June 30, 2001  -  Wilderness or Wasteland?  - 
Fairbanks, Alaska

The 19.8 million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a natural functioning ecosystem about the size of South Carolina. The only developments in this pristine area are arctic ground squirrel burrows, wolf and fox dens, bear digs, bird nests, and the well-worn trails of Dall sheep, musk oxen and the 130,000-member Porcupine caribou herd. Wall-to-wall carpeting of purple azaleas, white dryads, yellow cinquefoils, indigo lupine and all colors and shapes of lichen comprise the landscape. Rivers flow wherever they darn well please. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a living breathing wilderness.

The Bush Administration and the oil industry want you to believe that a small part of this vast area -- the coastal plain -- can be drilled for oil in a clean way with no harm done. They'll tell you that the coastal plain is less than 10 percent of the entire refuge, and it looks like a white sheet of posterboard for nine months of the year. Don't be fooled. Recall how short the growing season is in the arctic. Recall that the Gwich'in, who have relied on the Porcupine caribou herd for thousands of years, call the coastal plain "the sacred place where life begins." The 130,000 caribou who calve on the coastal plain can't be wrong. The entire Beaufort Sea polar bear population dens on the coastal plain. More than 180 migratory bird species use the coastal plain to nest and rest. To claim that drilling in the coastal plain won't harm the entire refuge is like saying chopping off your foot won't harm your body. And for the oil companies to claim they can drill with no impact is ludicrous. I've seen what they've done to Prudhoe Bay. Sinking even one oil drill into the coastal plain will alter this last wilderness forever and turn it into a wasteland. Sure, some wildlife will survive, but it will no longer be a wilderness, but a human-dominated industrial complex. We can do better than this, but it will require change on our part. Think about fuel efficiency, consumption levels and alternative energy sources. Think about leaving a living wilderness legacy for future generations -- our own species as well as the wolves, bears, wolverines, caribou, sheep, foxes, squirrels, birds and plants to follow.

So the question is no longer to drill or not to drill, it's what do we have to do to ensure we never drill in the last great wilderness? Write your senators and representive and ask that they support a wilderness designation for the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. If we can protect this last wilderness, we'll never have to apologize to the children who ask why we didn't change our ways. We'll sleep at night knowing that there's a place for wildlife to roam free. And our souls will be at peace because the wild within us will remain whole.


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