Izembek Wilderness threatened yet again!

A few days after the recent elections, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland proposed a land exchange to facilitate the construction of an 11-mile road through the protected tundra and wetlands of the world-renowned Izembek Wilderness and National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. If built, the road would be catastrophic for the critters that live there and would essentially cut the 307,982-acre Izembek Wilderness in two. Worse yet, if this land exchange goes through, any future Secretary of Interior could exchange lands in any Wilderness, National Park, or National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to allow for roads or other developments.

You can help us stop this disastrous land exchange—please submit your own public comments by February 13.

Located near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula in southwest Alaska, the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, over 95 percent of which is designated Wilderness, is a remote stretch of land where a quarter-million migratory birds—including virtually the entire population of Pacific black brant—congregate each fall.

Nearly 7,000 caribou make their annual trek into the Wilderness where they overwinter, and hundreds of sea otters swim with their young in the Izembek Lagoon, occasionally in the vicinity of migrating orcas, gray whales, minke whales, and Steller sea lions. Massive brown bears—as many as nine per mile—lumber through Wilderness streams during peak summer salmon runs.

Because roads are not permitted in designated Wilderness, the Biden administration’s “Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for a Potential Land Exchange Involving Izembek National Wildlife Refuge Lands” proposes private lands be exchanged for protected Wilderness acreage within the proposed road’s project area. Notably, the Biden administration’s proposal would carve 11.4 miles of road through the Izembek Wilderness, even eclipsing the previous Trump administration’s proposal of 10.8 miles.

The road has been proposed for decades. Initially it was justified to connect the village of King Cove and its large fish cannery with an all-weather airstrip in Cold Bay. When that rationale failed, the argument became one of medical necessity—that the road would provide emergency medical evacuations for King Cove residents. But numerous studies, including by the Army Corps of Engineers, have shown that marine-based transportation alternatives provide cheaper and more reliable options for medical emergencies, and in fact the federal government recently committed more than $40 million to upgrade the dock at Cold Bay specifically for medical needs.

But now Secretary Haaland has crafted a novel rationale claiming the road will benefit subsistence users by making access easier, a rationale any future Interior secretary could use to build roads through any Wilderness, National Nark, or National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Every conservation unit in Alaska—more than 100 million acres—is now on the chopping block thanks to Secretary Haaland’s careless action.

The Native Village of Hooper Bay has already voiced their opposition to the new proposal, saying that it will not increase subsistence opportunities but instead harm wildlife that subsistence users depend on throughout Alaska. And seventy-six Tribes and one village corporation have already passed resolutions opposing the land exchange and road construction through Izembek, citing harm to wildlife and the dangerous precedent it would set for development in Wilderness and other protected land across Alaska.

Better alternatives exist for providing safe transport for those experiencing medical emergencies from King’s Bay to the airport in Cold Bay that don’t compromise protection of the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge or put more than 100 million acres of wildlands in Alaska at risk.

Please urge Secretary Haaland to drop the land exchange proposal.

Take action by February 13.