News
The Trump Administration has finalized its plans to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development. This sacred place, protected for time immemorial, could now be auctioned off to the highest bidder. We expect they will attempt to begin lease sales prior to the November election.
Originally published in The Hill Opinion on August 4th, 2020
Alaska’s Kenai National Wildlife Refuge has weathered many storms in the last 80 years. Its 2 million acres of forests and wetlands southeast of Anchorage are regularly wracked by natural cataclysms such as fires that can dwarf Lower 48 events. Our organizations have fought for years to protect this amazing refuge and its wildlife populations, but now a human-made disaster is in the works.
This morning, the President signed the Great American Outdoors Act into law, ushering in a major funding boost for the National Wildlife Refuge System and fully funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The National Wildlife Refuge Association looks forward to working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to fully implement these programs and improving wildlife refuge habitat for wildlife and visitors alike.
Alaska's Kenai National Wildlife Refuge has weathered a lot of storms since it was created in 1941 as the Kenai National Moose Range. Its two million acres of forests and wetlands Anchorage is regularly wracked by cataclysms that dwarf lower 48 events. When the 2019 Swan Lake Fire burned 168,00 acres, an area larger than El Paso, it triggered muscle memories in firefighters who quelled the 200,000-acre Funny River Fire five years earlier. Wildfires threaten humans but their regenerative benefits for wildlife are indisputable. The same can't be said of political storms.
This week was a momentous week for wildlife conservation and wildlife refuges on Capitol Hill! From the protection of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge to funding for Refuge System Operations and Maintenance to the permanent funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, we thank Congress for their hard work to support our nation’s public lands.
The National Wildlife Refuge Association (NWRA), the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (PRDNER), and various community-based groups are working together to reduce major threats affecting leatherback nesting beaches around Puerto Rico with funding provided by the National Fish and Widlife Foundation (NFWF).
