The Arolik River is an ecologically rich waterway flowing through Bureau of Land Management lands from its headwaters in the Ahklun Mountains to the Bering Sea in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region. Beginning in the Ahklun Mountains, it meanders through tundra and shrub willow country before emptying into Kuskokwim Bay near the village of Quinakagak, 70 air miles south of Bethel. The local Yup’ik village community relies on these waters for subsistence harvesting, which support world‑renowned rainbow trout and all five Pacific salmon species (King, Dog, Red, Pink, and Silver), as well as Dolly Varden, grayling, and other cultural and traditional uses.

Yet this river, as well as its salmon populations, is threatened by the state’s continuing efforts to wrest regulatory jurisdiction over it and other rivers throughout Alaska. Back in 2021, Governor Michael Dunleavy announced that the state of Alaska was taking control of navigable waters from the federal government. Stating that the Fed has “dragged Alaska through a costly, multi-year process – for each waterbody – to get what has been ours since 1959.”

The Dunleavy administration believes the process for obtaining jurisdiction over navigable waters on federal lands has been too slow and onerous. As such, the state has consistently sought ways to circumvent the process, especially for rivers targeted by anglers or hunters for trophy-size moose or renowned fishing opportunities.

In August 2025, Nathaniel Herz with the Northern Journal joined so‑called a “Public Access Assertion and Defense Team” — about a dozen Department of Natural Resources employees who traveled to several federally managed lands such as National Parks, Preserves, and Bureau of Land Management areas, in their effort to support what the Dunleavy Administration believes are legal rights to the land beneath the navigable waters of “submerged lands” in these areas.

The U.S. Supreme Court, however, has rejected complete ownership of water by either the federal or state governments, and the law requires the state to make a fact-based determination of navigability for each river before it can assume jurisdiction. More importantly, because state law requires that subsistence fishing be open to all Alaskan citizens, giving the state complete jurisdiction over these waters would eliminate the Rural Subsistence Priority under federal law. Because the Priority limits subsistence fishing to rural residents, it not only protects Alaska Native fishing rights but also reduces pressure on rapidly declining salmon populations. Maintaining federal authority to protect Alaska Native communities’ subsistence preference and prevent increased fishing pressures on these rapidly declining salmon populations is critical, given the effects of climate change and development impacts.

Nevertheless, state officials have met with the Trump Administration to obtain the Department of the Interior’s agreement to relinquish jurisdiction over specific rivers throughout the State. The Journal reported that, according to Jim Walker with the Alaska Division of Mining, Land & Water, “[i]nstead of going through and giving minute details about every mile of these rivers, we talk, rather, about our methodology and why it’s so sound.”

As part of its campaign to roll back federal environmental protection regulations, the Trump Administration is turning over vast amounts of land in Alaska to the state to be used for industrial extraction purposes, threatening fish and wildlife and vast acreages of unbroken landscape.

The threat not only involves land but also rivers and streams. The State’s proposal regarding submerged lands prompted the Trump administration to include language in the Unleashing Alaska Executive Order directing federal resource agencies to transfer regulatory authority over such waters to the State, instead of going through the standard fact-based process for determining State jurisdiction.

As a result, through an innocuous-sounding “Recordable Disclaimer of Interests RDI’s),” the BLM is unceremoniously converting ownership to the State one river at a time. RDI’s which have already been granted or are under consideration by the BLM include the East Fork of the Arolik River, the Arolik River, and Arolik Lake; lands underlying portions of the Delta River;Tangle River; and Tangle Lakes; the Kwethluk and Goodnews Rivers; the Dennison Fork of the Fortymile River, and the Eek River;which are all important subsistence fishing rivers. Additionally, the federal-to-state giveaways will result in a shift in management from the more protective federal standards, including national wildlife refuges, national parks, and preserves, to less protective state aquatic habitat standards.

The Dunleavy and Trump Administration’s piecemeal strategy is to dismantle the subsistence priority watershed by watershed. Alaska has many more RDI applications that the Department of the Interior is still processing. If BLM grants jurisdiction over all of these submerged lands, the implications for subsistence priority and salmon could be dramatic.

“When we hear his call, we hear no mere bird. We hear the trumpet in the orchestra of evolution.”

~ Aldo Leopold from A Sand County Almanac

The first flush of golden leaves on the birch trees and the marshaling of Sandhill Cranes connote the arrival of fall in South-Central Alaska. The birds, some 600 all told, gather late in the day in rolling fields, restless and jumpy ahead of their departure. For now, the skies still reverberate with their raucous call. But soon, in advance of the first fall tempest, they will spiral up and depart en masse, leaving bittersweet silence in their wake, as we ready ourselves for the onset of winter.

A flock of Cranes is called a Council. Among Alaskan Natives, Sandhills are said to teach patience and offer spiritual guidance. I know something about that. In my ongoing attempt to practice meditation, I was, on a fall afternoon much like this one, coached by a Sandhill Crane.

Sitting in silence among my fellow meditators, I struggled to still my mind and focus on my breathing. My leg cramped, my nose itched, and my mind bounced from one thought balloon to the next. Surely this meditation session would end soon. But no, it dragged on, and on. Opening my eyes, I looked to the left and right, observing the stillness of my Sangha family. Eyes closed, hands cupped, legs crossed, steady deep breaths – calmness prevailed. Argh. Was I the only one who couldn’t let go of my monkey mind and just be? And then I noticed the Crane, moving slowly and gracefully just outside the full-length window.

Standing three feet tall, with a wingspan of six feet, Sandhill Cranes are the largest game birds in Alaska. They are a smoky gray upon arrival in the spring, but soon paint themselves with iron-rich mud as camouflage against predation by Bald Eagles, which share their preference for fields and marshes. Their bugling call, which brings us out of the house in late April to scan the skies for their return, is due to their uniquely shaped windpipe which folds back on itself like a saxophone. If that call seems prehistoric to you, it is. In fact, a fossil of a windpipe found in Nebraska, where they gather along the Platte River Valley by the hundreds of thousands each spring, which has been carbon-dated to 2.5 million years ago.

Chicks, called colts, are precocial, meaning they are born fully feathered and able to toddle or swim after their parents within hours of birth. Adults usually hatch out two colts, but often lose one or both to predation. Those that survive learn to grub out roots and eat berries, but also how to catch frogs, insects, and voles. They grow very quickly, reaching adult size in about 70 days. And they learn to dance.

Paired for life, adult Sandhills (sporting red crowns which the colts lack) will engage in an elegant, flamboyant dance, leaping several feet into the air on stilt legs, quick-stepping in circles with their wings open, and bowing while calling back and forth. Not contained to the mating season, this spontaneous display of joy can happen at any time of year.

Focusing on the lone Sandhill outside the window, I watched as she prodded the grass for insects. When her leg needed extending, she reached it out and gave it a luxurious stretch. I did the same, moving so slowly I made no noise. When she tipped her head back and bowed it down, I imitated her, relaxing my muscles and focusing my attention on her movements for the remainder of the meditation. She demonstrated ease and calm, without unnecessary movements, and was in no hurry to get somewhere else. She stayed throughout the hour-long meditation, a patient, if unknowing, teacher. Perhaps she was a Zen master in a former life.

To learn more about Sandhill Cranes, check out Kachemak Crane Watch, produced by Homer Crane expert Nina Faust in conjunction with the Center for Alaska Coastal Studies.

While Hal flew away on one of his bi-weekly field trips to Nome and the Great Beyond (otherwise known as Norton Sound), I planted the high tunnel and new garden boxes, and enjoyed an afternoon boat ride to Halibut Cove and a light repast at the Saltry Restaurant with friends Marjory and Rick. Mid-month, I drove our R-Pod trailer up to Fairbanks, meeting Hal there, to promote my new book A Place for the Birds at the Creamer’s Field Wild Arts Walk, and saw several longtime friends. Later that week, the granddaughter and I took ourselves out to the Spit when the tourists weren’t too bad and enjoyed Swift Tacos (deep-fried Avocado) and Carmon’s Gelatos (Chocolate). Hal flew back north, boating to and wading through boggy tundra to measure the depth and width and flow of pristine alpine creeks ahead of a proposed, and vast, graphite mine. On his return, we spent three days at the Palmer Scottish Games, and the next weekend, squeezed in a family camping trip at Johnson’s Lake.

July rolled in, and it was time to put up fish. We got up very early on a rainy Saturday and took Alan’s first water taxi of the day to China Poot, riding the high tide in. There, we traded our one dip-net back and forth, limiting (six Reds each) before breakfast. We snagged a few more, further downstream, and with time to kill before our boat returned, we hiked to the upper falls. Clambering over slippery rocks and wading through churning water, I wondered, not for the first time, how many more years I’ll be able to do this. The canyon narrows, and a torrent of water spills over granite boulders from a height of perhaps 40 feet. In the churning cauldron of water at the base of the falls, a glut of Red Salmon teamed. Several hundred at a guess, taking turns throwing themselves upward in an attempt to scale the torrent. Their efforts are futile, as these are hatchery-raised salmon, and this is a terminal run capped by the falls.

The next day, we took our annual lupin bike ride along the Homer Spit. The endless hedgerow of lupins was at its bluest, and yes, it was a sunny day, making them radiant against Kachemak Bay and glinting glaciers. Prettiest place on Earth. We stopped at Cole Point Fish Processing, and packed panners and bike bags with our flash-frozen, pan-ready fish before wobbling with our heavy loads back along the Spit to the car.

Hal went back out the next weekend with our neighbor John and limited again, netting us, all told, about 25 salmon, or 100 fillets. Enough for the year and to share some. He headed back out to the field, and I joined friend Donna Rae for a Fast Ferry ride over to Seldovia for a day of sun and scenery. How good to catch up with a girlfriend as we sauntered through that quaint seaside town.

At the end of the month, Hal and I set out on our annual three-night camping trip to Hidden Lake on the Skilak Lake Road, beginning with a night at Johnson Lake where we paddled among lily pads fishing (but no catching). Near Hidden Lake, Hal spent a couple of hours plying the upper Kenai River along with the 20 or so fisherfolk (women and kids too) belly-deep in their chest waders (more fishing but no catching), while I hiked the winding trail up to the view of the canyon. This has become a favorite short hike, with a birds-eye view of blue-green waters surging between granite walls – the Kenai River’s last hurrah before it empties into Kenai Lake. I’d like to be a Peregrine Falcon on this stretch of river.

With so much to fit in during these long but limited days of warm(ish), often wet weather, we struggle to impose a balance between chores, work, and play. We missed the window for our annual paddle from Kiltcher Beach to Chugachik Island due to heavy chop in the bay, and the list of outside chores is still growing, not shrinking. But when you have an unplanned opportunity to water taxi across Kachemak Bay into Little Tutka Bay for two nights at the Sea Star Cabin, you set aside a few things and go. My dear friend and neighbor Melisse had won the trip at a Friends of State Parks fundraiser, and would I like to go?

Seaside cabin, at the far end of Little Tutka Bay, is your basic State Park log cabin, with a wood stove, bunk beds, and an ample wooden table and benches inside, a covered deck with a view of the bay, and an outhouse behind. The first night, knowing we were due for rain the rest of the trip, we enjoyed a cheerful campfire with our four-legged companion and “sweetest girl”, Georgina. Four seiners plied the water for salmon at the mouth of the bay, while near us, the fish rose and splashed with regularity. An Eagle chortled, and several Pacific Crows made noisy forages over the beach, along with a few Mew Gulls, glowing white in the low angle of the sun. Hermit Thrush, mostly silent now that mating season had passed, flitted among the low branches, while a juvenile Rufous Hummingbird circled us repeatedly, moving from branch to twig, to stim, to hover, clearly curious and likely drawn to the red in our clothing.

On a short solo kayak, I breathed in the briny smell of ocean and rain-saturated Earth tinged with the woodsmoke from our fire. Paddling along the west side of the bay, I flushed a family of 10 Common Mergansers before peeking into Tutka Bay Lagoon. The rising tide wanted to pull me in, and I wanted to let it, but prudence won out, and I turned around to find that a headwind had picked up, making the return a bit challenging.

We woke to rain on the cabin’s metal roof. It was dusky within, but never really dark outside, with enough light at night to illuminate the roots crisscrossing the path to the outhouse. The cabin is nestled in a cove facing north-west, giving it the full advantage of the sun’s northerly angle. Come winter, this will be a dark, wet place until snow brings brightness to this quiet coast. This is an area of old-growth forest. 100-foot-tall spruce are well spaced, with lower branches supporting large mossy forms in the shapes of animals and birds, depending on one’s imagination, giving the forest a whimsical air. The understory is made up of Devil’s Club – showy with their big, lobed leaves, but limiting travel to a network of paths.

We knew there was a trail from the cabin to Tutka Lake, and on our first afternoon, we searched each wandering path around the cabin until it dead-ended amid a tangle of Devil’s Club and deadfall. The next day, despite the rain, we climbed over and around boulders along the coast in search of an access point until Georgina, winsome soul that she is, sat down and conveyed, “Enough. You two old broads may not have enough sense to turn around, but I do.” True enough. There was Melisse, recovering from a broken wrist, and me with my nine toes after foot surgery, but determined to have our adventure. Bowing to her wisdom, we followed her lead, and I for one was glad to reach the easier walking of the gravel beach below our cabin as the rain picked up.

On a second solo paddle, I went east on rain-dappled water with jellyfish undulating below the surface all around me. Paddling the contours of the shore and up into an inlet where a primal creek surged, I was witness to an area unchanged by mankind. I peeked out into the main channel of Tutka Bay, but the surge and tide were stronger there, so I just hovered at the fringe, exploring with my eyes. On my return, Melisse supported my hesitancy to push into those tempting waters, saying “We’re getting to an age when the balance between adventure and caution has begun to shift.”

Melisse and I camped easily together, as if we’d been doing it a long time. And in some ways, we have, with years of Chugachic Island trips together with Hal and Dave. She was in a funk brought on by her injury, and the sense of doom we all feel these days due to political and environmental news. I did my best to cheer her. “It’s true, we’re damaging the Earth and causing rampant species loss, but when we’re gone, Mother Earth, in her fecundity, will flourish on the piles of rubble we leave behind.” It’s our attachment to the animals and places we know and love that cause us grief. But, in time, wondrous new species will arise to replace those we diminish. So too, the true Americans - our sage Native populations - may once again be left to care for this damaged land after the folly of European capitalism plays out. Melisse looked out at the trees and their moss, and imagined that the trees were in a slow-motion dance, too slow for us to see, and the idea charmed us.

On our last morning there, we finally spotted the faintest bit of red flagging and discovered the trail to Tutka Lake at last. The trailhead began at the mouth of the creek flowing onto the beach. Once we made it above the creek, we found the trail to be well established and recently cleared of downed trees, and we climbed up and along the ridge above the bay a mile or so until we reached the lake. Several acres in size and ringed with trees, it was laced with lily pads, like a Monet painting. Rain dotted its surface, hazing the view just enough to enhance it.

Mid-afternoon found us waiting on the beach for the water taxi as the tide receded, revealing mounds of golden popweed and colorful rocks dressed in barnacles. Blue mussel shells littered the sand, and in the bay, the occasional salmon splashed, while our resident eagles gave their teetering calls. Too soon, the V of a boat headed for us, and we gathered our gear and made our way on board and back to Homer. Three days without the plague of news cycles, work deadlines, and doctors’ appointments were a gift only the wilderness can provide.

And now, in a blink, August is half-gone. Already, the Sandhill Cranes are teaching their young to fly in preparation for their lonely departure. Hal and I spent a warm, sunny weekend outside, dead-heading Pushky (cow parsnip) to discourage its spread, harvesting the high tunnel’s first broccoli and cauliflower, mowing the lawn, tossing a Frisbee for the dogs along a lane graced by fireweed blossoms, and grilling fresh salmon for dinner. Then Hal departed for his final trip north. He shared a photo of the supper of moose heart and tongue soup he was gifted by a Native friend (apparently it was really good). Today, as I write, he’s taking a helicopter up to the headwaters of the Kigluaik Mountains with contract biologists from the Tyonek Tribe documenting the presence of Dolly Varden, Arctic Grayling, and Chum Salmon, despite the mining company’s claim that the waters there are too acidic to support fish. I cheer his work. Ahead, we have woodcutting, berry picking, and winemaking. Ah summer. You give so much, awaken us to the best Alaska has to offer, and depart so quickly.

Legal experts claim that because the “Loser-Pays-Rule” is clearly intended to discriminate against the general public who might be considering filing good-faith environmental protection claims, it violates the concepts of fundamental fairness contemplated by the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, in describing the legal obligation of state governments, the Fifth Amendment states that no one shall be “deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.” Then, in the only instance in which a prohibition is stated twice in the Constitution, the Fourteenth Amendmentrepeats the identical terms in what has been referred to as the “Due Process Clause,” which mandates that governmental entities must provide fair process before depriving a citizen of the United States of life, liberty, or property.

That Alaska’s Loser-Pays-Rule has had a chilling effect on good-faith public-interest law cases, as illustrated by the fact that non-profit organizations and tribal organizations have dramatically slowed the filing of environmental protection lawsuits. According to Trustees for Alaska, a public interest law firm based in Anchorage that focuses on such cases, “[t]his policy creates a chilling effect, deterring people from going to court to ensure protection of our lands and waters. When citizens do not have access to the courts to challenge government or industry it hands a free pass to those that would issue lax permits, purposely violate the rules or take advantage of poor oversight when it comes to coal mining in Alaska.”

A recent example of this chilling effect is a permit to conduct exploratory drilling in the Imuruk Basin of Northwestern Alaska, issued by the Department of Natural Resources to the Graphite One Mining Company. After several tribes and the Norton Bay Watershed Council appealed the permit, citing concerns about impacts to subsistence and cultural resources in the biologically and culturally rich area, DNR found the appeal deficient, claiming that it had not been properly signed. Although the Tribes fully complied with the express language of 11 AAC 02.030(a)(3) in filing the appeal, essentially, the agency read its own interpretation into the regulations requiring that the appellants correct the deficiency. The correction, however, required a longer process to obtain signatures and to re-file the appeal, allowing the drilling to run its course.

While one could say that DNR could not have legitimately acted on the appeal until after it had been properly filed or stopped the drilling until that occurred, another appeal of the permit submitted was similarly swept under the rug. Austin Ahmasuk, an activist who has long been a protector of the Imuruk Basin who submitted that appeal, said “I have not received any response regarding how the appeal or stay request was handled. In that sense, it feels as though the appeal has effectively been ignored.”

Whether it is because DNR knows it is highly unlikely it will be taken to court or for some other reason, it appears that the public process is broken. According to Ahmasuk:

…What happened with this land use permit appeal is not just about a single project. It highlights broader concerns about whether Alaska’s regulatory system is providing meaningful opportunities for public involvement. When communities invest the time and effort to participate, their concerns deserve to be heard and considered before decisions are finalized.

Graphite One likes to say that the impacts of the proposed 1.1-mile-wide open pit mine that includes a 17.3-mile access road will be all but eliminated because, the mining company will be required to obtain a couple of dozen State permits that are supposed to protect water flow and quality, air pollution, cultural resources, and multiple other potential impacts. But if what happened with the drilling permit is any indication, it’s beginning to look like the state will simply rubber-stamp the permits and then ignore any appeals. As such, at a packed community meeting about the proposed mine, recently held in Brevig Mission, even the Mining Company expressed dismay that the state swept the challenges to the drilling permit under the rug. Ed Fogal, Graphite One’s Environmental and Permitting Manager, said “I wish they had just made a decision on the appeal.”

It seems, in part, that due to the ramifications of the Loser-Pays-Rule, the State is of the opinion it can do anything it wants without having to worry about repercussions. This is clearly an issue that should be raised with legislators in Juneau who need to understand how difficult it can be for rural communities and Tribes to engage in the permitting processes and what happens when the system fails to respond in a timely and meaningful way.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has decided to draft a more comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement rather than an Environmental Assessment for the controversial Graphite One mine that would be located in the Imuruk Basin of Northwestern Alaska. According to an e-mail received by the Native Villages of Brevig Mission, Teller and Mary’s Igloo (Tribes) on July 9, the agency has also “determined that additional time is needed to conclude our Section 106 Consultation process under the National Historic Preservation Act.”

Graphite One, a Canadian-based mining company, is applying for a federal permit for a 1.1-mile-long open-pit mine in Alaska’s remote Kigluaik Mountains. Access to what the mining company claims is the largest graphite deposit in the United States would also require construction of a 17.3-mile-long road cutting across salmon streams and archeological sites, and water withdrawals from over a dozen streams, further jeopardizing already low numbers of chum and pink salmon returns at a time when climate change is warming the region.

The Tribes and their partner organizations have consistently called for adequate environmental and cultural impact analysis as part of Graphite One’s permitting process, given potential impacts on community health, subsistence, water, and cultural resources. Nevertheless, last year the Corps issued a Notice of the mining company’s application for a Section 404 permit under the Clean Water Act and announced that, under the so-called Fast-41 process, it would likely complete the less involved EA rather than an EIS so that the permit for the Mine could be issued by this September. As a result of this announcement, opposition to the truncated review and to the Mine grew substantially and now includes tribes, tribal organizations, and the local community in the region.

Up until the decision to conduct an EIS, the Tribes had been concerned that, to encourage the Corps to limit the Mine’s impacts, Graphite One arbitrarily underestimated the potential impacts on wetlands and watersheds as part of a Jurisdiction Determination Report submitted to the agency. Additionally, the decision to draft an EIS as part of the permitting process is somewhat surprising, given that the Corps has been under pressure to implement proposed limits on Clean Water Act protections and to implement Trump administration executive orders that promote industrial extraction and mining of critical minerals in Alaska.

As a result of the recent decision, under FAST-41, the Corps has changed several milestone dates and added an EIS action to the Permitting Timetable. The new deadline to complete the EIS and issue the permit for the mine is September 2027, and the deadline to complete the Section 106 review under the National Historic Preservation Act is March 2027.

For its part, Graphite One maintains that it supports the Corps decision. According to Anthony Huston, President and CEO of Graphite One, “We fully support the Army Corps’ recommendation to conduct a comprehensive EIS review. This approach ensures transparency and provides the opportunity for all stakeholders—including local communities, Indigenous groups, and regulatory agencies—to have their voices heard and concerns addressed in a thorough manner.”

This is an about-face from the Mining Company’s initial stance when it pushed to keep the Corps from conducting an EIS. As illustrated by an e-mail to the Nome Nugget sent by Graphite One Senior Vice President Kevin Trophy last November, which states “after reviewing our project plan, the Army Corps of Engineers determined our project will not impact enough wetlands to necessitate an EIS…Given the very small wetlands footprint, the Corps made the initial decision to schedule the project as an Environmental Assessment (EA)…” It’s possible that the sudden change of heart is due to the fact that the mining company does not expect a delay in the project’s permitting timeline. “Graphite One anticipates that the EIS schedule will align with State of Alaska permitting requirements and does not expect any delay to the proposed 2029 production startup date for the Graphite Creek Project.”

The tribes believe that the original extremely low impacts estimate was based on the anticipation of a new federal Rule that would eliminate Clean Water Act protections for the vast majority of wetlands throughout the Western U.S. and Alaska. Because the Corps is one of two federal agencies that is directly involved in drafting the latest proposed Rule, there has been speculation whether Graphite One’s originally low estimates of the Mine’s impacts were because they had been working with the Corps to apply the highly restrictive definition of the draft Rule to such impacts even before it is finalized.

According to the Corps, the startling about-face on the significance of the Mine’s impacts is based on multiple factors; however, the Tribes point to increasing local opposition, including several public meetings and Government-to-Government consultations between the Corps and the Three Tribes last spring, in which the Tribes and local communities expressed overwhelming opposition to the mine and implored the agency to conduct a full EIS.

According to Kacey Okbaok, President of the Native Village of Teller Traditional Council: “The public meetings last spring in Teller and Brevig Mission as well as Nome were packed and not a single person at those meetings spoke up in favor of the mine. During these meetings, we attempted to convey to the Army Corps of Engineers how critical the subsistence and Cultural resources are to our communities. We thank all of the tribes, tribal organizations, and community members who have stood with us to obtain adequate analysis of the impacts of this proposed mine.”

War

As a result of recent events, I have been thinking a lot about the stupidity, insanity, and inevitability of war. I asked myself: Is war a hereditary curse we must endure, or something we can prevent through social and cultural change and increased scientific and educational awareness? We would have to start by understanding the roots of war, and then develop the tools we must use to prevent wars. Wars are instigated by those in power, typically started by heads of state, monarchs, and religious/political leaders who pursue territorial expansion, resources, or political dominance, as opposed to the everyday citizens forced to fight them. These leaders know how to work propaganda on the masses. We seem to have a certain propensity toward gullibility, which may be written into our DNA. However, empathy can overcome it. Empathy is also written into our DNA.

The science seems to be validating this idea with what is happening today, on the world stage, with conflicts in Europe and the Middle East. Nothing fits the social-biological playbook as well as the war in Iran instigated by the Trump Administration. Pete Hegseth, Secretary of War, a classic warmonger, could have stepped out of the pages of Genghis Khan or Ivan the Terrible, given his seemingly orgasmic interest in war. War for the sake of gaining territory and resources, and for the joy of war. Also, invoking the name of God to support what he is now calling a holy war.

Deceit

In his view of evolution, Richard Dawkins, in his landmark 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, argues that deceit is an inevitable part of nature because organisms are fundamentally “survival machines” built to propagate their genes. Whenever survival interests diverge—even within the same species—natural selection favors behaviors that maximize genetic success, which frequently involves lying, manipulation, and selfish exploitation.

Dawkins argues that, if deceit is fundamental to animal communication, then there must be strong selection to spot deception. We see this all the time on the political stage today. However, we have also evolved with a degree of self-deception, which makes us unconscious and susceptible to the con-artists and propagandists who twist the facts and social narratives to gain our support. Again, we see this in certain elements of our society. People don’t acknowledge that they are being deceived, and the deceivers may be completely convinced that what they are saying is true.

Sociopaths, con-artists, and psychopaths are very good at hiding their deception. They have no feeling for other people, but are smart enough to mimic people who do care, who are empathetic, and who are open-minded. They pretend to be your best friend like a used car salesman. Deception is a main ingredient of the criminal mind.

Empathy

A very powerful article, entitled “The Science of Good and Evil,” came out in National Geographic in January of 2018. Basically, it discussed what makes people especially giving or especially cruel. Researchers say the way our brains are wired can affect how much empathy we feel for others. The article provides an analysis of how we, as individuals, develop empathy, with areas of the brain lighting up related to the level of empathetic emotions displayed. Apparently, empathy is on a spectrum within each of us, with some having more than others. A scale is provided with extreme altruists on one end and psychopaths on the other, for example, Sister Teresa vs Adolph Hitler. The scale is bell shaped with most of us in the middle. People with a high level of empathy can better recognize pain and fear in other people. People with a low level of empathy cannot recognize pain and fear in others, only themselves. They are selfish and unwilling to help unless it benefits them.

I think empathy is partly innate and partly learned. I also think that empathy can fight against propaganda and deceit espoused by a corrupt leadership. Empathy can fight against the selfish gene. Empathy is the main tool of the Peacemakers.

Peacemakers

So, in my mind, the true warriors of the past and present are the peacemakers. Unfortunately, many of these individuals have been lost to time, while others are little more than a footnote in the history books. There are more Alexander the Greats in the history books than Mahatma Gandhis.

There is a better side to our nature that I would like to think could dominate over the war and violence side.

In his book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist, argues that violence has significantly declined over human history, making the present era one of the most peaceful, despite perceptions to the contrary. Pinker attributes this trend to the “better angels” of our nature, like empathy, self-control, reason, and the moral sense. These have been promoted by historical developments such as the rise of democratic governments, literacy, trade, commerce and cosmopolitanism, leading to a reduction in war, homicide, and cruelty.

However, we must keep in mind that this book was written in 2011, before the advent of the Ukraine-Russia War, the recent blowups in the Middle East, in particular Gaza and Iran, and the rapidly developing home-grown 4^th Reich, sponsored by the Trump Administration.

Pinker presents data showing a long-term, though not always smooth, decline in violence across various scales, from warfare to domestic abuse. He cites examples like the massive drop in homicide rates in Europe since the Middle Ages, the abolition of slavery, and the end of cruel and unusual punishments.

He identifies four human motivations that counter violence:

• Empathy: The ability to understand and share the feelings of others.

• Self-control: The capacity to manage impulses.

• The moral sense: A sense of fairness and justice.

• Reason: The use of logic to see beyond immediate interests.

He argues that historical forces like the growth of states, commerce, literacy, and cosmopolitanism have amplified these “better angels”.

The book challenges the idea that humans are inherently violent and that modernity has made us more violent, suggesting the past was far bloodier.

Erica Chenoweth, known for her groundbreaking research on civil resistance and political violence, is a leading political scientist and professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Her work has shown that nonviolent campaigns are historically twice as effective as armed conflicts, largely due to the “3.5% rule,” which states that no government has withstood a non-violent movement actively mobilizing 3.5% of its population. In this country, that would mean 3.5% of 343,000,000 or 12,005,000.

Chenoweth’s work has fundamentally changed how scholars and activists approach peace-building and political transformation. She co-authored, with Maria J. Stephan, the award-winning book Why Civil Resistance Works, which analyzed 323 major violent and nonviolent campaigns between 1900 and 2006. It revealed that nonviolent movements succeed over 53% of the time, compared to only 26% for violent campaigns.

So, who are some of the most well-known peacemakers throughout history? These would be visionaries, diplomats, and activists who used negotiation, nonviolent resistance, or profound empathy to end conflicts and champion human rights. These individuals dedicated their lives to resolving disputes and healing divided societies.

Modern & 20th-Century Activists

• Mahatma Gandhi: Pioneered the philosophy of Satyagraha (nonviolent resistance), which was heavily credited with ending British colonial rule in India.

• Martin Luther King Jr.: Led the American Civil Rights Movement, utilizing nonviolent civil disobedience to challenge racial segregation and inequality.

• Nelson Mandela: After spending 27 years in prison, he negotiated the end of apartheid in South Africa and fostered national reconciliation as the country’s first Black president.

• Mother Teresa: Devoted her life to the destitute and sick, becoming a globally recognized symbol of charity and peaceful coexistence.

• Malala Yousafzai: A modern advocate for girls’ education and peace, who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban to become a champion for oppressed children worldwide.

Diplomats & Thinkers

• Bertha von Suttner: An Austrian novelist and the first female recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. She authored the influential pacifist novel Lay Down Your Arms and convinced Alfred Nobel to establish the prize.

• Albert Einstein: Beyond his scientific achievements, he was a vocal advocate for international peace movements and nuclear disarmament following World War I.

Ancient & Indigenous Peacemakers

• The Peacemaker (Deganawidah): A legendary figure who, alongside Hiawatha, united five warring Native American tribes (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca) to form the Iroquois Confederacy, one of the oldest participatory democracies in the world.

• Ashoka the Great: An ancient Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who, after witnessing the horrific casualties of the Kalinga War, renounced violence, converted to Buddhism, and promoted peace and social welfare across Asia.

The legacy of these individuals continues to influence global conflict resolution and human rights.

As it applies to the public right to protect instream flow reservations, Section 13 of Article VIII states that, except “for public water supply, an appropriation of water shall be limited to stated purposes and subject to preferences among beneficial uses, concurrent or otherwise, as prescribed by law, and to the general reservation of fish and wildlife.” In other words, while the state is authorized to issue water right permits to private entities, this authority is limited by the public’s rights to protect water and fishery resources when and where they choose.

This authority is one of the driving forces behind another one of Alaska’s unique environmental protection policies – it is the only state in the country where citizens and Alaska Native Tribes have held the right, along with federal and state agencies, to apply for and hold instream flow reservations to protect fish and wildlife habitat. This authority comes from Alaska Statute § 46.15.145, which explicitly allows private individuals, local governments, state agencies, and federal agencies to apply for instream flow reservations.

In general, the instream flow reservation process means that appropriating water in Alaska does not always require removing water from the system. Carrying the same legal weight as an out-of-stream diversion, instream flow reservations, therefore, allow certificate holders to “reserve” water in streams and lakes to support salmon. With some exceptions, under Alaska water law, a party who files a successful application for an instream flow reservation receives a water right that is superior to any proposed water uses that may come later in time.

Because it can effectively limit the impacts of mining on sensitive fish and wildlife habitats in Alaska, the mining industry has never liked the instream reservation regulations and has continuously lobbied state politicians to overturn it. An increasingly conservative political leadership has heard the corporate arguments, and in 2013-14, Governor Sean Parnell sponsored HB-77, which would have prohibited Tribal governments and private citizens from applying to the state to reserve water for instream uses.

This legislation eliminated the rights of Native Alaska tribes and everyday citizens to apply for instream flow reservations under state law, placed limits on public comment or appeals of State-issued water right permits, eliminated restrictions on transferring water rights, and increased the amount of water that can be obtained without applying for a permit. Opposition to HB-77 and its counterpart SB-77 ultimately steamrolled into a statewide grassroots campaign, not only to protect water and subsistence resources but to preserve Native Alaskan communities and citizens’ rights to participate in state agency decision-making, and in 2014, the bill died in the Senate Resources committee.

Ever since then, instead of proposed legislation, a series of conservative Governors turned to more subtle efforts to quietly erode the rights of Tribes and citizens under Alaska Statute § 46.15.145 and the Constitution through changes at the regulatory level. Due to the overwhelming unpopularity of such regulatory roll-backs, however, the Dunleavy Administration has consistently scaled back efforts to gut the regulation.

This month, the Division of Mining, Land, and Water released the latest iteration of proposed changes to the regulation, which includes just a handful of provisions. Starting with the requirement that DMLW consider “trade-offs” to the protection of aquatic habitat when making a decision on whether to process instream flow applications, including “property ownership upstream and downstream of the proposed reservation.”[1]

Similarly, instead of removing the right to apply for instream flows, the new amendments would still allow citizens and Tribes to gather data and submit an application for the reservation; once obtained, the water reservation would be held exclusively by DNR. The problem with political subdivisions of the state holding the instream flow reservations, however, is that this makes enforcement and management of the reservation subject to the political agenda of the administration in power at the time. As a result, Alaskans lose their primary tool to keep water in streams to protect vital aquatic habitat and subsistence resources.

While the Division maintains that “this change is proposed as it is the fundamental mission of state and federal resource management agencies to work in the best interests of the public,”[2] in reality the amendment illustrates the Administration’s continuing efforts to quietly erode citizen and Alaska tribal rights to protect the public trust arising out of a combination of the State’s Constitution provisions and statutes that establish the state’s role as trustee of navigable and public waters for the benefit of the public.

Finally, the proposed regulation changes “require the applicant to install measuring devices and monitor and report information at intervals approved by the Commissioner of DNR [and to] bear the costs of conducting additional research, data collection, and analysis for their respective certificated reservations of water.”[3] However, due to the substantial expense of purchasing, installing, maintaining,, and monitoring instream flow reservation equipment, this provision would exclude many tribal organizations and the general public from supporting the continued existence of an instream flow reservation.

Many creeks and rivers in need of protection, for example, are located in remote areas and are difficult to access. Unlike mining and other corporations, tribes and the general public do not have the resources to cover the substantial costs of accessing these areas, in addition to purchasing equipment and hiring staff or consultants to monitor the sites and collect data.

The framers of the Alaska Constitution and legislature clearly foresaw the effects of a politically motivated effort to move control of the state’s resources out of the public realm and into the private sector for profit making purposes. The Dunleavey Administration’s proposed amendments to the water regulations turn this concept on its head by attempting to strengthen the authority of mining, oil and gas, and other profit-making entities to take water out of critical fish-bearing rivers and streams while at the same time, preventing the general public and tribal organizations from protecting those same rivers and streams.

Because Alaska’s instream flow regulations are subject to the political whims of whichever party is in power, the best answer is for the legislature to step in once again and clarify the law once and for all. Such clarification should focus on the Alaska Water Use Act that supports the constitutional mandate that the state’s water belongs to the public trust and the litany of state laws that give the public the right to protect instream flows and fish and wildlife resources by creating an automatic reservation of waters sufficient to sustain water and subsistence resources throughout the state.

Comments on the proposed regulation changes may be submitted to the online public comment portal at: https://dnr.alaska.gov/mlw/comment/submit/?topic=water_inflow or by e-mail at

dnr.water.regulation@alaska.gov.

Last February, after years of advocacy from communities across the Yukon, Kuskokwim, Bristol Bay, and Arctic regions who have experienced devastating salmon collapses to both Chum and Chinook Salmon in part due to by-catch from the trawling industry, the Alaska Board of Fisheries adopted restrictions on by‑catch in the Area M salmon fishery. The Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands Management Area (Area M) is a state-managed commercial fishery covering waters on the south side of the Alaska Peninsula, west of Bristol Bay and the Aleutian Islands, and east of the Atka–Amlia Management Area.

Area M is a commercial salmon fishery where vessels targeting sockeye and pink salmon also intercept Chum and Chinook salmon bound for Western Alaska rivers, including the Yukon and Kuskokwim. Area M is a major contributor to these declining salmon populations, and in 2025, the commercial salmon harvest there totaled 21.1 million fish, including 17,857 Chinook and 1,289,070 Chum.

The February 2026 regulations were intended to reduce when and where commercial salmon harvesters could fish in this area, and to add closures tied to Chinook salmon harvests. Alleging, however, that some BOF members had undisclosed conflicts of interest, last April, Area M commercial fishing groups and the Aleutian East Borough filed a lawsuit seeking to nullify the regulations.

Anticipating that the State of Alaska and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) would not effectively protect Western Alaska salmon stocks attempting to travel through Area M, the Bering Sea Fishermen’s Association filed a motion on May 14, 2026, to intervene in the commercial fishers’ litigation. Indeed, once the lawsuit was filed, instead of letting the court decide whether the alleged conflict of interest actually existed and to what extent any conflict would affect the regulations, the State Attorney General suddenly voided the Board of Fisheries’ regulations to restrict the Area M fishery.

Several Alaska Native organizations immediately criticized the AG’s decision to repeal the regulations. According to Vivian Korthuis, CEO of the Association of Village Council Presidents,

Our people are still suffering from the prolonged humanitarian crisis of the salmon crash. The momentum has been interrupted, and with this action, the window of hope is further diminishing. We have stood up for our region, but even so our efforts get silenced. The reality is, our rivers have no salmon - where does our region turn to now, to address these systemic inequities?^[1]

Chief Charlie Wright, Chair, Yukon River Inter Tribal Fish Commission, said,

The restrictions represented the first meaningful reductions on Area M interceptions in more than two decades and were intended to return more salmon to Western Alaska river systems suffering from prolonged subsistence closures and fishery disasters, such as the failure to fulfill Yukon River treaty obligations to Canada.^[2]

The Tribes argue that the Attorney General should not have repealed the regulations based on mere allegations of a conflict of interest, especially given the Board’s past adoption of regulations favoring commercial fishing that raised obvious conflicts of interest.

Without awaiting the outcome of this litigation or providing legitimate justification, the AG’s office voided the BOF regulations, giving the Area M commercial fishing groups everything they asked for. By voiding the regulations and trying to dismiss the case, the Attorney General and ADF&G hope that a court never gets to hear BSFA’s concerns or gets to weigh in on whether any board members had a conflict of interest that prevented them from voting.^[3] Karen Gillis, Executive Director, Bering Sea Fishermen’s Association.

At a time when salmon stocks are in crisis, acutely felt by local communities, the action by acting Attorney General Cori Mills to immediately drop important by-catch regulations without investigating their validity is based solely on politics, rather than sustainable fishery management. This unilateral change of regulating commercial fishing practices sets a dangerous precedent and should be an alarm bell for all Alaskans who care about addressing the current salmon crisis.

^[1] Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, Yukon River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, the Bering Sea Fisheries Association, Alaska Attorney General Refuses to Defend Board of Fisheries, Colludes with Area

M and voids BOF regulations intended to protect Western Alaska salmon (May 21, 2026). (Press Release).

^[2] Press Release

^[3] Ibid.

War is a lethal conflict sanctioned by a tribe or state. It is not considered murder because your identity group or God says it is ok. In my mind, it is still murder, no matter how you look at it. War is state-sanctioned fear and hate against other people, and a result of extreme “othering”. Greg McDonald Jr., the conservative Christian father of an LGBTQ son up against a homophobic culture, points out, “There is no hate like Christian love.”

What is happening now in the world is nothing new to humanity. We have had wars ever since we were running half naked through the African savanna carrying arrows and spears, 200,000 years ago. They have just been on a much smaller scale and not as well documented as in modern times. But the reason for war has always been the same: patriarchy, narcissism, tribalism, and xenophobia. Wars are mostly instigated by men and carried out by men. Heredity and history keep repeating themselves.

I have read portions of several religious texts, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, and Islamic scriptures, to get a feel of where people might be coming from relative to aggression. It struck me in reading these texts that war is kind of a big deal and is talked about at great length in all these documents of scripture, war, after war, after war. War is a pervasive theme throughout the Bible. Because the scriptures contain over 400 references to military conflict, nearly all of the 66 booksin the Bible discuss or reference war in some capacity. I have also read The Lord of the Rings, which is about endless wars, good vs evil: humans fighting monsters and demons. It even has a devil figure. The similarities in these works of literature did not go unnoticed by me, humans fighting others thought to be less than human, sanctioned by a higher power.

Example

In the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 20:16-18, God commands the Israelites to utterly destroy the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites within the promised land. The Israelis were to leave nothing alive that breathes to prevent these indigenous nations from teaching Israel to adopt abominable practices and idolatry, which would cause them to sin against God. This was written in the 7th century BC (c. 622 BC).

Tribalism

According to E.O. Wilson in his book Social Conquest of Earth,

Tribalism is among the absolute universals of human nature. It results in a culture that draws comfort and pride from participation in the group and defends the group enthusiastically against rival groups, sometimes to the death. Modern groups are psychologically equivalent to the tribes of ancient history and prehistory. As such, these groups are directly descended from the bands of primitive pre-humans. The instinct that binds them together is the biological product of group selection. People must have a tribe. It gives them a name in addition to their own and social meaning in a chaotic world. It makes the environment less disorienting and dangerous. Such groups can be completely arbitrary, yet exert powerful forces towards prejudice against outsiders. There are behaviors that support the in-group, but dehumanize the out-group. Is this ‘instinctive’? This quickly becomes tribalism. People are quick to anger at the evidence that an out-group is behaving unfairly or receiving undeserved rewards.

Can these behaviors be overcome, or are we stuck with them?

War as Inherited

According to William James in a 1906 anti-war essay,

History is a bath of blood. Modern man inherits all the innate pugnacity and all the love of glory of his ancestors. Showing war’s irrationality and horror is of no effect on him. The horrors make the fascination. War is the strong life; it is life in extremis; war taxes are the only ones men never hesitate to pay, as the budgets of all nations show us.

Our bloody nature, it can now be argued in the context of modern biology, is ingrained because group-versus-group was a principal driving force that made us what we are. In prehistory, group selection elevated the hominids who became territorial carnivores to heights of solidarity, to genius, to enterprise, and to fear others. Each tribe knew with justification that if it was not armed and ready, its very existence was imperiled.

And there’s always the will of God to justify attacks. The Christian crusades during the 1099 Siege of Jerusalemslaughtered thousands of Muslims; later came the Islamic slaughter of Christians in 1453. The Athenians slaughtered the Melians during the Peloponnesian War. In each case, it was the will of the prevailing God or Gods, but the excuse is always the same. Man inventing the will of God.

Many churches in Germany supported the Nazi regime, with the Catholic church remaining mute. Christian nationalism in this country today is not unlike the churches supporting the Nazi regime in the 1930’s. Politics and religion blending together to form a toxic brew of social brainwashing, much like Jonestown Kool-Aid.

According to David M. Buss in his book on Evolutionary Psychology, young men are more motivated to go to war as they reach adolescence than young women. Buss also says that young men are more likely than women to be the offenders and the victims of homicide in their late teens and early twenties.

Through age ten, males and females do not differ in the likelihood of becoming homicide victims. At adolescence, however, killings of males start to skyrocket, reaching a peak when they are in their mid-twenties. At that age, men are six times more likely than women to become the victims of homicide. From the mid-twenties on, men’s victimization rates start to drop, suggesting that men then begin to avoid physically risky tactics as they age. Why would young men be more prone to place their lives at risk by engaging in violence? The fact that men form coalitions for the purpose of killing men in other coalitions is observed across cultures. In no culture have women ever been observed forming coalitions designed to kill other human beings.

The science seems to be validating what is happening today, on the world stage, with conflicts in Europe and the Middle East. Nothing fits the social-biological playbook as well as the war in Iran instigated by the Trump Administration. Pete Hegeseth, Secretary of War, a classic warmonger, could have stepped out of the pages of Genghis Khan or Ivan the Terrible, given his orgasmic interest in war. War for the sake of gaining territory and resources, and for the joy of war, while invoking the name of God to support his holy-war efforts. Now, poor Tulsi Gabbard, the underappreciated Director of National Intelligence, resigns because she cannot stomach another war in the Middle East and another intervention on the part of her country. She has been opposed to US interventionist foreign policy for years. This was the last straw. She had thought the Trump Administration would support her views, but this administration does not support diplomacy and non-aggression, or advice from a woman. As a woman, she, of course, takes the more reasoned approach to war.

Solutions

So, what are the tools we have available to prevent war and prevent the inevitability of waging war after war? Here is a list:

1. Identify elements of a society that are indicative of a state turning to fascism and thereby war.

2. Support education and science, and the development of critical thinking. Start in the public schools and develop at the college level. Make higher education free.

3.What about supporting more national and international sports competitions? People around the world today, growing cautious of war and fearful of its consequences, have turned increasingly to its moral equivalent in team sports.

4. Support diplomacy within other countries and organizations like the United Nations.

5. Develop trade agreements with other nations to address food, energy, and other resource issues. This helps prevent war over coveted resources. This is the main biological reason for war.

6. Find true spirituality. Avoid Divine Command Theory, often viewed as the ethical framework for religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which relies on scriptures (e.g., the Bible, Quran, Torah) to define divine law.

7. Help find solutions to address the number one global environmental issue, overpopulation. Unless you want to use war to do it.

8. Recognize how “other” labeling works and stop dehumanizing people. Remember They are Us, We are Them.

President Donald Trump has had a lot to say about climate change in 2012, he tweeted, “Climate change is a big scam for a lot of people to make a lot of money.” He has called efforts to transition to alternative energy sources “the Green New Scam?”

But if climate change is nothing more than a hoax, why then is the Trump Administration rushing through an Alaska-based mining project whose primary purpose is to provide graphite for electric car batteries? The Canadian-based mining company Graphite One seeks to extract ore from what may be the highest-grade and largest graphite deposit in the United States.

At this time, the Army Corps of Engineers is conducting an Environmental Assessment (EA) to determine whether the proposed project may have significant environmental effects. At the conclusion of the EA process, the agency will determine whether preparation of a more comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement is warranted or issue a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for the project. Because the mining company has also obtained Fast-41 status and, under pressure from the Trump administration, the Corp has indicated that it will likely issue a FONSI to issue the permit by September 2026 – just one year after the application was submitted.

The failure to analyze the impacts of a mine on the scale of Graphite One is unprecedented. The mine, for example, will include an acid-generating open pit that will be over a mile long and approximately ¼ mile deep, with substantial impacts on one of the most biologically rich watersheds in the State. Similarly, the mining company projects removing 22.5 million tons of ore at a rate of 2,740 tons per day, along with an additional 50 million tons of waste rock. A flotation processing plant located at the mine site is projected to produce 53,600 dry metric tons of concentrated graphite per year for transport via a new road constructed through the Kigluiak Mountains to the Port of Nome and subsequent shipment to battery manufacturing facilities in the lower 48 states.

What is being called by some the “Pebble of Northwest Alaska,” the Graphite One Mine would have similar impacts to the controversial mine in the Bristol Bay region. The company intends to dump “treated” effluent from the mine into two salmon streams within the 1,176-acre footprint. The mining company claims that the pristine Glacier Canyon and Graphite Creeks are devoid of salmon. An ironic claim, given that all other rivers and streams within 2 miles of the mine contain abundant salmon.

While it appears that, at least at the staff level, the Corps is attempting to include the Tribes in the decision-making process regarding the permit, it is clear that the final decision on whether to draft an EA or a full Environmental Impact Statement will be made at a higher level in the Trump administration. This is illustrated by staff who are deferring to upper-level decision-makers to answer questions about completing the final jurisdictional determination, and by the administration’s work on gutting protections for wetlands and waters. Yet, in contrast to Trump’s contempt for anything beyond oil and gas consumption, the mining Company states that the primary purpose of the mine would be to supply graphite to meet the nation’s green energy needs.

According to Graphite One, the mine “would supply the electric-vehicle, lithium-ion battery, and energy storage markets as well as other high-grade graphite products.” In fact, the company recently announced that, due to increased demand from electric car manufacturers, it now plans to expand operations from 53,000 to 183,000 tons of graphite concentrate per year or about 10,000 tons of ore/day (about four times more than the original plan of 2,500 tons/day).

Unlike the oil and gas industry, however, the mining industry did not contribute that much to either of Trump’s election campaigns. Yet, Trump’s January 2025 Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential Executive Order, which included language for opening up vast acreages of public lands to mining, and as in the case of the Graphite One mine, the climate-denying president is also awkwardly calling for increased domestic production of critical minerals.

Another illustration of the contradictory and catastrophic Trump administration’s environmental policy.

1) Sign the Petition

Homer residents have repeatedly voiced strong support for better protections for wetlands and waters within the limits of the City. Now those areas are threatened by the Trump administration’s efforts to gut the ability of the Army Corp of Engineers which typically implements federal Clean Water Act protections over wetlands, rivers and marine waters. The Homer City Council now as a chance to step in to fill in the gaps left by federal regulatory roll-backs through by updated the City’s Planning Code. Let’s tell the Council that we want let our wetlands and watersheds fall through the cracks sign the Kachemak Bay Conservation Society petition requesting regulations that protect these areas.

2) Comment on the Public Review Draft for the Changes to the Planning Code

There is less than one month remaining before the Rule 21 changes comment period deadline of May 15, 2026. Here are some resources to help you review the proposed updated code:

a. How to Navigate the Public Review Draft of the Revised Code – March 2026 – 3.2 MB
A step-by-step guide to help you understand the structure of the draft code and quickly find topics of interest.

2. Public Review Draft Revised Code (Full) – March 2026 – 2 MB
   The complete proposed Title 21 code presented in a clean format without tracked changes.

3. Public Review Draft Revised Code (Full – Redline Version) – April 2026 – 2.3 MB
   The full draft code with edits visible, showing proposed changes from the existing code.

d. Proposed Table of Allowable Uses by District – March 2026
A consolidated table showing proposed permitted, conditional, and prohibited uses across all zoning districts.

5. Proposed Table of Dimensional and Intensity Standards – March 2026
   A summary of proposed development standards, including setbacks, height limits, lot coverage, and other key metrics by district.

6. Proposed Updated Zoning Map – March 2026
   A map showing the proposed zoning districts across Homer, reflecting how the updated code would apply geographically.

Note: All documents are available for review via hard copy at the Homer City Hall (491 E. Pioneer Avenue) and the Homer Library (500 Hazel Avenue).

Here’s how to share your comments, questions, and suggestions by May 15, 2026.

• Download the comment form here.

• Contact the project team: Ryan Foster, City of Homer City Planner, at rfoster@ci.homer.ak.us and Shelly Wade, Agnew::Beck Consultant Project Manager at shelly@agnewbeck.com.

3) Comment on the Proposed Bradly Lake Hydro-Power Extension

Earth Day is also a way to celebrate the transition to green energy. At the same time, if we must transition to alternative energy, there is no need to ignore the human and environmental impacts such sources may have. The Alaska Energy Authority is moving towards applying for an amendment to the Bradly Lake Hydro-Power project to construct a diversion at in Dixon Creek. Because the Dixen Creek diversion would impact flows, and the fish and wildlife that rely on this ecosystem, it is imperative that the DAA and supporting documentation analyzes existing baseline data and the impacts of the proposed licensing amendment on instream flows, connectivity, fish and wildlife productivity, hydrologically connected groundwater, and water quality to understand how the ecosystem will respond to the proposed project in light of climate change impacts. We can have clean energy and healthy aquatic habitat too.

Comments on the DAA can be submitted up through May 13 through the FERC docket for at: eLibrary | General search(reference docket no. P-8221-123). Because the FERC process can be somewhat cumbersome and complicated, as an alternative, you can send your comments to: Jennifer.Gut@KleinschmidtGroup.com.

Take the Alaska Energy Authority, for example, which has submitted a draft application for an amendment to the Bradley Lake Hydroelectric Project (DAA). The proposed amendment would allow AEA to divert flows from Dixon Creek in order to raise Bradley Lake’s normal maximum operating elevation by 16 feet. Together, these two components would increase the Bradley Lake Project’s power output by approximately 38 percent.

Although AEA claims to have worked with numerous state and federal resource agencies, local governments, non-governmental organizations, interested Tribes and regional corporations, and concerned citizens to inform the DAA and supporting Study Plans as well as potential protection, mitigation, and enhancement measures that AEA is proposing, none of these documents so much as mentions the term “climate change” much less the impacts of rapid changes on aquatic species or the project itself.

DAA and supporting study plans are completely devoid of any reference to impending climate changes because the consultants working with AEA have concluded that such climate forecasting is “out of the scope” of the proposed project. This seems like an odd justification when the license amendment will alter flows in Dixon Creek over the next several decades potentially exacerbating the impacts of projected higher temperatures, lower dissolved oxygen, and turbidity on fish and wildlife habitat in the Creek. Unfortunately, AEA has no idea what these impacts might be because neither the Aquatic Resources nor the Wildlife Habitat Evaluation reports conducted in support of the Expansion includes any information on whether the Creek includes such habitat. This is regardless of the fact that the greatly reduced snowpack in the Kachemak Bay watershed during 2024 and 25 is just one illustration of a rapidly changing climate and streamflow impacts from the receding Dixon Glacier.

Loss of flows in Dixon Creek can also affect groundwater, which directly affects Salmon because it is critical for adequate stream flow, stream temperatures, and stream nutrients. Approximately half of summer stream flow originates from underground seeps and springs, which are cooler than ambient stream water in summer and warmer in winter, providing important thermal refugia for salmonids. According to a study conducted by the University of Alaska on impacts of rapidly decreasing glaciers in Kachemak Bay and submarine groundwater discharge on the marine environment, groundwater from glacial melt is critically important for critical for “numerical simulations of groundwater flow, tidal pumping and chemical reactions and transport.”

In addition, Bradly Lake already carries heavy glacial flour increasing sediment pulses from glacial meltwater coming from Nuka Glacier. Increased flows into the Lake coming from the retreating Dixon Glacier, therefore, could have significant impacts on salmon in the Martin River below the Lake. In addition to slowed growth in smolts from cold water, this increased turbidity and bedload movement can smother eggs and reduce oxygen flow in redds, degrade spawning gravels, resulting in reduced egg survival, and reduce juvenile feeding efficiency.

Ironically, while the Bradly Lake Expansion proposal seems to rely heavily on the impacts of climate change on the Dixon Glacier because of increased flows, it completely fails to analyze those impacts, ignoring analysis of how rapidly increasing temperatures and reduced snowpack will affect the Glacier’s ability to continue to provide increased flows to Bradly Lake for power production purposes. Neither the DAA nor any of the supporting studies provides any information on how long the Dixon Glacier might last before it is gone, and Dixon Creek will no longer provide flows to Bradly Lake. This would not only affect hydropower production, but also aquatic habitat.

Because the Dixon Creek diversion would impact flows, and the fish and wildlife that rely on this ecosystem, it is imperative that the DAA and supporting documentation analyzes existing baseline data and the impacts of the proposed licensing amendment on instream flows, connectivity, fish and wildlife productivity, hydrologically connected groundwater, and water quality to understand how the ecosystem will respond to the proposed project in light of climate change impacts. We can have clean energy and healthy aquatic habitats too.

Comments on the DAA can be submitted up through May 13 through the FERC docket at: eLibrary | General search(reference docket no. P-8221-123).

The primary purpose of the fly-in was to educate lawmakers about the need for the State’s mining industry to begin paying its fair share of the environmental and economic costs of mining to help relieve Alaska’s growing budget crisis. The state’s current tax structure was drafted in 1913, long before statehood, and has not been updated since 1955, when the government was attempting to incentivize a mining industry composed of individual prospectors and small mines – a foregone era that crafted mining policy that is completely politically, economically, and technologically incompatible with the present day.

According to a report commissioned by the Alaska Conservation Fund and prepared by AKWA-DC, LLC, “[t]oday, when Alaska’s large-scale hardrock mining industry is controlled by multinational, multibillion-dollar corporations, this tax structure is woefully out of date.”[1] As if huge profits from pulling minerals out of the ground weren’t enough to incentivize mining corporations, they are also taking advantage of a host of subsidies under the Alaska Minerals License Tax. Operators, for example, are still taxed on royalties on the operator’s net rather than gross income, meaning that deductions can reduce this tax burden to almost nothing, particularly in the more remote regions of the state where operating expenses can be high.

In addition, large mining projects often funnel profits out of the state, contravening Alaska’s Constitution, which requires that the state’s natural resources be developed for the maximum use consistent with the public interest and rural communities, which often see none of the benefits of these projects while being the most likely to be impacted by mining development, including catastrophic mining spill events.

Finally, there are the environmental costs. According to the Report, these include the “potential impacts from large mining projects on other Alaska industries—chief among them fishing, subsistence, and tourism—could be catastrophic, and the state cannot bear the economic burden of any resulting industry crash” and “[r]eclamation estimates are chronically lower than the costs necessary to restore habitat, often resulting in additional costs passed on to the taxpayer.”[2]

With Alaska on the verge of economic collapse, the “state is risking heavily investing in an industry with a net negative economic and environmental impact….”[3]

Another reason to reform Alaska’s mining taxation is a lack of oversight and outright corruption at the federal level.

The Trump administration is not only making it easier for the extraction industry to avoid paying royalties that compensate taxpayers for polluting public lands and waters but also implementing taxpayer-funded investments to prop up mining companies themselves. Under Trump’s second term, his administration has gone even further than abusive public land management practices to satisfy extraction interests by breaking with traditional Republican orthodoxy and making direct taxpayer-financed investments in private mining companies. This snapping up of stakes in mining and minerals processing companies, federal interventions include an $8.9 billion purchase of Intel Corp stock, a $400 million investment in rare earths miner MP Materials, with more to come. Because such investments are political, they are naturally taking place without congressional approval at an extraordinary pace, raising important ethical, governance, and environmental concerns.

These largely under-the-radar policies take place without public disclosure and focus on highly speculative companies with little transparency into how they are chosen. Combined with lax regulation and weak oversight, this lack of visibility paves the way for resource exploitation and unprecedented profits for major mining corporations.

Department of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for example, recently issued permits for the mining industry’s long-sought-after Ambler Road that would cross 200 miles of pristine Alaska wilderness and subsistence use areas. Canadian mining company Trilogy Metals not only benefits from the controversial project in order to gain access to copper-rich projects in the Ambler Mining District, but it also made about $8.7 million in profit by exercising stock options during the immediate share price spike after the October 6 announcement that the Pentagon would purchase nearly $36 million in company stock. This sent the company’s shares above $10 per share, up from 57 cents before Trump’s election.

Meanwhile, the impacts of mining industry favoritism on subsistence-based communities are increasing. Emily Murray, a traditional elder living in the Native Village of Elim and President of the Norton Bay Watershed Council, said in a recent Letter to the Editor in the Nome Nugget:

Our fresh, clean water will begin to become contaminated with chemicals when mining begins. Clean water not only allows our wild greens & berries to grow, but sustains the fish & animals we live on. As seen around the world, indigenous people are being dispossessed of their land by mining on or near their traditional lands. Mining companies promise they will ‘repair’ the water even better than they found it. Habitats can & will be destroyed by extensive mining. Young people who study science know that you cannot ‘repair’ clean water. They know that minute bugs exist only in clean, healthy rivers & streams.

Can the Alaska State legislature step in to fill in the chasm of mining regulatory reform so badly needed to reverse the regulatory rollbacks and corruption at the federal level? Maybe. Of all places, our Ruby red state, which has a MAGA in the Governor’s office, also has the distinction of being the only state in the country to use ranked-choice voting. This process ensures candidates are elected by a majority of voters rather than the closed primary system, which allows a small minority to elect fringe candidates with extreme ideologies. In part due to Alaska’s voting process, we also have the distinction of being the only state with a bipartisan coalition in both houses of the legislature.

Does this mean there is hope for mining tax reform in Alaska? We’ll see when Mr. Shepherd returns to Juneau during next year’s legislative season when a bill to reform the state’s mining tax laws will be introduced.

[1] Hardrock Mining Taxation in Alaska, A Historical, Economic, and Political Analysis, Executive Summary (December 2025)(Mining Taxation in Alaska).

[2]Ibid.

[3]Ibid.

A Place for the Birds – The Legacy of Creamer’s Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge explores the early history of Fairbanks, Alaska, and a family of dairy farmers who, for sixty years, met the needs of the growing community while serving as a haven for migratory waterfowl. Arriving by steamship from Nome, the Creamer family settled in Fairbanks in 1904, just two years after the gold mining town sprang up on the banks of the Chena River. Starting with three cows, the dairy expanded in size and capacity. At the same time, the farm became a social hub, with barn dances and school tours, offering a front-row seat to the cacophony of Sandhill Cranes, Canada and Snow Geese, and ducks drawn to the melt ponds and spent grain. In the late 1960s, the farm fell on hard times, but rather than see the 247 acres of fields and forests succumb to development, the Fairbanks community raised money for a down payment through donations and bake sales. Their timely intervention allowed the State of Alaska to secure the funds to purchase the fields, incorporate an additional 1,700 acres of State lands, and designate the farm as a Migratory Waterfowl Refuge under the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Jessica Shepherd holds a BA in Environmental Biology from the University of Colorado Boulder, an MA in Northern Studies from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and an MFA in Creative Writing, non-fiction, from the University of Alaska Anchorage. In addition to a 30-year career as a science writer and educator, and research manager with the State of Alaska, she has published essays in 49 Writers, Alaska Women Speak, Humans of the World, Sad Girls Club, and Hip Pocket Press.

Illustrator Mark D. Ross is a a life-long artist and naturalist residing in Alaska’s Interior, Mark has shared his artwork and discoveries across mediums: in person, print, and radio, spanning a 35-year career as an environmental educator with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game at the Creamer’s Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge. Mark’s field sketchbook, Creamer’s Sounds and Sights is available for purchase.

Get your copy of A Place for the Birds through Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobel, or request it through your favorite independent book store!

You know, somebody has to be alert all the time. We must watch Congress daily. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is in such a precarious position right now, politically. All some people can see in these lands is oil, which means money, which translates into greed.

~ Margaret Murie in conversation with Terry Tempest Williams, circa 1996.

The tiny Cessna 185, loaded with field gear, threaded through the White Mountains north of Fairbanks, Alaska. Above a sparsely wooded slope, Pilot Mike Vivian tilted the plane and pointed out a large brown bear in a clearing below, the first I had ever seen. There was no point in talking over the engine’s growl, and I just nodded with enthusiasm. We continued north above stunted black spruce until the Yukon River came into view. At some point, we crossed an invisible boundary into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Mike banked right, and we followed the wide river northeast until we reached the mouth of the Porcupine River, one of the Yukon’s larger tributaries. Observing its braiding, snaking channel below us, I had the impression of a land as old as time, unspoiled by human progress.

The year was 1993. I had driven up from Arizona for a seasonal job with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. New to Alaska, I was keen to see the arctic and experience first-hand this remote and storied wilderness.

When the Porcupine River narrowed into a canyon below us, Mike eased back on the throttle and began to descend. He flew low, watching the river until he spotted a red Zodiac pulled up on shore. We made out two people climbing the steep bank, working their way toward a peregrine nest near the top of the bluff. They waved in recognition, and Mike waggled the wings in reply before making a tight U-turn and heading back downriver a few miles where he brought the plane in for a rugged landing on a long sandbar. The engine died, and Mike popped open his door.

“This is it. I’ll drop you here with your gear. The crew should be along soon.”

I climbed out, relayed equipment from the plane to a clearing above the beach, and held up a hand in farewell as Mike roared off. The engine’s whine remained long after the plane became a pinpoint and vanished, until only a great quiet remained. I looked around, taking in the small pile of camping gear, a shotgun for bears, the crumbling canyon walls, and the swollen river. I had never been so completely alone. A thrill of pleasure laced with trepidation ran through me.

Within the quiet, wind stirred the grass. A Savannah sparrow flushed, giving me a start. Insects droned—bees, mosquitoes, a brilliant blue dragonfly. The cloudy Porcupine River, laden with silt, shushed in her banks. I climbed the bluff to gain perspective and took in a mosaic of low spruce, alders, and grasses, and the ragged Brooks Range beyond. A trail ran along the bank, and I followed it upstream until I saw scat tufted with fur. Wolf. Realization dawned, along with a prick of unease—this trail was not man-made. I headed back to my provisions (and the shotgun), pulled out an apple, and sat down to take in the solitude and wait for my ride.

True to Mike’s words, the Zodiac rounded a bend about an hour later and made for the shore where I sat. Fran Mauer, a biologist with the Arctic Refuge, and Frank Keim, a volunteer with years of experience on the river, pulled the boat ashore and came over to introduce themselves.

“Ready to get to work?” Fran asked. He was a slight man with thinning hair under a red climbing helmet. Dressed in tan pants and shirt, and leather boots scuffed with wear, his manner was friendly yet professional.

“I am!” I answered, then handed my backpack and gun to Frank, who had already busied himself tying down the fat dry bag of food I’d brought along.

“There should be a nest on the far side,” Fran gestured, and pointed a short distance downriver to an area of whitewash where the adults often perched.

Tying up the Zodiac, we climbed the bluff while two peregrine falcons swooped above us, calling out a resonating “kee-kee-kee”. They were not happy with us. From the grassy top of the bluff, Frank worked his way down to the nest – a sheltered cavity in the rock face.

Between eighteen and twenty-eight days old, the chicks glared at us, hissing, gray and pink mouths open wide in alarm. They still had their downy feathers, but spiky brown wing and tail feathers were coming in. Frank handed the first chick up to me and I gripped the warm bundle with both hands, carefully avoiding his beak and needle-sharp claws. I could feel his heart thrum against my palm. His eyes were wells of black with blue pupils, and I had the uncanny sense he could see into my soul. Then I handed the chick to Fran for banding and reached down to Frank for the next one.

The Porcupine River winds with a lazy sinuosity at four or five miles an hour through the Arctic Refuge. Two expanses of canyon walls, called the Upper and Lower Ramparts, provide the highest concentration of peregrine nests. This is where we focused our search as part of a study that had been ongoing since 1979.

Peregrines are crow-sized falcons. Their slender wings are designed for remarkable speed and agility. Clocked at speeds of 240 miles per hour during dives, they are stealthy hunters. They may climb several hundred feet into the air to observe the river below with their keen eyesight. Then, prey spotted, they fold their wings and hurtle earthward, striking their target and often recovering from the dive in time to snatch the stunned bird before it hits the water. Their free fall makes an eerie sound, like a tiny meteorite whistling toward Earth.

As with most hawk species, female peregrines are larger than the males. Adults have slate-blue wings and dark-gray backs, creamy bellies with horizontal barring, and a distinctive black hood and sideburns on white cheeks.

Peregrines, along with other raptors including the American bald eagle, suffered dramatic population declines in the 1960s and ’70s due to the use of organochlorine pesticides like dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). Used extensively for pest management on crops in the United States and Mexico, the pesticides accumulated in the animals’ bodies in greater concentrations as they worked their way up the food chain. Peregrines primarily eat smaller birds, like pigeons, which ingested DDT in the grains they consumed. High DDT levels resulted in the formation of thin eggshells which were easily crushed during incubation.

In 1970, both the American peregrine falcon, Falco peregrinus anatum, and the Arctic peregrine, Falco peregrinus tundrius, were listed on the federal register as endangered. Only the Peale’s peregrine population, Falco peregrinus pealei, remained stable. Being coastal birds, Peale’s don’t generally migrate and were not exposed to high toxin levels. DDT was banned nationwide in 1972, paving the way for a peregrine falcon comeback.

Fran explained, as he handed up a second chick, that the peregrines on the Porcupine were now recovering. The more favorable nest sites were all occupied, and younger birds without an established claim to a nest made do with more exposed sites. That summer, the survey tallied 30 nesting adults, and 49 chicks banded, plus a half dozen subadults.

Peregrine nests are rudimentary, consisting of a hollow within a rocky cliff or an abandoned stick nest left by an eagle or hawk. Devoid of down or soft grasses, they contain the bloodied bones and feathers of small birds the parents bring for their young. Each nest typically holds two or three chicks and sometimes as many as five.

Ever watchful of the parents who circled just overhead, we handled each chick only briefly before returning them to the nest with a silver band bearing a unique number. These bands, if collected from a dead or captured bird, would provide the year and location of their birth. Birds banded on the Porcupine River have been recovered in North Carolina, Florida, Mexico, Brazil, and as far south as Argentina. It’s fitting that the name peregrine, from the Latin Peregrinus, means “foreigner” or “traveler.”

We made camp as the sun hugged the horizon. It was after ten o’clock, but this far north, in July, the sun never sets. Downriver from a peregrine nest, we were close enough to observe the birds yet far enough away not to disturb them. We watched them hunt cliff swallows, which also nest along the Ramparts. One swallow, in desperation, dove below the water’s surface to avoid capture. The peregrine, waiting on the wing, swooped down and snatched it up after it resurfaced for the third or fourth time. I couldn’t help but think of his tiny bones littering the peregrine’s nest.

Back on the river the next morning, we sat on the Zodiac and drifted, listening and watching for peregrine. There was minimal boat traffic, never more than two or three boats a day. That morning, we’d met a German couple as we prepared to break camp, and later, drifted past them as they sat naked in their tent. Most of the boats we saw were operated by state or federal employees, and Fran and Frank introduced me to everyone we met. There was camaraderie among these people who devoted their careers to wildlife and wild rivers.

We banded chicks from two or three nests per day, depending on how difficult they were to reach. Sometimes we climbed the steep slope, and Fran, in his helmet and leather gloves, rappelled a few yards down, then handed up the chicks to Frank and me to band. At other times, the nests were easy to approach, and we squatted nearby with our banding equipment.

On the river, we were treated to sightings of Pacific loons, their long, silver necks gleaming in the sunlight. The sound from the boat motor flushed them up and they flew away from us, low across the water, in twos or threes. We also startled large flocks of Canada geese. These were molting birds, unable to fly until their wing feathers grew back. Vulnerable to predation, they vocalized their alarm and hurried awkwardly toward the shore where they hid among the sedges, water churning around them.

On the third evening, as we motored toward camp after our final nest of the day, Fran pointed out a black bear sow and her yearling cub swimming across the river up ahead. Another cub, already on shore, called impatiently for her and scampered back and forth. The sow hauled herself from the water, shook the moisture from her head and shoulders in a great spray, and ambled into the brush to join her cub. The second cub made its way onto shore and ran bawling to her, throwing a worried look in our direction. We were now within a hundred yards, idling the boat engine. This cub was a cinnamon black bear, the only one I’ve ever seen. His coat was red-brown with a golden cast, evident even with water streaming off. Together the bears moved into the willows, dissolving into the tree line as we motored past.

On the last night of the trip, as we readied our campsite, the drone of an engine caught our attention. It was another Fish and Wildlife Service pilot, Roger Kaye, here to retrieve me. But rather than expecting me to pack for the return flight, his door opened, and a sleeping bag thudded to the ground, followed by a tent. We helped him secure the plane, built up the fire, and added more noodles to the pot.

Late into the evening, as the fire popped and sent sparks into a sky that would not grow dark for several more weeks, the men talked. New to Alaska and to this way of life, I took it all in, appreciating the opportunity to hear their perspectives.

Roger, smoking a cigar that drifted a pleasant tobacco smell my way, talked about the Arctic Refuge as if it were, like the peregrines, on the threatened and endangered list.

I didn’t understand. “How could anywhere be wilder than this?” I asked him, gesturing to imply the river and the Arctic plain beyond.

“The wilderness isn’t what it used to be,” he said, prodding the fire with a stick. “Transmission towers are going up, along with dozens of new airstrips, and now, with aerial images, you can plan out everything before you ever leave home. It takes the adventure out of traveling in the Arctic. We’re losing what it means to be wild.”

“People don’t want true wilderness. They want safe adventure. If they get into trouble, they can use a satellite phone to call for help. And in ten years, or twenty, we may lose even that watered-down version of wilderness. The oil companies are pushing to open the Refuge to oil development. If they get their way, there will be roads, and pipelines, and pump stations the length of the coastal plain.” Fran added.

“The tundra is fragile,” Roger continued, speaking in earnest now, willing me to understand. “It doesn’t heal in ten years or a hundred. Any development footprint we leave here will irreparably change this place.”

I considered this. What I had thought of as a protected wilderness was, in fact, threatened. The battle to keep it wild and undeveloped might protect this pristine corner of Alaska for a time. Yet one act of Congress could bring about a change that would forever alter the health and continuity of this landscape.

The following summer, in 1994, I moved to Alaska permanently and returned again to the Porcupine River to band peregrines. That year, the Fish and Wildlife Service removed Arctic peregrine falcons from the endangered species list due to their rebounding population. In 1999, I cheered the additional delisting of the American peregrine falcon. We had done right by them in removing toxins from their wintering grounds. But would we continue to do right by keeping their nesting environment and the rest of the Arctic Refuge intact?

Now, 33 years and half a lifetime later, the Trump administration is paving the way for oil drilling lease sales that would open the entire 1.56-million-acre Coastal Plain, which makes up the northern edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. If he has his way, four sales mandated by his “One Big Beautiful Bill” would parcel off in tracts of at least 400,000 acres to drilling, road construction, miles of pipeline, tailing ponds, and man-camps.

Unfortunately, protection for the Coastal Plain was not included in the 1980 wilderness bill, leaving Congress to decide its fate, and in 2017, during the first Trump administration, Congress authorized opening the area to oil leasing.

One can only hope this auction will fall as flat as the 2021 lease sale which yielded no bids by major oil companies. The lack of interest was due to low oil prices and the high cost of developing such remote fields, and to public outcry, and the uncertainty of lease validity under constantly shifting political will. The only bids came from the State-sponsored Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, and one small oil company, which later withdrew its bid. But putting virgin land, some would say, hallowed grounds, on the auction block is Trump’s way of thumbing his nose at environmentalists who value wilderness even when they may never personally set foot there.

No drilling, other than one test well, has occurred on the Arctic Refuge, despite decades of political wrangling. The findings have never been made public, and interest by oil moguls has been lukewarm. And yet the push for drilling continues to drive lawsuits by the Gwich’in people of northeastern Alaska and Canada. Their connection to this land is utterly integral to their spiritual and cultural identity.

“It is easy for people to understand the intimate connection between a mother and child. This may be the easiest way for people to understand the Gwich’in connection to the Porcupine Caribou herd. It feeds our heart, mind, body, and the soul of the Gwich’in Nation and has done so for millennia.”

~ Chief Dana Tizya-Tramm

The Porcupine Caribou Herd, which is in sharp decline, calves on the Coastal Plains. The population count was 143,000 as of July 4, 2025, down from 218,000 during the 2017 photo census. This decline is due, in part, to the freeze-thaw of snow during the winter months as the climate continues to warm. Brief periods of above-freezing temperatures encase the lichens that make up the bulk of their winter diet in ice. Meanwhile, Trump’s push to open the Coastal Plains to oil and gas flies in the face of climate science which indicates that the Arctic is warming four times faster than the global average.

For now, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge remains timeless, feral, windswept – free from all trace of modern man, save for the occasional overflight of an airplane, departing after disgorging a small party of river rafters. There are no roads, no communication towers, no pipelines, just an expanse of wilderness from horizon to horizon, with an abundance of wildlife, and a small enclave of tenacious Native people who are integral to this challenging landscape.

But change will come, with or without oil development. As summer temperatures approach 90 degrees and, despite the full embrace of darkness, winter temperatures breach freezing, tundra fires will increase, the ice lining summer ponds will melt, allowing the water to percolate away, oceans will rise and consume the shoreline. Still, the caribou will wander, birds will arrive each spring, and Natives will adapt as best they can, given the chance.

I think my main thought is this: that perhaps Man is going to be overwhelmed by his own cleverness; that he may even destroy himself by this same cleverness; and I firmly believe that one of the very few hopes left for Man is the preservation of the wilderness we now have left; and the greatest reservoir of that medicine for mankind lies here in Alaska.

~ Margaret Murie speaking before the Alaska Humanities Forum, 1990.

Due to warming waters which impacts salmon early on in their life cycles, and commercial fishing bycatch, chinook numbers have been declining in Alaska for a decade. Then, in 2021, chum populations in the Yukon-Kuskokwim rivers nosedived and have continued to decline ever since, prompting state and federal fishery managers to close chum fishing in those rivers. Each year, the closures have affected more than 2,500 households in a region that relies heavily on chum for subsistence. When chum numbers crashed, High Country News reported that Linda Behnken, the executive director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, stated, “the dwindling salmon numbers in the Yukon-Kuskokwim area are a climate justice issue.⁠”

Climate justice, however, is a completely foreign term to the Trump administration. Instead of taking action to address the alarming loss of Alaska’s salmon tradition, for example, Trump through a series of executive orders and regulatory rollbacks, has used the power of the executive office to reverse protections for the State’s water and subsistence resources on a vast scale.

In order to achieve it’s goals, the administration has conveniently denied the existence of climate change. This is despite the fact that as emissions stemming from burning of fossil fuels continue to rise, according to the European Union’s Earth observation service Copernicus, 2024 was the first year that average global temperatures exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels and the Arctic has been the warmest on record over the past 10 years. As part of it’s climate denial, the Trump administration has discarded the Federal Trust responsibility to protect the subsistence resources upon which Alaska Native Tribes rely.

Not surprisingly, Trump’s campaign to exploit Alaska’s natural resources has prompted a kind of feeding frenzy by resource exploitation groups and political leaders who are rushing to get a piece of the action. The Transition Report submitted to the incoming Trump administration by Governor Michael Dunleavy, for example, included a host of measures designed to give the state access to resources and limit environmental analysis or permitting requirements. One of these measures was a request to roll back federal protections of fish habitat and Native Alaskan fishing rights by simply turning over ownership of key salmon rivers running through federal lands such as national parks and national monuments, , instead of going through the legitimate, fact-based process for determining the State’s jurisdiction over such waterbodies.

Because state law requires that subsistence fishing be open to all Alaska citizens, giving the state complete jurisdiction over these waters would eliminate the Rural Subsistence Preference (RSP) under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. Because the RSP that rural residents receive a priority when subsistence fishing, in not only protects Alaska Native Fishing rights but it puts less pressure on rapidly depleting salmon populations by simply allowing less people to fish on federal rivers, Nevertheless, the Dunleavy administration’s request prompted the Trump administration to include language in section xxi of the Unleashing Alaska Executive order to transfer regulatory authority over such waters to the State.

Similarly, in May 2025, the Safari Club, a nationwide recreational hunting and fishing lobbying group, filed a Petition for Rulemaking with the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture to amend the regulations governing the Federal Subsistence Management Program, the Office of Subsistence Management, and the Federal Subsistence Board (FSB). The petition asks the agencies to reduce the FSB’s seats to only those held by federal agency heads (who are political appointees) and to eliminate all public seats, including the three Tribally nominated seats recently added to the Board.

As in the case of the Dunleavy Administration’s federal lands water grab, because the petition also asks the secretaries to order the FSB to defer to the State of Alaska in setting regulations, this would effectively eliminate the RSP because the Alaska Supreme Court has determined the priority to be unconstitutional under the state constitution, and the State of Alaska cannot legally implement it.

As a result, the petition caused alarm with the Alaska Federation of Natives. According to the Anchorage Beacon, “[i]n a message to members, it called the new proposal ‘a serious threat and a major step backward’ in fish and game management” within Alaska.

The Safari Club has also joined with the Dunleavy Administration’s attacks on the Katie John precedent that confirmed the RSP and that the definition of “public lands” with regard to ANILCA includes those navigable waters in which the United States has an interest by virtue of the Reserved Water Rights Doctrine. After the Ninth Circuit recently affirmed its original decision in Katie John and the U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal by the state, the Safari Club has been working with the state and the Trump administration to come in through the back door, undermining federal subsistence protections not just on the Kuskokwim but on rivers throughout Alaska.

Alaskans need to stand up to the Trump’s efforts to trod on tribal fishing rights and decimate salmon and those who are taking advantage of such policies for political gain.

Please Submit Comments:

To ensure it considers all aspects of a potential new decision, the Department of the Interior has requested scoping comments on the Safari Club’s petition for rulemaking.

Comments are due by March 30, 2026, and can be submitted by email to

subsistence@ios.doi.gov or through www.regulations.gov, docket number DOI-2025-0170.

Also, DOI will be holding Tribal Consultation sessions on this review with Tribes and Alaska Native Corporations state-wide, in-person and virtually, on March 10 and 17, 2026, at 1:30 - 3:30 p.m.

⁠

At their meeting in Bellevue, Washington, last Thursday, the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC.) declined to consider a proposal to reduce daily halibut limits from two to one fish for Alaska’s unguided recreational halibut fishery. Instead, referring to the proposal as a domestic allocation issue, the IPHC deferred the decision to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC).

According to Jon Kurland, one of three U.S. Commissioners who sit on the IPHC and serves as the Alaska Regional Administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries, the issue was “arguably not appropriate for debate [by] Commission, which is a forum between the United States and Canada.”

Scientists report that halibut populations have been in deep decline in both numbers and fish size since the early 2000s. This decline has affected recreational, commercial, and subsistence fishers in Alaska, the Northwest, and Canada. Len Seymour, who has been fishing Alaskan waters for 50 years, stated that 2025, “was the most grim I’ve ever seen it, frankly, last summer, as far as a halibut fishery.” The impacts of this decline from the expanding unguided sector of halibut fishermen, particularly from unguided rental boats, led to the proposal before the IPHC.

Alaskan fishermen and lawmakers, however, pushed for the decision to be made only by Alaskan fisheries. U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) welcomed the decision. Sullivan said the proposed change would have directly affected the livelihoods of Alaska’s halibut fishermen, particularly recreational and subsistence harvesters, and emphasized that the IPHC lacks jurisdiction to make such a change.

Members of the Alaska State Legislature similarly argued that the proposal falls outside of the Commission’s jurisdiction. In a letter sent to the NOAA Fisheries branch prior to the meeting, they said domestic allocation decisions should be made by the NPFMC, not an international commission. The letter states “[t]he proposed reduction in the unguided recreational bag limit does not address an objective for regulatory change and would solely affect Alaska anglers who rely on Pacific halibut as a vital food source and for recreational opportunities…” . The Alaska Legislature went further than just jurisdictional concerns and stated the change would be “inconsistent with established domestic allocation policy and would disproportionately impact Alaskans without a clear conservation justification tied to broader management goals.”

The NPFMC is not required to decide on unguided recreational sector Halibut limits, but the topic will likely continue to come up. Some disagree with the Commission’s decision and believe that it is time that recreational halibut fishers do their part. Gale Vick, with 20 years of work experience with the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, the Alaska Board of Fisheries, and the International Pacific Halibut Commission on halibut issues, says, “The halibut sports sector should bear some burden of halibut conservation but not more than the commercial sector. Like with salmon, we all have to be part of rebuilding halibut stocks. The licensed charter and unguided halibut sports sector’s biggest impact is on near-shore and nurseries. While licensed charter has faced scrutiny for years, unguided sports has not. Enumeration of halibut in all sectors is a challenge and contributes to uncertainty in assessing halibut health. Commercial bycatch of halibut in the trawl sector remains the most egregious problem but near-shore depletion should be second.”

In fact, during the same meeting that included the recreational harvest discussion, the Commission established a take limitof 29.3 million pounds of halibut for U.S. and Canadian commercial, recreational, and subsistence fishermen, 19.3 million pounds of which were for commercial harvest - the lowest in over 100 years. Also, according to sources with knowledge of the discussions, during tense side meetings between Trump administration officials and Canadian representatives, the U.S. delegation, through threats of tariffs and other economic sanctions, forced Canada to accept further limits on British Columbia’s share of the halibut harvest.

One issue with wetlands and watercourse protection in Homer is that proposed wetland development and fill requests are currently analyzed and permitted exclusively by the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps’ ability, however, to protect these waters from development is expected to be severely limited by the Trump Administration’s proposal to weaken the Waters of the United States rule, which would essentially gut the application of the Clean Water Act (CWA).

The Proposed Rule would limit jurisdictional waters determinations to a two-part definition: First, that the adjacent water body is a water of the United States, i.e., one that abuts a traditional navigable water through a relatively permanent, standing, or continuous flowing waterbody, and second, that any wetland in question has a continuous surface connection with that water at least during the wet season, making it difficult to determine where the ‘water’ ends and the ‘wetland’ begins.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps):

Regulatory Impact Analysis indicates that, under the proposed WOTUS [Waters of the United States] definition, only 19% of wetlands mapped in the National Wetlands Inventory would fall within Clean Water Act jurisdiction …Waters that will no longer be considered jurisdictional (under the new WOTUS definition) include many types of wetlands (e.g., geographically isolated, permafrost-dominated, and mosaic wetlands) and streams (those with intermittent or ephemeral flows).^[1]

According to a Report commissioned by the Center for Biological Diversity, this “clearly puts the species that depend on streams and wetlands at risk and would fall short of the goal of the Clean Water Act - to maintain and restore the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.”^[2]

The good news is that Alaska’s Home Rule framework allows the State’s local governments to adopt their own wetlands and watershed-related regulations (e.g., setbacks, land-use zoning, habitat buffers, conservation programs) that can be stricter than federal/state requirements, such as the CWA.

Homer’s Zoning Code, however, is largely devoid of regulations for development setbacks or areas where building is prohibited on or around wetlands or watercourses. Unlike Homer’s Code, other municipalities have a regulatory structure designed to protect wetlands, rivers, and streams. The goals of the Anchorage Wetlands Management Plan (AWMP) for example, are to: 1) Identify and provide protection for wetlands that support essential ecological and hydrological functions; 2) Ensure that development in wetlands minimizes water quality degradation and maintains wetland hydrologic functions; 3) Provides a balance between protection of higher value sites and the development of lower value areas; 4) Protect the basic natural functions served by coastal marshes, freshwater marshes and wetlands; and 5) Prevent public liabilities associated with the development of these areas.^[3]

Under the AWMP, developers must therefore comply with both federal permitting requirements and local municipal rules, provided such rules do not directly conflict with federal and State law. Anchorage has also mapped its wetlands and classified them into 3 types: A and B require Corps permitting, while C is suitable for development without a Corps permit. Also, setbacks are required for water bodies, drainage ways, riparian edges, and wetlands. Such local policies can focus on protections to local ecological priorities (e.g., salmon habitat buffers, floodplain restrictions).^[4]

According to Janette Keiser, former Head of the City of Homer Planning Department, the AWMP is a means for municipalities to fill gaps in current federal law by focusing “on freshwater wetlands not associated with navigable waters.”^[5]

Keiser says the Plan could be applied in Homer to conduct wetlands mapping & assessment based on the fact that the “City of Homer has, or has access to, sufficient GIS mapping resources to identify the City’s wetlands… [and the] City has sufficient resources, mapping and staffing, to classify wetlands, using a system similar to the MOA [Memorandum of Agreement between the City of Anchorage and the Corps.]…”^[6]

Similarly, Homer could require buffers and setbacks from watercourses or wetlands based on the flow characteristics of the watercourse or the wetland’s classification. Keizer says that “Applicants should be required to show these buffers and setbacks on proposed plats.”^[7]

These standards could be implemented by having the City’s planning staff manage the administrative elements, such as mapping, conducting application intake and review, issuing permits, and providing public information about the value of wetlands and watersheds. To this end, Planning would consult with Public Works, which would provide technical advice on mapping, plat reviews, applicable Best Management Practices, ground truthing, and/or Inspections, and provide Public information about mitigation measures.

The proposed changes to the City of Homer’s zoning code present a real opportunity to fill in the gaps left by the federal government’s current backtracking on protection of watersheds and wetlands, which could have implications not only for protecting fish and wildlife habitat but also for the prevention of natural hazards such as flooding and landslides and property damage. It’s just a question of political will. The incorporation of such protection must occur during the scoping phase of the proposed changes, before environmental constraints are labeled as administrative burdens rather than critical planning measures. Such assertiveness would keep the conversation away from tilting toward “streamlining” that erodes protection.

^[1] Siobhan Fennessy, Ph.D., PWS, Biodiversity and Species Implications of Changes in Federal Protection for Wetlands and Streams, with Emphasis on Alaska, p. 1 (December 30, 2025) (Changes in Federal Protections).

^[2] Ibid.

^[3] See Janette Keiser, PE Wetlands Management – Comparing Homer with Muni. of Anchorage, p. 1 (January 16, 2026).

^[4] Ibid.

^[5] Ibid.

^[6] Ibid p. 6.

^[7] Ibid.

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The work session consisted primarily of a slide presentation by the Planning Team made up of the Agnew-Beck Consultants and the City Planning Department. The Team described a watercourse as “any natural or artificial stream, river, creek, ditch, channel, canal, conduit, culvert, drain, waterway, gully, ravine or wash, in and including any adjacent area that is subject to inundation from overflow or floodwater.” A wetland is an “area of land that is inundated or saturated by surface or groundwater at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions.”

The Planning Team noted that there are currently no requirements under the Code for development setbacks or areas where building is prohibited on or around wetlands or watercourses. Unlike Homer’s Code, other municipalities have some regulatory structures designed to protect wetlands, rivers, and streams. Anchorage, for example, has mapped its wetlands and then classified them into 3 types: where A or B require permitting by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, while C is suitable for development without a Corps permit. Also, setbacks are required for water bodies, drainage ways, riparian edges, and wetlands.

Unlike development provisions for the scoping process in previous work sessions, during the January 7 session, the Team did not recommend changes and instead chose to ask the Commission members present if there was a need for such regulation. In the past, the Team has said that the “City lacks accurate data to guide wetland and watercourse management. The basis for all wetland regulations via zoning requires a clear wetland boundary. Without that data or a clear way to create it, staff would have no way to evaluate a development proposal/land use application.”^[1]

In an effort to offset the lack of maps that could apply to wetlands and stream regulations, the Kachemak Bay Conservation Society (KBCS) and other members of the public have submitted ideas for mapping of sensitive environmental areas, protecting watersheds from overdevelopment, and preventing flooding and landslide hazards.^[2]According to KBCS’s Vice President, Penelope Haas, “You can always criticize maps for not being accurate enough. The alternatives are either to ignore that there are any limitations – the staff proposal, or to require burdensome hiring of engineers, hydrologists, etc., the latter likely being appropriate for a CUP or PUD application in mapped sensitive areas, just as we do with requirements for traffic analysis.” Haas also noted that “Maps are very helpful rules of thumb that mitigate a lot of bureaucracy and expense while helping protect folks from the impacts of poor planning and helping protect some of the valuable green spaces around Homer.” The Commission members present at the Work Session largely supported strengthening protections for wetlands. Commissioner Heath Smith mentioned the need for examples of where the code framework has failed.

Another problem with wetlands and water course protection in Homer is the fact that proposed wetland development and fill requests are currently analyzed and permitted exclusively by the Army Corps of Engineers whose ability to protect wetlands and waters from development is expected to be severely limited by the Trump Administration’s proposal to weaken the Waters of the United States rule which would largely gut the application of Clean Water Act (CWA). Alaska’s Home Rule framework allows local governments to adopt their own wetlands and watershed-related regulations (e.g., setbacks, land-use zoning, habitat buffers, conservation programs) which are stricter than federal/state requirements.

Under the Municipality of Anchorage’s Wetlands Management Plan, for example, developers must comply with both federal permitting requirements and local municipal rules as long as such rules do not directly conflict with federal and state law. Such local policies can focus on protections to local ecological priorities (e.g., salmon habitat buffers, floodplain restrictions).

During the Work Session, the Planning Team also presented on Steep Slopes and Bluffs. Unlike for wetlands and watersheds, the current Code has some regulatory framework for Steep Slopes and bluffs that limits development activity and structures in areas affected by slopes, bluffs, ravines, and the coastal edge. Similarly, during the meeting, City planning staff referred to mapping tools that can be used to identify steep slopes, etc that may need extra protections. These tools include Steep Slope Overlay, Wetlands Mapper, and Calculator, which consists of an in-house GIS mapping tool that allows staff to view parcels affected by steep slopes, stream drainages, and wetlands.

Regarding the steep slopes issue, the need for changes to the code was mixed among the commissioners, with some strongly advocating for strengthening the code due to the increased level of development occurring in such areas and the need for public safety related to landslides.

According to former head of the City’s Public Works department, Jane Keiser during the public testimony portion of the Work Session, “The number of examples where the code as failed us in both wetlands, water drainages and steep slopes, are too numerous to mention here” and she offered to draft a list of such examples that she will submit in her next set of comments to the Commission and City Council. These sentiments are echoed by a large percentage of people surveyed at an Open House the City held in November, who called for a better definition of wetlands and peatlands, creation of stronger management standards, improved oversight, monitoring, and environmental review, and closer review of development near steep slopes and bluffs.

Regardless of the issues with the current Code, Keiser remains enthusiastic about the current process. “I was encouraged by the discussions the Planning Commission had about these issues. It was obvious they were concerned about many of the same things I am concerned about – protection of wetlands, development on steep slopes, and more. I’m really looking forward to the next iteration of proposed Title 21 revisions.”

There is still time for the public to participate in the Homer City Code update process. First, the Planning Commission decided to schedule another PC work session on January 21 from 4-6:30pm followed by another with the City Council on January 26. During these future work sessions, the Planning Team has suggested that the Commission/Council go over the public review process draft, comment collection and next steps toward adoption. The launch of the Public Review Draft of the Code is tentatively for late January or early Feb.

^[1] City of Homer, Homer Title 21 Update p. 7 (November 2025) (Title 21 Update)

^[2] KBCS, PROMOTING OPEN SPACE IN HOMER (2025)(Promoting Open Space)