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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

ACTION ITEM: Drilling in America's Wildest Refuge

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org

http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Archives

http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest Conservation

07/05/00

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY

America's Serengeti may be sacrificed upon the alter of politics and

cheaper oil. Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge "is one of the

last, best, complete natural ecosystems on the planet." Ninety-five

percent of Alaska's oil-rich North Slope is already available for oil

and gas drilling. Yet, the little Bush child running for President

of the United States seems to think that the largest and wildest

wilderness in the U.S. should be forfeited to perhaps skim a few

cents, for awhile, off a gallon of gasoline. Is any portion of the

World's biosphere to be off limits to oil drilling? Do we have to

destroy all remaining wildernesses, and put every last bit of carbon

dioxide found in oil into the atmosphere, before we start earnestly

developing alternatives? This time the oil indebted Bushes should

read our lips, keep your oil wells out of the people's wilderness!

There are rumors that President Clinton is considering declaring the

Arctic Refuge as a national monument off-limits to oil development.

Please email President Clinton at president@whitehouse.gov, or call

the comments line at (202) 456-1111, and request that he do so.

g.b.

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Title: Analysis: The debate over drilling in America's wildest

refuge

Source: Copyright 2000, Cable News Network.

Date: July 4, 2000

By: Gary Strieker, CNN's global environmental correspondent.

ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Alaska (CNN)-- Last week I spent some

time with Fran Mauer and Anne Morkill during their four-day hike

through a small section of the central mountain region of the Arctic

National Wildlife Refuge, the nation's largest and certainly its

wildest, located in the remote northeast corner of Alaska.

Working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Mauer and Morkill were

conducting their annual survey of Dall sheep in the sector, tallying

363 of them grazing on steep slopes and peaks -- a tiny fragment of

the dazzling spectacle of wildlife there.

Covering nearly 20 million acres, the Arctic Refuge is almost as large

as South Carolina. With a full range of arctic and subarctic habitats,

it shelters the greatest variety of plant and animal life of any

protected area in the circumpolar north, including 180 bird species

from four continents, grizzlies and polar bears, Dall sheep, muskoxen

and wolves. Its northern coastal plain is the calving ground for the

Porcupine Caribou Herd, more than 130,000 animals that migrate 400

miles into the plain every year -- a wildlife pageant that has earned

the refuge the title of "America's Serengeti."

An unscathed wilderness

After many years of field work in the refuge, Mauer has lost none of

the awe-struck reverence he felt when he first arrived. "This place is

one of the last, best, complete natural ecosystems on the planet," he

told me, "and it's the only one we have in America, the only natural

wild spot in the Arctic that has not been impacted already by oil

development. And if we lose that character, that's forever."

I also camped for a few days on a gravel bar on a bend in the

Huluhula, a twisted, glacier-fed river running north to the coastal

plain and the Arctic Ocean. I had joined John Weaver, a senior

biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, who was rafting down

the river on his own wildlife survey. "It's a fallacy," said Weaver,

"to think that the oil and gas on this refuge would solve our so-

called energy problem."

Like Mauer and Weaver, many conservationists are worried that rising

oil prices and political pressures could cause permanent, irreversible

changes in this protected area. Since it was created 20 years ago, the

refuge has been dogged by demands for development of oil and gas

deposits in a zone of its coastal plain covering 1.5 million acres

that has not yet been designated as wilderness.

Opening the Arctic Refuge to drilling has substantial support in

Congress. Five years ago President Clinton vetoed a budget rider that

would have allowed it. This year a similar Senate bill was blocked in

committee, but Alaska's senators vow to keep trying. It's an issue

that will not go away.

A tempting prize for oilmen

No one really knows how much oil could be extracted from the Arctic

Refuge, but the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that about 3.2

billion barrels is a realistic figure for economic production. On the

basis of that estimate, experts calculate that in ten years, when

refuge fields could start producing, their output might reduce

imported oil from 68 percent of U.S. consumption to about 64 percent -

- an amount conservationists argue would certainly not make much

difference in U.S. oil security.

Of course, the value of oil in the refuge -- the amount that could be

economically produced -- would increase if oil prices climb higher.

The USGS estimates that the amount of oil that technology could pump

from the refuge is between 5.7 billion to 16 billion barrels. The

lower end of that estimate would cover not much more than six months

of U.S. oil consumption, but at the higher end the refuge starts to

look like a massive oil bonanza and an irresistible prize for Alaska

and the oil industry.

Ninety-five percent of Alaska's oil-rich North Slope is already

available for oil and gas drilling, but developers see the 5 percent

in the refuge as a natural extension of the oilfields concentrated on

Prudhoe Bay to the west. And they say with new technology they can

explore and drill with minimal impact on the environment, causing no

major disturbance to wildlife -- a claim hotly contested by

conservationists.

More than 30 years of oil and gas development on the North Slope are a

good indication of the consequences to be expected if drilling is

allowed in the refuge. The expanding network of roads, pipelines,

drilling pads and other facilities and operations would have a

cumulative impact. According to one report by critics of drilling,

"No matter how well done, oil development would industrialize a

unique, wild area that is the biological heart of the Arctic Refuge."

There's special concern for the Porcupine caribou herd. During calving

season the cows are extremely skittish, avoiding any possible threats.

Biologists say oil development would create a "barrier effect,"

displacing caribou into areas with less forage and more harassment

from insects and predators, causing higher calf mortality and an

unavoidable drop in the population of the herd.

'Where life begins'

Any threat to the caribou is a threat to the people who have always

depended on them for survival. That's why the Gwich'in Indians are

opposed to any oil development in the refuge. Living in 14 villages

along the Porcupine herd's migration route, some 7,000 Gwich'in

maintain a traditional culture linked to caribou meat, skins and bone

tools. According to Sara James, a Gwich'in leader, "If it wasn't for

caribou, our culture and our people would have died off a long time

ago."

For the Gwich'in, the calving ground of the Porcupine herd is a sacred

place. "The name for it in our language means 'That's where life

begins,'" James told me. "And it's not only for the caribou and the

Gwich'in," she added. "It's also for the birds and ducks that fly up

there to nest and for the fish that spawn there, and the polar bears

and grizzlies and wolves and wolverines that den in the foothills

there. All that is important to this whole ecosystem that still works,

and we want to keep it that way."

The Gwich'in are united in their opposition to oil development, but

neighboring Inupiat Eskimos on the North Slope are more divided on the

issue. Inupiat leaders oppose offshore drilling that could disturb

bowhead whales and other sea resources that are the basis of their

subsistence culture. But they support development on the coastal

plain, for straightforward economic reasons.

Herman Aishanna, an Inupiat supervisor for public works in Kaktovik

village, told me that North Slope oil revenues are already declining,

and new sources of tax money and jobs must be found. "We're very

remote here," he said. "We've got lots of children going to school,

and they will need employment. We've got to change, no matter what.

We're not worried about the caribou or pollution. They'll find some

way to make it safe."

But many others believe the only safe approach is to bar any oil

development whatsoever in the refuge. Sitting next to me at the

campfire, John Weaver said that's the way he feels. "The coastal plain

of the refuge is only a tiny fraction of the entire North Slope of

Alaska," he argued, waving his hand in a wide arc. "All we're asking

for is preserving this very small corner for the long term, either as

a wilderness or perhaps as a national monument."

Many would consider it a reasonable request, but there are strong

economic and political forces against it. Oil interests claim the

Clinton administration is in fact planning to declare the Arctic

Refuge as a national monument off-limits to oil development. If so, it

would be a major part of Clinton's environmental legacy and a

political bombshell with the Arctic Refuge at the center.

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