Please write a letter to support Wilderness designation in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge.  Additional, detailed information on the Draft
CCP is available at http://arctic.fws.gov/ccp.htm
A sample letter is attached, but you are encouraged to modify and
supplement it and include descriptions of any personal experience or
travel you have had in the Arctic Refuge.  
 
Your letter must be sent by November 15, 2011: 
 
Ø     By email: [log in to unmask] 
Ø     By fax: 907-456-0428
Ø     By mail: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Arctic NWR – 
Sharon Seim, 101 12th Ave., Rm 236
Fairbanks AK 99701
 
Sample Letter
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service (FWS) Draft Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP) for the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge.  I . . . (insert personal identification and
experience with the Arctic Refuge))
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was originally established by
executive order 50 years ago as the 8.9-million acre Arctic National
Wildlife Range and in 1980 expanded by the Congress to its present size
of 19.6 million acres.  Among the more than 550 refuges in the National
Wildlife Refuge System, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was uniquely
established "For the purpose of preserving unique wildlife, wilderness
and recreational values." To this day, it is the largest federal
conservation unit that is managed primarily as wilderness. The Arctic
Coastal Plain of the Refuge is its biological heart, which provides vital
habitat for threatened polar bears, 130,000 caribou, and 180 bird
species, which gather in the Arctic Refuge each year to nest and raise
their young before traveling to all corners of the country and across six
continents.  Long before the Arctic Refuge was accorded federal
protection, the value of the Arctic Coastal Plain was valued by
wilderness visionaries and the people of the Gwich’in Nation who know it
as the “Sacred Place Where Life Begins.”
Of the five alternatives described in the Draft CCP, I support
Alternative C that would recommend Wilderness designation for the Coastal
Plain Wilderness Study Area, adding it to the existing Wilderness areas
of the Refuge.  The Arctic Refuge, and particularly its Coastal Plain,
deserves the strongest possible protections.  In addition, I urge the FWS
to modify Alternative C to include Wilderness recommendation for other
Refuge lands that are eligible and qualify for such designation. 
However, the addition of such Wilderness recommendations should include
exceptions and management plans that would permit the continuation of
traditional activities on the Arctic Refuge by the Gwich’in people and
other local residents for subsistence gathering of food, harvesting
timber for local construction and firewood, and travel within the Refuge.
These exempted areas should be managed in a manner that supports these
traditional and cultural activities while maintaining their wilderness
character to the greatest extent possible. Primarily commercial
activities, such as oil and gas leasing, exploration, development and
production, including seismic and any support infrastructure or
activities, and mining, have no place in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge and should continue to be prohibited by law as well as FWS
management policies.
I support the CCP Arctic Refuge Vision Statement and Goals that aim to
protect the Special Values of the Arctic Refuge described in the plan. 
The entire 19.6 million acres of our nation’s largest, wildest refuge
should be managed in a manner that maintains the natural biodiversity,
ecological processes, Wilderness purposes, and cultural and subsistence
values that make it the Crown Jewel of the National Wildlife Refuge
System.
Signed,
[Your name]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To unsubscribe from the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message to:
[log in to unmask]

Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information:
http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp