One of the executive orders emerging from the Trump administrationƵs early days is Unleashing AlaskaƵs Extraordinary Resource Potential. Ƶ a West Virginia native and current Alaska resident, I see many parallels between AlaskaƵs resource potential today, and that of West Virginia in the early 1900s.
Alaska, like West Virginia of a century ago, has large areas that have not been developed in the modern sense of the word. Like West VirginiaƵs coalfields, much of that land has potential for oil or gas drilling, or mining for minerals like gold or molybdenum. These lands still provide value to the stateƵs residents Ƶ Alaskans hunt caribou that migrate through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Bristol Bay commercial salmon fishermen rely on salmon spawning streams located downstream of the proposed Pebble Mine. All this land that could be developed for resource extraction is already, in one way or another, being used for other things Ƶ by people as well as wildlife. A person from outside Alaska might be forgiven for not realizing that if you look at a map of Alaska and see nothing but a lot of blank space.
Whether or how these places are developed, the Alaskans who already live, hunt, fish, and recreate in these areas need to have a voice in that process.
A century ago, West VirginiaƵs resource potential was probably talked about with as much excitement as TrumpƵs administration is currently talking about oil in Alaska. Those extraordinary resources, mostly in the form of high-quality coal, a century later, has given us a state better known for extraordinary rates of drug overdoses, adult obesity rates and percentage of adults living with type 2 diabetes (West Virginia leads the nation in all three of these sobering categories).
Such are the consequences of a state that housed an extractive industry with very little care paid to what would be left behind with coal seams played out, mine operations became more mechanized, and coal-burning power plants closed in favor of more efficient alternatives.
Buried near the bottom of the executive order is a provision related to the Tongass National Forest. In Southeast Alaska, where tourism and the seafood industry are the two largest job sectors in the region (and where I spend my summers working as a wilderness guide on small passenger vessels), President Trump has discarded protections on roadless areas in the Tongass National Forest.
What are roadless areas? Basically, they are lands that have not been designated by Congress as wilderness, nor already open to development and extractive use. Nationwide, 18% of national forest lands are protected by Congress as wilderness, and about 50% are open to extractive uses. The remaining land that is neither open to development nor protected by an act of Congress? That unallocated land, much of it, is the Ƶroadless areas.Ƶ Such undeveloped, un-road-ed areas are managed by the Forest Service with the same protections as if they were wilderness. They are, by virtue of the roadless rule, protected lands.
If you have ever been on an Alaskan cruise, you have seen the Tongass National ForestsƵ roadless areas. These are the areas that President Trump believes would better serve the U.S. economy and our energy needs by being turned over to pulp mills and mines.
The majority of Alaskans living within the borders of the Tongass disagree. The last time the TongassƵ protections were up for debate, 95% of the public comments received were in favor of continuing to keep our land as it is: protected, for recreation, fishing, tourism and scenic value.
Ƶ land use and development issues continue to arise, I encourage you to look critically on development plans that put mines, pulp mills and oil rigs on those empty spaces on the map. Keep a sense of suspicion when you read about environmental mitigation measures, or that the chance of a spill or accident is so tiny as to be nonexistent. (That is exactly what was said about the oil terminal in Valdez, Alaska.) If you can, send a few dollars to groups working to care for wild spaces.
Most importantly, get out and enjoy the blank spaces on the map, wherever they are for you personally. TheyƵre still here Ƶ for now. May we hand them down to our children in the same God-given state as our elders handed them to us.
Mareth Griffith is a West Virginia native who works as a naturalist, wilderness guide and author. She is a resident of Seward, Alaska, and works seasonally in coastal Alaska, Hawaii, Antarctica, and MexicoƵs Sea of Cortes.
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