For wildlife like polar bears and caribou, for local communities and Alaska Natives, and for future generations, Alaska Wilderness League strives to protect Alaska's most significant wild land from oil and gas drilling and other industrial threats. Currently, Alaska Wilderness League is working to protect the 
Offshore Campaign
The Polar Bear Seas: The Beaufort & Chukchi Seas
The Beaufort and Chukchi Seas make up America’s Arctic Ocean, and together with the inextricably linked Northern Bering Sea, make up one of the most abundant marine ecosystems in the world. The Chukchi and Beaufort Seas are pristine wild places, and are distinctly different from lower latitude seas in ways that make direct and important contributions to global ocean and climate systems. Wildlife resources of these oceans are central to the sites and culture of indigenous peoples throughout the Arctic. The Bush Administration is currently allowing massing leasing and exploration of the Beaufort Sea, despite strong opposition from local native interests. Furthermore, the Administration’s five year leasing plan for the Arctic Ocean, which proposes to continue aggressive leasing, is expect to be approved in 2007. Under this plan, the Administration would move aggressively ahead to lease 33 million acres in the Beaufort Sea and 40 million acres in the Chukchi Sea.
America’s two polar bear populations depend on the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas – together known as the Polar Bear Seas – as their primary offshore habitat. As the Polar Bear Seas continue to lose ice, polar bears are forced to travel greater distances to find food and to den. Cases of drowning polar bears and cannibalism have further illustrated the unprecedented challenges facing these arctic inhabitants. A recent U.S. Geological Survey report indicates that both of America’s polar bear populations could disappear by 2050. We must act now to change that outcome.
