Patrick Smyth: ‘Big Oil’ a killer threat to Alaska’s wildlife

'Caribou are who we are," Sara James told me. "Our food, our dance, our clothing, our shelter. We are part of the caribou from time immemorial. We always took care of them and they always took care of us in return."

It was back in 2001, Alaska. I met James, a leader of the Gwich'in native Indian campaign to save their traditional way of life and the caribou, whom they regard as brothers.

Newly posted to Washington as this paper's correspondent, I had been told by the editor to get out of DC as far as possible – "see the country" – and had opted for Alaska's far northeast, the extraordinary Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, established in 1960 as America's last unspoiled frontier and known as "Anwar", but where George Bush wanted to drill for oil.

Two decades on, after a 50-year debate, the fighting retreat of environmentalists and the Gwich'in, to save a pristine, road- and development-free wilderness the size of Ireland, may finally have run its course. Donald Trump this week announced that all impediments – troublesome environmental assessments – to the sale of exploration leases had been completed. An official said he hoped that the first lease would be sold by the year-end, before Trump's first term is over.

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A recent department of interior report recommended that oil and gas leasing be allowed in the 1.5 million acres of the coastal plain but admitted that activities associated with such development including new roads and truck traffic, noise and water pollution could potentially harm wildlife. It suggested, however, that there were ways to mitigate the effects, such as limiting the use of heavy equipment for one month of the year during caribou calving season.

The department’s findings are hotly contested.

Barrels of oil

At issue is Anwar’s northernmost Area 1002, the thin strip of plain that separates the vast Brooks range of 8,000ft mountains from the Beaufort Sea. It’s where drillers expect to find up to 10 billion barrels of oil to feed the thirsty SUVs to which the US has become addicted.

Drillers expect to find up to 10 billion barrels of oil to feed the thirsty SUVs to which the US has become addicted

In winter, when I visited, it was a white desert as far as the eye could see, home to pregnant polar bears’ dens and little else apart from the small Inupiat village of Kaktovik, its only human habitation. A state senator, Frank Murkowski, making the case for development, told congress back in 2001 that there was nothing there. He held up a blank sheet of white paper. That, he says, is all you can see in winter on Anwar’s coastal plain – just “snow and ice”.

But “wilderness” is not an absence of life. In summer, the plain is a rich grassy home to caribou, musk oxen, wolverines, Arctic foxes, lemmings, gyrfalcons, ptarmigans and marine mammals – 700 kinds of plants, 47 species of mammals, 42 species of fish in the rivers that criss-cross it, and 180 bird species. And infernal mosquitoes. Bears and wolves thrive on the mountain slopes.

The plain is the traditional calving area for the 135,000-strong Porcupine caribou herd which migrates up to 1,500km every year. It is feared that drilling and development, the noise, roads and infrastructure will displace calving females almost certainly driving them back to the mountains and predator wolves and bears.

Canada snow geese, sometimes as many as 300,000 of them, also come most summers from nesting grounds on Banks Island 400km to the northeast to gorge on cotton grass that will fuel their flight south to California.

Melting floes

There are an estimated 26,000 polar bears left in the wild and scientists warn they could be extinct in Alaska by 2050. Drillers have no way of detecting and avoiding polar bear dens, so these mammals and their young are also put at risk. The threat from “Big Oil” compounds the challenge of global warming that is melting ice floes pushing them offshore, depriving bears of summer hunting grounds. Since 1979, Arctic sea ice has declined by an average of 70,000sq km a year and in July of 2020, the area covered by sea ice reached a new low for the month.

There are an estimated 26,000 polar bears left in the wild and scientists warn they could be extinct in Alaska by 2050

Researchers say the proportion of bears choosing to spend time ashore has trebled. Bears are going into the winter skinnier and in poorer condition. They are also smaller. And older and younger bears are less likely to survive than in the past.

Despite Trump's Anwar decision, however, the fight will go on, environmentalists like James promise. Joe Biden has pledged to protect Anwar if elected, and some of the country's biggest banks, including Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo, have pledged not to fund exploration or drilling in the area. Every lease will be challenged in the courts. International pressure is also needed to protect this unique world heritage.

Anwar, its caribou and polar bears need to be saved.