New Conservation Campaign to Protect Alaska’s Brooks Range
Eugene L. 11.22.23
There is a new campaign forming up in Alaska to protect the awe-inspiring Brooks Range. Hunters, anglers, and conservationists are uniting to help protect one of the largest and last truly wild places in the nation. The current threat is the irrevocable environmental impact to the Brooks Range by the proposed Ambler Industrial Road. This proposed road would be a 211-mile-long industrial corridor that has been designed to help foreign-owned companies build at least four open-pit mines in the Brooks Range. This development would permanently alter and damage the mountain range. The new campaign led by the Hunters and Anglers for the Brooks Range and supported by 35 leading outdoor businesses, brands, and organizations, is committed to conserving some of the wildest and remote hunting and fishing grounds left on the North American Continent.
“Even in Alaska, a state renowned for its world-class fishing opportunities, the Brooks Range stands apart,” said fly fishing guide Greg Halbach of Remote Waters in Anchorage, Alaska. Halbach’s small operation offers guided wilderness floats on the Kobuk River, one of the only places in North America to target sheefish—also known as ‘tarpon of the north’ or Inconnu.
This campaign is urging the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to deny the permit for this private industrial corridor. The most recent BLM Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Ambler Industrial Road details a greater adverse impact to fish, wildlife, and the rural residents of the area than previously acknowledged. The agency is seeking public comments on the Ambler Industrial Road project through Dec. 19 and plans to make a final decision on the matter in 2024.
“The proposed mines are 211 miles from the nearest road and in some of Alaska’s best hunting and fishing grounds,” said Larry Bartlett, owner of Pristine Ventures, a hunt planning and gear manufacturing company in Fairbanks, Alaska. “The thought of a road crossing this landscape makes me question where the line exists between industry and politics. We have to agree to keep this place wild.”
Construction of the proposed Ambler industrial corridor would likely disrupt the migratory behavior of some species of big game as well as negatively affect the waterways and fish in them. One of the largest caribou herds in Alaska, the Western Arctic Herd roams this area. The Ambler Industrial Road would also cross nearly 3,000 streams and 11 rivers, potentially blocking and polluting these waterways. All of this area would also be off-limits to hunters and anglers.
“The risks of the proposed Ambler Industrial Road far outweigh any potential benefits,” said Jen Leahy, Alaska program manager for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “The Bureau of Land Management will be hearing from our community, including Hunters and Anglers for the Brooks Range, about why the permit for the Ambler Road should be denied.”
For more information on the campaign or to help keep our wild spaces wild check out the huntfishbrooksrange.com
