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Viewing recent news releases in the Alaska Region program.
Lawsuit Aims to Stop Industrial Trawl Fishing From Threatening Northern Fur Seals
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— The Center for Biological Diversity sued NOAA Fisheries today for failing to prevent northern fur seals on St. Paul Island from declining because of prey competition with the Bering Sea’s massive pollock trawl fishery.
Read more.Legal Action Aims to Prevent Alaska Bear-Killing Program While Lawsuit Proceeds
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— Alaska Wildlife Alliance and the Center for Biological Diversity filed an emergency legal motion today seeking to prevent the state from killing an unlimited number of brown and black bears across roughly 40,000 square miles in southwest Alaska this summer.
Read more.Victory: Court Reinstates Alaska Critical Habitat for Bearded, Ringed Seals
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— A federal appeals court today upheld the National Marine Fisheries Service’s designation of nearly 160 million acres of waters off Alaska’s Arctic coast as critical habitat for imperiled bearded and ringed seals.
Read more.Lawsuit Challenges Trump’s Massive Alaska Public Lands Giveaway
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— Ten Alaska and national groups sued the Interior Department today for unlawfully removing federal protections from public lands in an area stretching from the Yukon River to the Brooks Range.
Read more.Lawsuit Launched to Challenge Cook Inlet Oil, Gas Lease Sale
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— A federally recognized Alaska Native Tribal Nation, along with several community and environmental health and justice groups, notified the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management today of their intent to sue over a planned March 4 offshore oil and gas lease sale in Cook Inlet.
Read more.Lawsuit Challenges Massive Oil, Gas Sale Over Harms to Western Arctic Public Lands, Climate
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— Two conservation groups are suing today over a massive oil and gas lease sale in the Western Arctic that was recently announced by the Bureau of Land Management.
Read more.Lawsuit Launched to Challenge Liberty Offshore Drilling Lease Extensions in Arctic
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— The Center for Biological Diversity and Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic sent a notice today of their intent to sue the federal government for granting Hilcorp Alaska LLC an extension for expired oil and gas drilling leases in the Arctic Ocean. The leases are for the proposed Liberty Unit project, which would be in federal waters.
Read more.Legal Filing Challenges Trump Approval of Ambler Mining Road Through National Preserve
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— Ten groups filed an amended and supplemental complaint today challenging the Trump administration’s 2025 decisions to reinstate unlawful permits for the proposed Ambler road.
Read more.Legal Action Challenges Arctic Refuge Drilling Plan
WASHINGTON— Conservation groups today brought new legal claims in an ongoing lawsuit challenging the Interior Department’s latest push to open the entire 1.56‑million‑acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing.
Read more.Lawsuit Challenges Federal Approval of Harmful Oil Exploration in Alaska’s Western Arctic
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— Conservation groups and an Iñupiat-led grassroots organization filed a lawsuit today seeking to overturn the Trump administration’s approval of ConocoPhillips’ winter seismic and exploration drilling program in the Western Arctic.
Read more.Lawsuit Challenges Destructive Road in Alaska’s Izembek Refuge
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.
Read more.Lawsuit Challenges Alaska Board of Game Plan to Gun Down Bears
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— The Alaska Wildlife Alliance and the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Alaska Board of Game today for violating the Alaska Constitution when adopting a predator control program authorizing the killing of an unlimited number of brown and black bears across 40,000 square miles in southwestern Alaska.
Read more.Trump Administration OKs Destructive Land Swap for Alaska’s Izembek Refuge
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— The Trump administration today approved a deal trading away federal lands to pave the way for building a road through the center of Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.
Read more.Legal Intervention Aims to Defend Tongass Against Increased Old-Growth Logging
JUNEAU, Alaska— A coalition of conservation groups, Alaska tribes, a commercial fishing advocacy group and an ecotourism operator today filed a request to intervene in a timber industry legal challenge that seeks to revive industrial old-growth logging in the Tongass National Forest.
Read more.Court Reverses Oil Lease Sale That Threatened Belugas Off Alaska’s Coast
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— National and community-based environmental groups celebrated a legal victory on Tuesday when a federal district court judge overturned an offshore oil and gas lease sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet because the federal government violated the law when holding the sale.
Read more.Legal Petition to Interior Department Urges Climate Analysis, Phasedown of Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— Several environmental groups filed a legal petition today asking the Department of the Interior for a new analysis of the climate damage and other harms related to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. The petition also calls for a plan to phase down the pipeline’s operations.
Read more.Lawsuit Aims to Protect Endangered Polar Bears, Whales From Alaska LNG Project
WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club sued the federal government today for failing to properly evaluate harms from the Alaska LNG project to several threatened and endangered species.
Read more.Conservation Groups Defend EPA Decision on Proposed Pebble Mine
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— A coalition of conservation organizations filed a motion today to intervene in a lawsuit to defend the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s decision that protects Bristol Bay from harmful mines, like the proposed Pebble Mine, under Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act.
Read more.Appeals Court Orders U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to Fix Regulations Allowing Fossil Fuel Industry to Harm Polar Bears
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must correct legal errors in a regulation that allows oil and gas companies to harass Southern Beaufort Sea polar bears on the North Slope of Alaska.
Read more.Alaska Native Tribes, Businesses, Forest Advocates Intervene to Protect Tongass National Forest’s Roadless Rule
JUNEAU, Alaska (Áakʼw Ḵwáan Territory)— A broad coalition of Alaska Native Tribes, commercial fishers, small tourism businesses, conservation groups and other forest advocates are seeking to defend the 2023 reinstatement of Roadless Rule protections across the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska by intervening today in legal challenges opposing the rule.
Read more.Lawsuit Challenges Federal Approval of Alaska LNG Exports
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— Conservation groups sued the federal government today for approving exports from the Alaska LNG Project, which would transport gas from Alaska’s North Slope to Asia.
Read more.Biden Administration Sued Over Willow Oil Project in Alaska’s Western Arctic
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— Earthjustice filed a lawsuit yesterday on behalf of conservation groups to stop the massive Willow oil drilling project in Alaska’s Western Arctic, which the Biden administration approved March 13. This approval of an enormous new carbon pollution source undermines President Biden’s promises to slash greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and transition the United States to clean energy.
Read more.U.S. Forest Service Restores Critical Protections to Tongass National Forest
JUNEAU, Alaska (Áakʼw Ḵwáan Territory)— In a win for Southeast Alaska communities, wildlife and the climate, the U.S. Forest Service today reinstated Roadless Rule protections across the Tongass rainforest in Southeast Alaska.
Read more.Lawsuit Challenges Biden Administration Oil Leasing in Alaska’s Cook Inlet
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— National and community-based environmental groups filed a legal challenge today to stop the Department of the Interior’s lease sale in Cook Inlet, Alaska. Lease sale 258, scheduled for Dec. 30, would auction off nearly a million acres of federal waters in southcentral Alaska, opening the door to decades of future oil and gas drilling.
Read more.Lawsuit Calls Out Biden Administration for Allowing Oil Operators to Harm Southern Beaufort Sea Polar Bears
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— Conservation groups sued the Biden administration today for issuing a regulation that allows oil and gas companies to harass Southern Beaufort Sea polar bears despite the likelihood of causing injury and death.
Read more.Lawsuit Launched to Protect Rare Southeast Alaska Wolf
SITKA, Alaska— Conservation groups filed a formal notice today of their intent to sue the federal government for failing to act on a petition to protect Alexander Archipelago wolves in Southeast Alaska under the Endangered Species Act. Increased trapping and extensive logging have caused rapid population declines for these rare gray wolves.
Read more.Rare Southeast Alaska Wolf One Step Closer to Endangered Species Protection
SITKA, Alaska— The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today that Alexander Archipelago wolves in Southeast Alaska may warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act and started a year-long status review. The decision comes in response to a July 2020 petition from the Center for Biological Diversity, Alaska Rainforest Defenders and Defenders of Wildlife.
Read more.Arctic Refuge Oil Lease Sale Compromises Vital Alaska Wilderness
WASHINGTON— The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority emerged as the apparent high bidder in the Trump administration's illegal oil and gas lease sale as part of its Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Read more.Lawsuit Challenges Trump Administration Decision to Gut Tongass National Forest Protections
JUNEAU, Alaska— A wide-ranging coalition of Indigenous communities from Southeast Alaska, businesses and conservation organizations filed a lawsuit today targeting the Trump administration’s rollback of the federal Roadless Rule that protected the 17 million-acre Tongass National Forest, sometimes called America’s Amazon.
Read more.Trump Administration Invites Oil Industry to Desecrate Sacred Arctic Refuge
WASHINGTON — Amid a global public health crisis and with oil prices at extreme lows, the lame-duck Trump administration is issuing a “request for nominations,” asking oil companies to identify their preferences on areas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s coastal plain to lease for oil drilling.
Read more.Lawsuit Challenges Federal Approval of Alaska LNG Project
WASHINGTON— Conservation groups sued the federal government today for approving the Alaska LNG project, which would export U.S. liquefied natural gas to Asia. The lawsuit challenges the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s May 21 approval of the project and refusal to grant a June 23 request for rehearing.
Read more.Trump Administration Launches New Assault on Alaska’s Tongass Old-growth Forest
JUNEAU, Alaska— The Trump administration announced plans today for a massive timber sale that would destroy more than 5,100 acres of critical old-growth habitat in the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska.
Read more.Lawsuit Seeks to Restore Protection for Wolves, Grizzly Bears on Alaska’s National Preserves
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— Thirteen groups filed a federal lawsuit today to restore Obama-era protections for Alaska’s wildlife on national preserves managed by the National Park Service.
Read more.Lawsuit Challenges Trump Administration’s Approval of Mining Road Through Alaska National Park
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— Nine groups sued the Trump administration today to challenge its approval of a commercial gravel road that would destroy, degrade and pollute Arctic land and water and threaten the health of wildlife and people across a broad region of Alaska’s southern Brooks Range.
Read more.Endangered Species Protections Sought for Rare Wolf in Southeast Alaska
SITKA, Alaska— The Center for Biological Diversity, Alaska Rainforest Defenders and Defenders of Wildlife petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today to give Endangered Species Act protections to the Alexander Archipelago wolf in Southeast Alaska.
Read more.Court Rejects Trump Administration’s Illegal Land Swap to Bulldoze Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge
ANCHORAGE, Alaska― A federal court late Monday shut down the Interior Department’s second attempt at an illegal land exchange with the King Cove Corporation to put a road through vital protected wetlands in Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.
Read more.Alexander Archipelago Wolves Need Urgent Help Following Record Killings in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest
JUNEAU, Alaska― Conservation groups today called on the U.S. Forest Service to take immediate steps to protect Alexander Archipelago wolves on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest following word that 97 percent of the most recent estimated population was killed this past trapping season.
Read more.Federal Court Rules Against Massive Old-Growth Rainforest Logging Plan in Alaska
JUNEAU, Alaska― A federal judge today rejected the Trump administration’s enormous commercial timber harvest and road-building plan for Prince of Wales Island in the Tongass National Forest of southeast Alaska.
Read more.Lawsuit Launched to Save Alaska’s Cook Inlet Beluga Whales From Harmful Oil Exploration
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— Conservation groups today threatened to sue the Trump administration for approving oil exploration in Alaska’s Cook Inlet after new federal data found a dramatic decline in the area’s population of endangered beluga whales.
Read more.400,000-plus Blast Trump Administration Plan for Old-growth Clearcutting in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest
JUNEAU, Alaska― More than 400,000 people and dozens of local tribal, government, business and national recreation groups have flooded the U.S. Forest Service with comments opposing its plan to undo safeguards that prevent clearcutting and road building in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. The comment period ends Tuesday.
Read more.Trump Administration Paves Way for Old-growth Clearcutting in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest
JUNEAU, Alaska― The Trump administration announced plans today to gut longstanding protections against logging and road building in the Tongass National Forest, a cherished old-growth temperate rainforest in Southeast Alaska and homelands of the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people. A coalition that includes Alaska Native people and Alaska-based and national organizations opposes the U.S. Forest Service plan, which comes weeks after revelations that President Trump exerted pressure to allow new clearcutting in the Tongass.
Read more.Trump Denies Protection to Ancient Alaskan Cedar Trees Threatened by Climate Crisis, Logging
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied endangered species protection today to the Alaska yellow cedar, which is threatened by the climate crisis and expanded logging in the Tongass National Forest.
Read more.Lawsuit Challenges New Trump Administration Land Swap to Bulldoze Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— Conservation groups sued the Trump administration today to challenge a land-swap deal with King Cove Corporation aimed at putting a road through the heart of Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
Read more.Trump Administration Releases Alaska LNG Project Environmental Study
WASHINGTON— The Trump administration today released a draft environmental impact statement for the Alaska LNG project, which would export American fossil fuel to Asia. The proposal calls for an 807-mile pipeline, a facility to liquefy natural gas, and the shipping of about 20 million tons of the condensed fuel abroad every year.
Read more.Lawsuit Challenges Trump Administration's Massive Old-growth Timber Sale in Alaska National Forest
JUNEAU, Alaska— Eight conservation groups sued the Trump administration today to stop its authorization of the largest logging project in the national forest system in a generation, including thousands of acres of old-growth timber in the Tongass National Forest.
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