Despite four years of intense arm-twisting by political players and industry insiders to put drilling rigs on the sacred calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, there are no rigs. Protected areas in the western Arctic also remain mostly unscathed, despite hasty attempts to push project and management plan approvals through processes devoid of scientific integrity or compliance with the law.… Read More
We got good news when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted our motion for an emergency order stopping blasting, gravel mining, and road construction on the ConocoPhillips’ Willow project. On-the-ground construction would do real and immediate harm.… Read More
We’re taking the Interior Department, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to court for unlawfully and prematurely authorizing the ConocoPhillips Willow Master Plan despite its known harms to people and wildlife. BLM approved the Willow proposal in late October, despite the lack of a permit application and despite serious concerns from the public about the agency rushing the public process during a pandemic. … Read More
Our August lawsuits charge Interior and federal agencies with derailing public input, denying and ignoring science, and plowing over human rights and local voices to give away sacred and public lands, and allow the devastation of wildlife and wildlife habitat for political gains and corporate profits.… Read More
We went to court again—the second time this week–charging the U.S. Bureau of Land Management with advancing an illegal plan to sell off the nation’s largest unit of public land to oil companies. This effort to expand fossil fuel exploitation … Read More
I’m packing right now for a trip to McNeil River next week. I need a break from computer screens and nonstop news. Hanging out with bears seems like a good refuge right now. I’m grateful I can do it, and aware that not everyone can. We all have to look for the light where we can, though, and lately I’ve found it in the streets and in courtrooms.… Read More
Trump agencies have become conveyor belts for moving public lands into industry hands with zero respect for the law, public input, science, climate consequences, Indigenous homelands, or the harm to air, water, land, wildlife and people.… Read More
Our lawyers called out the illegal and destructive sell-off of Arctic lands at a hearing today at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle. … Read More
I started at Trustees in 1994
as an intern working on Cook Inlet water quality issues, and later as a staff attorney and legal director who took the Pebble project to court in 2009. Yep,
we’re in court again on Pebble, and still fighting to keep pollutants out of Cook Inlet, but our partnerships and coalitions have evolved and grown.
In my nearly six years as
executive director, I’ve learned one thing–that change is coming, even when it
feels like the change we need won’t budge. … Read More
Speak up now to keep and expand protected areas in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, or the Western Arctic. The places currently designated as Special Areas recognize that people and animals rely on interconnected natural systems, not fragmented migratory routes and disrupted watersheds. … Read More