History and Background
Background on the Reserve
The 23.5-million-acre Reserve is the largest single block of public land in the United States. It stretches from the Brooks Range northward to the Beaufort and Chukchi seas of the Arctic Ocean. It is home to a wide diversity of wildlife in a variety of arctic ecosystems and supports the subsistence lifestyle of many Native Alaskans. Though not as well known as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Alaska, the Reserve is the biological backbone of Alaska’s western Arctic.
First recognized by the United States only because of its potential value for oil drilling, it was designated as a naval petroleum reserve in 1923. In 1976 Congress transferred management from the Navy to the Department of the Interior, with the requirement that “maximum protection” be given to many of the Reserve’s non-oil natural resources, which scientists had been increasingly discovering.
