Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will keep in place protections against potential oil and gas development and mining claims on 28 million acres of federal land across Alaska, the federal government said Tuesday.
The lands were protected from such development in the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The Trump administration took steps to remove the protections, an effort supported by Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy and U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan.
But the Biden administration said it found legal flaws in the previous administration’s effort, leading to a new environmental review to determine the best use of the lands.
Haaland signed the decision Friday, following an environmental review and public input. A new public land order will retain the protections.
“Continuing these essential protections, which have been in place for decades, will ensure continued access and use of these public lands now and in the future,” Haaland said in a statement from the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the lands.
Dunleavy and Alaska’s congressional delegation have not yet commented on the decision.
The protected lands are spread across Alaska. They’re about the size of Pennsylvania, collectively. In Western Alaska, they’re in the western Interior, Seward Peninsula and Bristol Bay regions. They’re also located in Southcentral Alaska and in eastern Alaska.
According to the Bureau of Land Management, the agency received 15,000 public comments for the draft review, overwhelmingly favoring the protections.
The environmental review found that revoking any of the protections would likely harm subsistence hunting and fishing in dozens of Alaska Native communities that would lose federal subsistence priority over certain lands, the agency said. Wildlife, vegetation and permafrost would also be negatively impacted, it found.
Conservation groups and some Alaska Native groups on Tuesday praised the decision.
More than 2 million acres of the protected lands encompass Crooked Creek, the proposed mine site for the Donlin Gold mine, in the Kuskokwim River system, according to a statement from the Mother Kuskokwim Tribal Coalition. The lands also connect important migratory routes for both salmon and caribou, the statement said.
“Secretary Haaland’s decision today is an important step toward a future full of healthy lands, waters, and people who thrive on wild salmon, waterfowl, other migratory animals, and seasonal plant life,” said Anaan’arar Sophie Swope, executive director of Mother Kuskokwim.
The decision does not impact land available for selection by eligible individuals under the Alaska Native Vietnam-era Veterans Land Allotment Program, the agency said.
The Biden administration has taken other major actions to limit development in Alaska, such as implementing strong protections for most land in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and rejecting a federal right-of-way for a 200-mile road to the Ambler mineral district in Northwest Alaska.
But in a controversial move, the administration last year approved ConocoPhillips’ giant Willow oil project in the petroleum reserve.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.