Last Friday, the Department of Interior announced one of largest efforts in history to shield Alaskan land from drilling and mining, including blocking construction of a road through the pristine Brooks Range foothills that would traverse the Gates of the Arctic National Park - one of the largest roadless areas in the United States. With 11 major river crossings, the 211-mile road would have extended Alaska’s road system to the Ambler Mining District for copper, cobalt, zinc, and lead mineral extraction. At the same time, DOI announced it “would ban drilling in more than half of the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, an ecologically sensitive expanse north of the Arctic Circle.”
Standing in stark contrast to the un-precedent attacks on wilderness and ecosystems that marked former President Trump’s legacy and who approved both projects, President Biden appropriately picked the weekend before Earth Day to make multiple announcements to further his environmental agenda through climate and conservation initiatives focused on Alaska. According to Biden, “Alaska’s majestic and rugged lands and waters are among the most remarkable and healthy landscapes in the world, sustaining a vibrant subsistence economy for Alaska Native communities,” Another one of last week’s announcements is the adoption of the “Public Lands Rule” intended to reverse decades of extraction industry dominance over the BLM’s land base.
Despite the lack of media attention, the new Rule (referred to as a “seismic shift” in public lands management) is a significant step toward promoting restoration of BLM lands and waters. It directs land managers to prioritize lands for restoration based on land and water health, partnership opportunities, and benefits to local communities. The Rule also aims to conserve healthy landscapes and maintain intact habitats to help support wildlife, migration corridors, and ecosystem function. It provides for balanced, responsible development by promoting informed decision-making, and broadening the use of land health standards. Additionally, it reestablishes Areas of Critical Environment Concern – where special management is needed to protect important historical, cultural, and scenic values, fish and wildlife or other natural resources – and provides more opportunities for the public to weigh in on management decisions.
BLM plays a crucial role in managing many of the last healthy rivers in Alaska and the West including 81 designated wild and scenic rivers. However, in 2023, the agency estimated that only 25% of floodplain acres across 21 restoration landscapes in the West were healthy, active, and connected to rivers or streams. At the same time tens of millions of public lands rivers fail to meet the BLM’s own ecosystem health standards, and the agency has identified about 266.2 million acres across Alaska in need of rehabilitation and restoration.[1] The warming climate, combined with a legacy of degraded public lands, is exacerbating the risk to BLM water resources.
To address increasing impacts on water resources and promote water justice, the new Rule establishes a framework to help restore healthy landscapes, clean water, and balanced decision-making; provides a pathway to restore degraded watersheds and conserve healthy ones; and helps ensure clean drinking water and fresh water for recreation.
The Rule calls upon BLM to apply the Fundamentals of Land Health (which measure watershed function and water quality) to all Bureau lands. This scientific approach, when combined with the insights of Native communities, could provide a comprehensive understanding of the health of BLM waters and lands. To this end, the Public Lands Rule could supply tools to finally bridge Western science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge for collaborative management decisions. The Rule also requires the BLM to complete watershed condition classifications which will, together with land health and watershed assessments, be used to inform resource planning, identify locally-relevant conservation and restoration priorities, and determine if watersheds are functioning as they should.
Finally, the Public Lands Rule includes a new land stewardship lease, which can be used to engage non-federal partners (including Tribal governments) in restoration and conservation work on public lands.
Maybe it won’t rise to the level of the millions who participated in the initial Earth Day, but rumor has it people are paying more attention to runaway climate change and abusive ecosystem management practices, with greater participation Earth Day activities. Thanks to the Department of Interior under Biden for taking on these issues and giving Alaskans something to celebrate this year.
[1] Bureau of Land Management, Aquatic Habitat Rehabilitation and Restoration, Programmatice Environmental Impact Statement, p. 1 (April 2024)
Also check out the Biden Administration's "Conservation.gov" just launched today. Here is what the White House says about this initiative:
"Today, as part of President Biden’s America the Beautiful initiative, the Biden-Harris Administration launched Conservation.gov, a new website that will help connect people with information, tools, resources, and opportunities to support land and water conservation projects in communities across the country. With more than 41 million acres already conserved, President Biden is on track to conserve more lands and waters than any president in history. In addition, through the President’s Investing in America agenda, the Biden-Harris Administration invested more in conservation and restoration in the first two years of the administration than in any other."