of spirited people who will fight for the freedom of the wilderness." The article became a much-quoted call to action and by the late 20th century was considered seminal by wilderness historians. According to environmental journalist Brooke Jarvis, "Marshall saw the enormous, largely unsettled Arctic lands he had explored as a possible antidote to this—not another chance to keep chasing America's so-called Manifest Destiny but a chance to finally stop chasing it." Even for Americans who would never travel there, "he thought they would benefit knowing that it still existed in the condition it always had." "In Alaska alone," Marshall wrote, "can the emotional values of the frontier be preserved."
In 1953, an article was published in the journal of the Sierra Club by then National Park Service planner George Collins and biologist Lowell Sumner titled "Northeast Alaska: The Last Great Wilderness". Collins and Sumner then recruited Wilderness Society President Olaus Murie and his wife Margaret Murie with an effort to permanently protect the area.
In 1954, the National Park Service recommended that the untouched areas in the Northeastern region of Alaska be preserved for research and protection of nature. The question of whether to drill for oil in the National Wildlife Arctic Refuge has been a political controversy since 1977. The debate mainly concerns section 1002 in the ANWR. Section 1002 is located on the coastal plain where many of the Arctic's diverse wildlife species reside. There are two sides of this debate: support for drilling and the opposition of drilling.
In 1956, Olaus and Mardy Murie led an expedition to the Brooks Range in northeast Alaska, where they dedicated an entire summer to studying the land and wildlife ecosystems of the Upper Sheenjek Valley. The conclusion resulting from these studies was an ever-deeper sense of the importance of preserving the area intact, a determination that would play an instrumental part in the decision to designate the area as wilderness in 1960. As Olaus would later say in a 1963 speech to a meeting of the Wildlife Management Association of New Mexico State University, "On our trips to the Arctic Wildlife Range we saw clearly that it was not a place for mass recreation... It takes a lot of territory to keep this alive, a living wilderness, for scientific observation and for esthetic inspiration. The Far North is a fragile place." Environmentalist Celia M. Hunter met the Muries and joined the fight. Founding the Alaska Conservation Society in 1960, Celia worked tirelessly to garner support for the protection of Alaskan wilderness ecosystems.
The region first became a federal protected area on December 6, 1960, via an order authored by Ted Stevens, Solicitor of the Interior, and signed by Fred Andrew Seaton, Secretary of the Interior under U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1980, Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The bill was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on 2 December 1980.
of the refuge are designated as wilderness area, the Mollie Beattie Wilderness. The expansion of the refuge in 1980 designated of the coastal plain as the 1002 area and mandated studies of the natural resources of this area, especially petroleum. Congressional authorization is required before oil drilling may proceed in this area. The remaining of the refuge are designated as "minimal management," a category intended to maintain existing natural conditions and resource values. These areas are suitable for wilderness designation, although there are presently no proposals to designate them as wilderness.
Currently, there are no roads within or leading into the refuge, but there are a few Native settlements scattered within. On the northern edge of the refuge is the Inupiat village of Kaktovik and on the southern boundary the Gwich'in settlement of Arctic Village. A popular wilderness route and historic passage exists between the two villages, traversing the refuge and all its ecosystems from boreal, interior forest to Arctic Ocean coast. Generally, visitors gain access to the land by aircraft, but it is also possible to reach the refuge by boat or by walking. In the United States, the geographic location most remote from human trails, roads, or settlements is found here, at the headwaters of the Sheenjek River.
Geography
The Arctic is mostly an ocean surrounded by land. The Arctic is relatively covered by water, much of it is frozen. The glaciers and icebergs in the Arctic make up about 10% of Earth's land area. Most of the Arctic's liquid saltwater is from the Arctic Ocean's basin. Some parts of the ocean's surface are frozen all or most of the year. The Arctic area is mainly known for sea ice surrounding the region. The Arctic experiences extreme solar radiation. During the Northern Hemisphere's winter months, the Arctic experiences cold and darkness which makes it one of the unique places on Earth.North America's two largest alpine lakes are located inside the refuge. ANWR is nearly the size of South Carolina.
The refuge supports a greater variety of plant and animal life than any other protected area in the Arctic Circle. A continuum of six different ecozones spans about north to south.
Along the northern coast of the refuge, the barrier islands, coastal lagoons, salt marshes, and river deltas of the Arctic coastal tundra provide habitat for migratory waterbirds including sea ducks, geese, swans, and shorebirds. Fish such as dolly varden and Arctic cisco are found in nearshore waters. Coastal lands and sea ice are used by caribou seeking relief from biting insects during summer, and by polar bears hunting seals and giving birth in snow dens during winter.
The Arctic coastal plain stretches southward from the coast to the foothills of the Brooks Range. This area of rolling hills, small lakes, and north-flowing, braided rivers is dominated by tundra vegetation consisting of low shrubs, sedges, and mosses. Caribou travel to the coastal plain during June and July to give birth and raise their young. Migratory birds and insects flourish here during the brief Arctic summer. Tens of thousands of snow geese stop here during September to feed before migrating south, and muskoxen live here year-round.
South of the coastal plain, the mountains of the eastern Brooks Range rise to nearly. This northernmost extension of the Rocky Mountains marks the continental divide, with north-flowing rivers emptying into the Arctic Ocean and south-flowing rivers joining the great Yukon River. The rugged mountains of the Brooks Range are incised by deep river valleys creating a range of elevations and aspects that support a variety of low tundra vegetation, dense shrubs, rare groves of poplar trees on the north side and spruce on the south. During summer, peregrine falcons, gyrfalcons, and golden eagles build nests on cliffs. Harlequin ducks and red-breasted mergansers are seen on swift-flowing rivers. Dall sheep, muskoxen, and Alaskan Arctic tundra wolves are active all year, while grizzly bears and Arctic ground squirrels are frequently seen during summer but hibernate in winter.
The southern portion of the Arctic Refuge is within the Interior Alaska-Yukon lowland taiga ecoregion. Beginning as predominantly treeless tundra with scattered islands of black and white spruce trees, the forest becomes progressively denser as the foothills yield to the expansive flats north of the Yukon River. Frequent forest fires ignited by lightning result in a complex mosaic of birch, aspen, and spruce forests of various ages. Wetlands and south-flowing rivers create openings in the forest canopy. Neotropical migratory birds breed here in spring and summer, attracted by plentiful food and the variety of habitats. Caribou travel here from farther north to spend the winter. Other year-round residents of the boreal forest include moose, polar foxes, beavers, Canadian lynxes, martens, red foxes, river otters, porcupines, muskrats, black bears, wolverines, wolves and minks.
Each year, thousands of waterfowl and other birds nest and reproduce in areas surrounding Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk fields and a healthy and increasing caribou herd migrates through these areas to calve and seek respite from annoying pests.