Former President Jimmy Carter has filed an amicus curia, or friend of the court brief, supporting a rehearing of a District Court decision to allow a road to be constructed across the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Carter’s brief comes in support of the National Wildlife Refuge Association and other conservation partners’ petition requesting a rehearing of that decision by a larger set of 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges.
At 310,000 acres, Izembek NWR spans from brackish waters through lowland tundras and up to glaciers and volcanoes. It is home to five distinct species of salmon, and large mammals like caribou, foxes, moose, and wolves. Thanks to the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) signed into law in 1980 by President Carter, nearly 97% of Izembek NWR is federally designated as the Izembek Wilderness Area.
In his brief Carter states that the court decision undermines ANILCA and demonstrated "a grave misunderstanding of the fundamentals" of ANILCA, which he wrote was designed to protect "the unrivaled and inestimably important values" of Izembek and millions of acres of other wilderness, national parks, and forests, while "striking an 'adequate' balance between conservation and utilization."
Emperor goose | Lisa Hupp / USFWS
The National Wildlife Refuge Association has worked tirelessly to protect the Izembek NWR from this Road To Nowhere for decades. Its construction would have devastating impacts on more than half a million Pacific brant, emperor geese, swans, and other wildlife, resulting in habitat fragmentation, disturbance, and pollution. The road would be the first-ever to bisect a congressionally-designated wilderness, where by definition, humans leave no mark. The precedent opens the door for other wilderness areas to be destroyed. Further, the principles established in the “National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997” would be reversed.
The National Wildlife Refuge Association is grateful for Former President Jimmy Carter’s support of upholding ANILCA and the protection of the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge for wildlife and people alike.