This may be our last, best chance to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain.  Iowa Sierra Club is a partner to Alaska Wilderness League in an effort to protect  wilderness in Alaska.  Many Sierra Club members are also AWL members.  Lois Norrgard is Upper Midwest Region Field Staff and has provided Karen Tigges, Jane Clark and me with materials and information for every event we planned.

Lois included this language on the CCP and a thin link to a petition on Alaska Wilderness Web Page or an email address to contact him directly with your remarks.  Many of you sent your remarks why to protect the Coastal Plain on the CCP to US Fish and Wildlife and the results are coming soon.  Those of you who are Chairs of Groups, please post this information to your groups so all of Iowa can be represented in a final push to protect the Refuge.  Thanks Phyllis

 

Here is what Lois has for language on the CCP – this  alert  links to a petition on the Alaska Wilderness League webpage.  http://act.alaskawild.org/sign/Refuge_CCP-final/

 

Otherwise email  the Secretary (Department of the Interior)  [log in to unmask]

  

Secretary Salazar: Protect the Arctic Refuge before you leave!

Over the course of the last two years, nearly one million people have weighed in with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar about protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  Through the department’s planning process, for the first time, the administration could recommend Wilderness for the Coastal Plain – the Refuge’s biological epicenter that has been in Big Oil’s sights for decades. However, we need your help to ensure that this Wilderness recommendation for the Arctic Refuge’s Coastal Plain makes it across the finish line.

Interior Secretary Salazar has announced that he will be stepping down and returning to Colorado.  Before returning to the natural beauty of Colorado, we need him to finalize the Arctic Refuge Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP) before he leaves.  Please send Interior Secretary Salazar an urgent message that as an American, you have a say in how the Arctic Refuge is managed and you want a Wilderness recommendation.  Now is an important time for all of us to speak up! 

There are some places in this country that define what it means to be American—the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska is one of those places. For the past fifty years our country has remained committed to protecting this unparalleled area and the abundant wildlife that depends on it, including polar bears, musk oxen, caribou and millions of birds from around the globe. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is quite frankly too extraordinary to drill.

Send a message to Interior Secretary Salazar asking him to finalize the Arctic Refuge CCP before heading back to the beautiful public lands of Colorado.