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Alaska Natives and Conversation Groups Join Forces to Oppose Drilling Arctic Sea

Case Updates:

January 31, 2008

On January 31, 2008 Alaska Natives and conservation groups joined forces to fight oil drilling in the Arctic’s Chukchi Sea. Thirty million acres of key polar bear, walrus, and whale habitat in the Chukchi Sea are scheduled to open to oil and gas companies on February 6, when the U.S. Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) plans to hold bidding for drilling leases.

The Sierra Club, along with a coalition made up of the Native Village of Point Hope, the City of Point Hope, the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, REDOIL (Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands), the Alaska Wilderness League, Center for Biological Diversity, National Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, Northern Alaska Environmental Center, Oceana, Pacific Environment, and The Wilderness Society filed suit in federal district court in Alaska, arguing that in making its decision to hold the lease sale, MMS did not adequately weigh the impacts oil and gas activities would have on wildlife like polar bears, or on native villages along Alaska’s North Slope. The organizations are being represented by Earthjustice. 

The Chukchi Sea serves as the lifeblood for communities like the Native Village of Point Hope, where residents have relied on the sea for cultural and nutritional subsistence for thousands of years.  In addition, this region is home to one tenth of the world’s polar bears, currently under consideration for listing as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

Details and Documents:

Alaska Drilling Plan Draws Opposition
February 4, 2008 by Stephen Power, Wall Street Journal

Suit Seeks to Block Oil Search Off Alaska
February 1, 2008 by Felicity Barringer, New York Times