State of Alaska sets ESA issues strategy

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

The State of Alaska is taking a three-pronged approach to wildlife protection and development issues: It will intervene in court cases where the state has issues at stake and it will work more closely with other groups on conservation measures.

Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell and Alaska Attorney General Dan Sullivan announced the three-part strategy Oct. 21; Parnell said the goals were to help grow Alaska’s economy and jobs while balancing wildlife interests which are also important to everyday life in Alaska.

“Alaskans have an excellent track record of both developing our natural resources and protecting our wildlife,” Parnell said at a press briefing, and warned against attempts to “improperly use the Endangered Species Act to shut down responsible resource development.”

“… I won’t let this happen on my watch,” the governor said.

Sullivan described steps the state is taking to implement the three-part strategy, including filing a summary judgment motion with others Oct. 20 in federal district court in Washington, D.C., opposing the polar bear listing.

The state will be intervening in the ribbon seal litigation, backing the federal government’s decision not to list the ribbon seal as endangered.

And the state will be working more closely with others, beginning with the National Marine Fisheries Service, on conservation issues, including collecting baseline data using sound science to help the state make future decisions.

Sullivan said the state has focused on protecting the polar bear through the Marine Mammals Protection Act and other measures, and significant North Slope resource development has been accompanied by “a significant increase in the robust polar bear population.”

He called the polar bear listing under the Endangered Species Act unprecedented. “Never before has a species been listed when the population of that species is at its highest, most robust. It’s at all time historical highs.”

The decision was wrong in a number of areas, he said: It was based on a speculative scientific model that goes too far into the future; it failed to take into account current successful conservation programs; and the listing was not based on an observed population decline, which is the traditional way ESA listings occur.

Sullivan said there hasn’t been a decline; there’s been a population increase.

He said the state is particularly concerned that under the theory advocated in this case, any species that lives in the Arctic could be listed under the ESA, without regard to current health or size of the population.

“The long-term ramifications, we believe, of this legal theory gaining widespread acceptance potentially preclude resource development and economic opportunities throughout much of our state, in essence making Alaska the world’s largest zoo, with no additional benefit to our wildlife.”