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There are other long-running environmental conflicts in Alaska as well. These include the dispute over oil drilling at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which has simmered since the 1970s, and the struggle on Ambler Road, a proposed 210-mile mine access route, some of which would pass through the Gates. Arctic National Park. The project is a relatively recent project that was first proposed in the 2000s.

Frankly, the environmental disputes in Alaska are in a league of their own. The reasons are complex, but here’s a quick basic look at some of them.

There is so much to fight for. Alaska is a giant and the Anchorage area, as well as Fairbanks and Juneau, is still largely undeveloped and has a lot more wilderness than any other state. For example, the law at the center of the King Cove dispute suddenly provided protection for 104 million acres. That’s an area the size of California and about 5 percent of the total land area of ​​the United States.

There are also a lot of resources to fight over. It is estimated that the metals that the Gravel Mine will extract are worth 300 billion dollars. Commercial salmon fishing, which opponents say will damage the mine, generates about $2 billion a year in economic benefits. according to a recent report. These are just two examples of the state’s wealth of resources. Oil is another with tens of billions of barrels currently being produced and billions of barrels thought to be available in places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

It’s not just environmentalists and business interests. Another seminal piece of federal legislation was the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, an effort to treat the state’s Indigenous peoples more fairly than they were treated in the Lower 48 under the reservation system. In exchange for relinquishing Aboriginal rights over Alaskan land, the law established both regional and local for-profit Native companies and transferred nearly 40 million acres of land to them. Domestic companies are ubiquitous in the state and as such have been involved in many environmental struggles on both sides. In the King Cove road dispute, for example, the local Indigenous company wants the road, arguing it is necessary for medical emergencies. But some Indigenous companies elsewhere oppose this, fearing that the path through the wildlife refuge will affect migratory geese populations whose members have traditionally hunted for food.