On the northeastern edge of Alaska, stretching from the peaks of the Brooks Range across a vast expanse of tundra to the Beaufort Sea, lies the 1.5 million acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. An American Serengeti, the Refuge is the last vestige of the American frontier that helped shape and define our national identity.  It sits today at the crossroads between our short-sighted reliance on oil and a lasting conservation legacy for our children. We believe that permanent protection of the Coastal Plain as Wilderness is a defining environmental issue of our time.

This Congress presents the first opportunity in over a decade to pass legislation that permanently protects the Refuge. Legislation has just been introduced in the Senate to make the Arctic coastal plain a Wilderness area, finally affording the area permanent protection from drilling.

Our thanks go out to the thousands of you who contacted your Representatives through our last Arctic email. Please take the next step and contact your Senator today. Urge your Senator to cosponsor S.2316, a bill that would permanently protect the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – one of America’s last wild places.

Urge your Senator to permanantly protect the Arctic Refuge


Sensing danger, a caribou herd stampedes. Caribou migrate continuously to seek food and eat a wide variety of tundra plants, consuming up to 12 pounds per day. Herds of caribou numbering 150,000 to 175,000 migrate through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to give birth on the coastal plain. Photo: Michio Hoshino