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The Interior department is considering broadening oil and gas drilling restrictions in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A). The Bureau of Land Management will solicit public comments on whether to expand or designate new “special areas” in the 23-million acre reserve, a move that would extend the areas of the NPR-A that are mostly off limits to drillers.
“We have a responsibility to manage the western Arctic in a way that honors the more than 40 Indigenous communities that continue to rely on the resources from the Reserve for subsistence,” BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning said in a statement. “With the rapidly changing climate, the Special Areas are increasingly critical to caribou movement and herd health, as well as other wildlife, migratory birds, and native plants.”
Environmental groups have pointed to the Arctic's unique vulnerability to climate change (some research indicates that the Arctic is warming as much as four times the rate of the rest of the globe) and are calling for greater limits on drilling, particularly following the Biden administration's contentious 2023 approval of the $8 billion Willow oil project in the reserve.
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Wildlife managers sometimes have to be creative in finding ways to mitigate the different types of habitat fragmentation, but there’s support for these kinds of policies. People who love nature want to know that their kids and grandkids will grow up enjoying the same wildlife that they see passing through their land today.”
