The Western Arctic Reserve, also known as the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, is our nation’s largest single unit of public land. It supports some of America's most iconic species threatened and endangered species. Within the Reserve is Peard Bay, a nesting area for the endangered Spectacled Eider.
Polar and brown bears, walrus, beluga whales, caribou and millions of migratory birds call the Reserve home. For the first time ever, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is considering a new management plan for the Reserve that protects key habitat areas from oil and gas development.
Urge Secretary Salazar to protect special areas within the Reserve for future generations by signing our petition to him asking that he adopt "Alternative B" that would protect sensitive habitat for generations to come.
- Secretary of the Department of Interior Ken Salazar
The National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is our nation’s wildest place and deserves enduring protection. I encourage you to support Alternative B as described in the recently released BLM Draft Plan.
Alternative B is the clear choice to protect key, globally significant habitat areas in the reserve, while also allowing for future oil and gas leasing and development.
Alternative B protects ecologically important special areas with exceptional wildlife and subsistence values and strikes the type of balance Congress intended when it transferred these sensitive lands to the BLM in 1976.
I urge you to adopt Alternative B in order to provide the most responsible and balanced management plan for the Reserve – to allow for future oil and gas development in some areas while also safeguarding the special places that are key habitat areas that are vital to healthy wildlife populations in America’s Arctic.
ENDANGERED SPECIES COALITION started this petition with a single signature, and now has 224 supporters. Start a petition today to change something you care about.