Threshold

The question of whether or not we should drill for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of the most contentious public lands debates in the United States. Even though most Americans would have a hard time finding it on a map, the topic seems to ignite intense feelings in just about everyone.

After 40 years of fighting, Congress voted in December 2017 to allow drilling in the refuge...

For 40 years, the fight over drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been waged mostly from afar, in Washington, D.C. But what would oil development mean to the people who live closest to the proposed drilling area? 

Kaktovik, Alaska is the only town within the boundaries of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Now that drilling has been approved by Congress, it could mean people here someday have oil rigs right next door...

We continue our reporting from Kaktovik, Alaska—the only town within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—to find out how the conflict over drilling for oil in the refuge feels to the people who live there. The more we listened, the more we realized: the heart of the issue isn’t just over oil extraction and development, wilderness and wildlife. Whatever side people took, their focus is on their community, sovereignty, and survival.

Learn more about Threshold on our website...

We continue our reporting from Kaktovik, Alaska—the only town within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—to find out how the conflict over drilling for oil in the refuge feels to the people who live there. The more we listened, the more we realized: the heart of the issue isn’t just over oil extraction and development, wilderness and wildlife. Whatever side people took, their focus is on their community, sovereignty, and survival. 

Learn more about Threshold on our website...

We're moving from the coast to the interior of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to help you get a sense of what it feels like to travel through this vast area. Last summer, writer William deBuys took a raft trip from the Brooks Range in the middle of the Refuge all the way out to the Arctic Ocean. During his two weeks on the water, he got to travel alongside the Porcupine caribou herd, animals crucial to the debate playing out the fate of the coastal plain...

The Gwich’in have lived and hunted in the Refuge long before it was carved out as federal, protected land. Their territory spans a huge swath of northeastern Alaska and northwestern Canada, and their health and culture depends on the Porcupine caribou herd - a group of animals 200,000 strong that calve on the area of the coastal plain slated for drilling...

The Gwich’in have lived and hunted in the Refuge long before it was carved out as federal, protected land. Their territory spans a huge swath of northeastern Alaska and northwestern Canada, and their health and culture depends on the Porcupine caribou herd - a group of animals 200,000 strong that calve on the area of the coastal plain slated for drilling...

When the debate over drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge first emerged, most people had never heard of global warming. So over the last four decades, the controversies over oil in the Refuge and climate change evolved on different tracks. 

Now, those tracks are intersecting. We dive into the resulting tensions and contradictions around oil and climate in this final episode of our series on the Refuge.

Learn more about Threshold on our website...

Last week, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge made headlines all over the world: the Trump administration finalized plans to open up this piece of remote, Alaskan wilderness to oil and gas development...

The controversy over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is at a critical point: a lease sale may be just days away, but lawsuits have piled up that could put a stop to that sale and put a wrench in the federal government’s efforts to open the refuge to drilling...