Win: Judge Keeps Oil, Gas Exploration Out of Arctic Refuge's Coastal Plain

Ctr f/ Bio Diversity

Win: Judge Keeps Oil, Gas Exploration Out of Arctic Refuge's Coastal Plain

Important news in our work to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: A federal judge this week rejected an effort by the state of Alaska to conduct harmful seismic oil and gas exploration in the biologically rich, 1.5-million-acre coastal plain area of the refuge. The state had filed a legal challenge against an earlier decision by the U.S. Department of the Interior rejecting the plan. Conservation groups, including the Center, intervened in the case.

Spanning more than 19 million acres, the refuge is America's largest tract of pristine wild land and crucial habitat for caribou, polar bears, wolves, fish and migratory birds. Its subsistence resources have also sustained Alaska Native people for thousands of years.

Now it's time for Congress to permanently protect the Arctic Refuge, in all its richness and diversity, before it's destroyed for short-term profit.

Read more in our press release.
http://biologicaldiversity.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=w8azsIn1oictod1DTtBIMPtXLqeGcVWa