ANCHORAGE, Alaska— The Native Village of Hooper Bay, the Native Village of Paimiut, Chevak Native Village, and the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Trump administration today for deciding to trade federally protected wilderness to pave the way for a road through Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.

"As Yup’ik people from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, we are already living with the front-line impacts of climate catastrophe,” said Angutekaraq Estelle Thomson, Traditional Council President of the Native Village of Paimiut. "Typhoon Merbok and now Typhoon Halong have torn through our homelands, forcing thousands of our relatives to evacuate and threatening the villages, food systems and sacred places that have sustained us since time immemorial. At the very moment our communities are reeling from these climate disasters, this administration has chosen to give away the heart of Izembek to build a road that would irreparably damage one of the most important migratory bird staging areas in the world. Izembek’s eelgrass wetlands are a lifeline for emperor geese, black brant and other birds that feed our families and connect us to Indigenous relatives across the Pacific. Trading away this globally important refuge for a commercial corridor devalues our lives and our children’s future. We are joining this lawsuit because defending Izembek is inseparable from defending our subsistence rights, our food security and our ability to remain Yup’ik on our own lands."

The land swap exchanged approximately 500 acres of ecologically irreplaceable wilderness lands through the center of Alaska’s smallest refuge for 1,739 acres of King Cove Corporation lands. Despite being small, Izembek plays an outsized ecological role, providing a globally important stopover for millions of migratory birds, including Pacific black brant, emperor geese and endangered Steller’s eiders.

The planned road would bisect a narrow isthmus at the center of Izembek’s eelgrass wetlands, disrupting and degrading vital and irreplaceable habitat for the birds.

“If the Izembek road happens, it will cause a lot of chaos for Alaska Native people in my region who still live off the land and sea. The birds we hunt may not be able to survive,” said Chief Edgar Tall Sr. of the Native Village of Hooper Bay. “I started at a very young age learning the knowledge of subsistence, where people harvest and how to save food. But everything is changing in our state, like how we survive, how we do our daily living. I want the government to listen to us and stop destroying things before everything around us just disappears.”

The refuge’s Pacific brant, emperor geese and cackling geese migrate on to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, where they are an essential subsistence resource for the Native Villages of Hooper Bay and Paimiut and other Alaska Native Tribes. Hooper Bay, Paimiut and many other Tribes and Tribal organizations in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region and across the state have passed resolutions opposing the land swap and road, citing severe harm to migratory birds and subsistence ways of life.

Izembek is also home to other wildlife, including grizzly bears, caribou, salmon, sea otters and sea lions. Prior administrations repeatedly concluded that bulldozing a road through Izembek would cause permanent harm to wildlife habitat and is not in the national public interest.

The Trump administration authorized the exchange under a provision of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, but that provision allows protected land in Alaska to be exchanged only when doing so would further the law’s conservation and subsistence purposes. Using the provision for a road through a protected refuge actually harms conservation and subsistence, and the Izembek exchange sets a dangerous precedent that puts all of Alaska’s 104 million acres of protected wildlands at risk.

“Trump just gave away the heart of Izembek without following the law,” said Marlee Goska, Alaska staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This deal sets a dangerous precedent for all federally protected lands in Alaska and paves the way for the destruction of Izembek’s climate change-fighting eelgrass. Many of the migratory birds that rely on the refuge are vital subsistence species for Y-K Delta communities, and the road could be devastating for them.”

The Native Village of Hooper Bay and other Tribes in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region have repeatedly requested to meet with federal decisionmakers on Izembek and to have their perspectives included in the process. Those requests have been denied or left unanswered.