Table of Contents 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 call these landscapes home.