Today, the President is taking another step to protect our most valuable natural resources. Relying on an authority used by presidents of both parties since Eisenhower, President Obama is designating 9.8 million acres in the waters of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas off Alaska’s coast as off-limits to consideration for future oil and gas leasing. This action builds on recent steps by the President to protect Bristol Bay and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Teeming with biological diversity, these areas in the Beaufort and Chukchi are part of one of the last great marine wildernesses left untouched by development. Endangered whales swim through the icy seas, walruses and bearded seals feed on the Hanna Shoal, and more than 40 species of fish like cod and herring grant fishermen their livelihoods. Each year, the bowhead whale hunt draws Native communities throughout northern Alaska, as essential for their sustenance as it is to their way of life and cultural history.
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