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Will the Federal Government Reverse Course, Retain Protections on Intact Alaskan Landscapes?
The Ray Mountains are among the millions of acres that could soon be open to mining and other industrial activity.
David W. Shaw
This issue brief is part of a series outlining public lands in Alaska that are in danger of losing protection.
Overview
Since 2016, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service have advanced five efforts that would dramatically alter protections for some 60 million acres of federally managed land in Alaska. If fully enacted, the policies and decisions outlined in those proposed and finalized plans would open vast stretches of the Bering Sea-Western Interior, Tongass National Forest, Central Yukon, National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), and unencumbered BLM land to extractive development and have significant impacts on Alaska’s lands, rivers, wildlife, and the Indigenous peoples who cal
Biden Administration Has Opportunity to Protect Remarkable Public Lands pewtrusts.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from pewtrusts.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Alaska s National Petroleum Reserve is full of wildflowers and wildlife.
Alaska Wilderness League
This issue brief is part of a series outlining public lands in Alaska that are in danger of losing protection.
Overview
Since 2016, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service have advanced five efforts that would dramatically alter protections for some 60 million acres of federally managed land in Alaska. If fully enacted, the policies and decisions outlined in those proposed and finalized plans would open vast stretches of the Bering Sea-Western Interior, Tongass National Forest, Central Yukon, National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), and unencumbered BLM land to extractive development and have significant impacts on Alaska’s lands, rivers, wildlife, and the Indigenous peoples who call these landscapes home.
Bureau of Land Management signs decision on Resource Management Plan for Western Alaska
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The Bureau of Land Management today released the Record of Decision (ROD) and Approved Resource Management Plan (RMP) for the Bering Sea-Western Interior (BSWI) planning area.
The Approved RMP will guide future land management actions on 13.5 million acres of BLM-managed public lands south of the Central Yukon watershed to the southern boundary of the Kuskokwim River watershed and all lands west of Denali National Park and Preserve to the Bering Sea. It replaces the 1981 Southwest Management Framework Plan and a small portion of the 1986 Central Yukon RMP.
A final proposal introduced by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) earlier this month would make more than 13 million acres of public lands in the Western Bering Sea region open to development. As KNOM reports, dozens of Alaska Native Tribes say their concerns haven’t been adequately addressed in the proposal.
The new and final plan would replace previous land management plans that have been in place since the 1980’s. As BLM Alaska State Director Chad Padgett explained, the proposal has been in the works since 2013.
“BLM under the federal land management policy act is compelled to update land planning, every so often as land patterns change, and as management prescriptions change, things like that.”