I’m writing this on July 4, a day we normally celebrate for our American freedoms. This year is different. Today, President Trump signs the big bill that encompasses his agenda for reforming American life. In nearly a thousand pages, policy and funding changes will influence nearly every aspect of our lives, including the management of our public lands.
This comes on top of what we’ve already experienced in the refuges–huge staff losses through unrelenting pressure, incentives to quit and firings, a hiring freeze, and interference with public communications, exhibits and programming. The bill mandates the opening of public lands to increased extractive industries with reduced environmental oversight or mitigation and curtails scientific research–especially anything related to climate. Incentives for wind and solar projects have been replaced with incentives for fossil fuels.
An effort to sell off public lands was successfully beaten back but may well return in another place or form. One proposal would administratively transfer BLM lands in Alaska to the state to expedite development projects.
Your Friends organization has repeatedly reached out to Alaska’s congressional delegation to emphasize the importance of our refuges and the need to fund their protection and management, not just for their resident fish and wildlife but for human visitors, communities, and future resilience. We asked you, our Friends, to do the same.
Alaska Senators Murkowski and Sullivan and Representative Begich all fell in line with the Republican party to approve the bill. They are particularly happy with the requirement that four lease sales be scheduled within the Arctic Refuge (as well as others in sensitive areas in Alaska) and the loosening of environmental regulations. They consider it a win to “unlock Alaska’s resources.”
While close analysis of the bill’s provisions and their specific effects is just beginning, we can say for sure that Alaska’s public lands are and will be losing the protections and management that they require.
While it’s easy to be discouraged, we must not let up our advocacy!
Please continue to let your elected representatives know that you value our refuges and all they provide for wildlife, environmental quality, recreation, public enjoyment, and the future. Their values cannot be maintained without adequate funding and staffing, adherence to environment laws, and mitigations for environmental harm. Stress that climate change in the north is a very significant threat, not only to plants and wildlife but to the safety of people and the future of the entire warming planet!
Please visit our website regularly for updates and action alerts, and do the same by friending us on Facebook.
And make sure you get out this summer to enjoy some reflective time in one or more of our national wildlife refuges. Join us this Saturday on the Kenai Refuge to recharge with other refuge supporters. Be especially kind to refuge staff who are working very hard in difficult circumstances.
The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge staff on this nearly two million acre refuge is down to 19 employees from the 33 who worked there at this happy time when Friends helped them on a trail clearing project in 2017 (pictured here). With that staff they manage incredible varied habitat and wildlife resources including important salmon runs, a dense moose population, caribou, Dall sheep, bears, eagles and waterbirds and a large public use program of visitor centers, campgrounds, public use cabins, an extensive trail network and two canoe systems all of which attracts a million visits a year from all over the country.