What We're Defending - Defend Brooks Range

What We’re Defending

The 200+ mile Ambler road represents a fundamental threat to our people, our subsistence way of life, and our cultural resources. Brian Ridley   President, Tanana Chiefs Conference

Caribou

The Ambler industrial mining corridor would cut through the migration route of the Western Arctic Caribou Herd, creating a barrier to their critical and wide-ranging seasonal movement. Research conducted on similar herds shows that the development of roads across migration routes leads to irreversible decline in caribou populations.

Roughly 152,000 caribou make up the Western Arctic herd – one of the largest on Earth
Vast caribou migration ranges
Critical cornerstone of food security and sovereignty for Indigenous communities for thousands of years

Our Waters and Lands

The Ambler industrial mining corridor would scar one of our nation’s wildest national parks, bulldoze nearly 3,000 rivers and streams, and devastate a vast, priceless landscape.

Would permanently harm the ecology, cultural lifeways, and wilderness/recreation experiences of the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Kobuk Valley National Park, and Noatak National Preserve
These 16.8 million acres make up the largest connected park landscape in the country
Rivers, streams, and watersheds support vital populations of native fish
These lands and waters are special because there is no large, connected existing road system

Community Welfare and Health

The thriving wildlife, clean water, and vast intact spaces of the Brooks Range are key to the traditional way of life passed down through innumerable generations of Alaskans. In addition to the inherent risks of development, the Ambler industrial mining corridor would bring daily pollution-spewing trucks, devastating this heritage and threatening public health.

Alaska Native people have stewarded the land, water, and wildlife near their Brooks Range home since time immemorial
Generations of families rely on the unspoiled landscape for subsistence hunting and fishing
Industrial development creates negative public health outcomes, such as increased alcohol and drug use, and threats to public safety for women, girls, and Two-spirit people

Alaska’s Economy

Alaska is in the middle of a fiscal crisis. Yet, elected leaders want to subsidize the Ambler road project, which would only serve to enrich foreign-owned mining companies while destroying the undisturbed lands and waters of Northwest Alaska. Alaskans can’t afford this project.

Alaskans are shelling out more than $1.4B to subsidize a privately owned road to support speculative mining for foreign mining companies
Alaskans have no guarantee to see any money in return for their investment
The State of Alaska is funding construction of the private, industrial Ambler road without public consent
There is no evidence that the industrial development would directly aid local communities or directly reduce living costs
No mines are currently permitted for production, meaning there’s no guarantee the road would actually serve any future mines
Companies who want to mine in the Brooks Range have consistently failed to demonstrate that this area contains the amounts and types of minerals that would economically or politically justify the construction of the Ambler road