Three oil companies have canceled their leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Drilling in the refuge has long been a controversial issue, as the 19.5-million-acre wilderness area is home to 45 species of mammals including polar bears, bowhead whales and caribou and considered sacred by the Indigenous Gwich’in people, according to the Gwich’in Steering […]
By Tara Lohan In the aftermath of the Nov. 3 election, President Donald Trump has tried every trick in the book to avoid facing the reality of his loss. A barrage of lawsuits accompanied by disinformation campaigns has attempted to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election. But a close look at regulatory actions […]
By Julia Conley Conservation campaigners on Thursday accused President Donald Trump of taking a “wrecking ball” to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as the White House announced plans to move ahead with the sale of drilling leases in the 19 million-acre coastal preserve, despite widespread, bipartisan opposition to oil and gas extraction there. Seven weeks […]
After ongoing pressure from environmental groups and Indigenous communities, Bank of America has said it will not finance any oil and gas exploration in the Arctic, making it the last major U.S. financial institution to do so. The decision is especially significant because outgoing President Donald Trump has opened up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge […]
The lame duck Trump administration is making a rushed last-minute push to sell leases to oil companies in the long-protected Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before Inauguration Day, numerous outlets reported. On Monday, the Interior Department issued a “call for nominations” asking oil companies to request specific parcels of land to be made available for drilling. […]
The Trump administration released on Friday its plan to start oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) this winter, as The Hill reported. The plan was put forth by the Kaktovik Iñupiat Corporation and released by the Bureau of Land Management. The plan calls for the start of seismic testing on millions of […]
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, thanks to protections put in place 60 years ago, has remained a pristine oasis in the most remote section of Alaska. Now, the Trump administration is finalizing plans to end those protections and to lease the federal lands to oil and gas exploration, according to The New York Times. The […]
By Jennie Gosché In late 2019, before the world was completely upended by the COVID-19 pandemic, I was presented a last-minute chance to photograph polar bears outside one of the northernmost villages in the United States — Kaktovik, Alaska. It was an opportunity I couldn’t refuse, and as the COVID-19 pandemic now stretches into summer […]
Goldman Sachs, one of the world’s largest investment banks, gave a minor victory to the divestment movement by declaring that it will not fund an new arctic oil explorations, as CNN reported. Citing the importance of the Arctic’s fragile ecosystem and its importance to indigenous populations, the investing giant said it will decline investing in […]