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]