Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

I

Introduction

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, protected area in northeast Alaska designated for the conservation of wildlife and wildlife habitats. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is the largest refuge in the National Wildlife Refuge System, totaling about 7.8 million hectares (19.3 million acres). The refuge is a summer migratory destination for hundreds of thousands of caribou and for millions of birds. See also Environment.

An area of the refuge is also believed to contain vast amounts of oil and natural gas. The question of whether or not to exploit these resources is controversial, pitting environmentalists against those who argue that the oil is needed to reduce United States dependence on foreign oil imports. The U.S. Congress has deferred a decision on the future management of this area, known as area 1002, but so far has not allowed any commercial drilling or development.

II

The Refuge and Its Ecozones

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge lies entirely within the Arctic Circle in the northeast corner of the state of Alaska. It is bounded on the east by the U.S. border with Canada’s Yukon Territory and on the north by the Beaufort Sea, an arm of the Arctic Ocean. Its southernmost point is near Fort Yukon, and its westernmost tip abuts the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and the Dalton Highway.

The Brooks Range runs through the refuge and represents its largest component, occupying an area of about 52,000 sq km (20,000 sq mi). The refuge features the three tallest peaks in the Brooks Range and includes the Davidson Mountains, the Romanzof Mountains, and the Philip Smith Mountains. The Brooks Range marks the tree line, beyond which trees cannot grow. The area south of the range is boreal forest and boreal evergreen forest, also known as taiga. The area north of the range is open tundra, which occurs in the foothills and on the coastal plain. Rivers in the refuge drain north into the Beaufort Sea.

---

---

III

Wildlife in the Refuge

The most numerous mammals in ANWR are caribou, which number in the hundreds of thousands. There are two herds of caribou: The Porcupine Herd, named after the Porcupine River, and the Central Arctic Herd. In the spring both herds begin migrating to the coastal plain in the refuge, where pregnant females give birth to their calves.

The caribou migration attracts predators, such as grizzly bears and wolves. Other large mammals in the refuge include moose, musk oxen, and Dall sheep. The Arctic fox is one of many animals that scavenge from the kills of polar bears and grizzlies.

Altogether the refuge is home to 36 species of land mammals. In the coastal waters and on the barrier islands that are considered part of the refuge are 9 marine mammal species, including the bowhead whale and the ringed seal. About 40 fish species can be found in the refuge.

Millions of birds migrate to the refuge in the summer. Many species travel long distances, including the Arctic tern, which migrates from Antarctica; dunlins, which migrate from China; yellow wagtails from South Asia; sandpipers from South America; and northern wheatears from Africa. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has documented the presence of about 180 bird species in the refuge. About 60 species nest and breed there. Among them are waterfowl that nest in the wetlands or lakes, such as tundra swan, Canada goose, common eider, and Arctic and red-throated loons. Only a handful of species—ptarmigan, raven, and snowy owl—stay year-round.

IV

History of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge originated as the Arctic National Wildlife Range in 1960 when Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton in the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a public land order designating 3.6 million hectares (8.9 million acres) as part of the range. Alaska had become a state in 1959, and the land order followed a recommendation by the National Park Service to preserve wilderness areas in the northeastern corner of Alaska.

In 1980 President Jimmy Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which incorporated the range into the National Wildlife Refuge System. The new law expanded ANWR to 7.3 million hectares (18 million acres) and classified 3.2 million hectares (8 million acres) as wilderness. Under the 1964 Wilderness Act, a wilderness designation prohibits any logging, mining, or oil exploration, as well as vehicle use or the building of permanent structures or facilities. The area designated as wilderness nearly divides the refuge in half, but is limited to the mountains and some of the foothills of the northeastern part of the Brooks Range.

Section 1002 (pronounced TEN-OH-TWO) of ANILCA called for additional information before Congress could determine whether an area of about 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) along the coastal plain should be designated wilderness or opened up for oil exploration and development. The area came to be known as the 1002 area. It is a relatively narrow swath between the mountains and the sea, stretching along the coast for more than 160 km (100 mi) and ranging in width from about 32 to 64 km (20 to 40 mi).

In passing ANILCA, Congress asked the Interior Department to conduct a study to determine the environmental impact of oil exploration and development on the 1002 area. Section 1003 of ANILCA mandated that only an act of Congress could authorize oil or natural gas production in the refuge.

The refuge continued to grow in size in the 1980s. In 1983 an additional 400,000 hectares (1 million acres) was added to the area of the refuge south of the Brooks Range. This area had belonged to the state of Alaska. In 1988 the U.S. Congress placed another 132,000 hectares (325,000 acres) south of the range under the protection of the refuge, bringing the refuge to the total area it occupies today, 7.8 million hectares (19.3 million acres).

In 1987 the Interior Department submitted its final environmental impact report to Congress with the finding that oil and gas development in the 1002 area would have major effects on a herd of musk oxen and on the Porcupine caribou herd, which uses the coastal plain as a calving area. Major effects were described as “widespread, long-term change in habitat availability or quality which would likely modify natural abundance or distribution of species.”

The report examined five options for the 1002 area, ranging from wilderness designation to opening the area completely to petroleum development. It warned that “the wilderness value of the coastal plain would be eliminated” if Congress opted for full development. Secretary of the Interior Donald Hodel, serving in the administration of President Ronald Reagan, recommended that Congress authorize oil and gas development with the stipulation that unnecessary adverse effects on the environment should be avoided.

The most recent U.S. government study of the 1002 area was performed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and released in 1998. The USGS reassessed the possible petroleum reserves in the area, based on new technologies and new data, and estimated that the total quantity of technically recoverable oil ranged between 5.7 billion and 16 billion barrels of oil. The report gave a mean value of 7.7 billion barrels in the 1002 area and a mean value of 10.4 billion barrels in the entire assessment area, which comprised 1002, adjacent lands belonging to Native Americans, and offshore water areas belonging to the state of Alaska. By comparison the single largest oil field ever discovered in the United States, Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay oil field adjacent to ANWR, contains an estimated 10 billion barrels of oil. The USGS report noted that most of the oil in the 1002 area was expected to be found in a number of accumulations, rather than in a single large accumulation.

The USGS assessment also involved an economic analysis, taking into account the economic costs of exploring for and recovering the oil to determine the cost-efficiency of developing the area’s oil resources. The analysis showed that if the market price of oil was $24 a barrel, then there was a 95 percent probability of finding 2 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil and a 5 percent probability of finding 9.4 billion barrels. As the market price of oil went up, the probability scale went higher.

	More from Encarta
	•  Important Notice: MSN Encarta to be discontinued. Learn more. •  Presidential Myths Quiz •  Coffee break: Recharge your brain