Photo Courtesy TRCP
This certainly isn’t the best news on Alaska. Seems like we push back one threat and here come five more.
I have not fished or hiked through the Brooks Range, but I know it is one of the wildest places on the planet, a roadless region of immense proportions that is essential habitat for so many wildlife species, including fish of all sorts. Grayling. Sheefish. Dolly varden. It’s an outdoorsman’s paradise and now people want to cut it off at the hip.
That would, essentially, be the case if several mining companies get the go-ahead to build the proposed 211-mile long road. And, in doing so, that massive chunk of wilderness would be carved in half. The road would cross about 3,000 streams and potentially disrupt fish passage. It also would influence the migration pattern of the western Arctic caribou herd.
I have tried to get to the Brooks Range several times over the years, but my planning hit a headwall and I still haven’t visited. I have been looking into a possible trip in 2024, to try the Kabuki or other tributaries for sheefish and the biggest Dolly varden in Alaska. That goal now has additional urgency.
If you’re interested in this region and wild places, the BLM will accept comments on the proposed road through December 19 and plans to make a decision in 2024. This IS the time to speak up and make it clear that the world isn’t creating new pristine places. We need to protect what’s left while we have the chance. Read more, via The Theadore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, HERE