Andy Baker’s website, www.therealalaska.net, has a list of 185 Alaska businesses that are on record in support of keeping the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a refuge—and more get added every day. The list includes publishers, hotels, music booking companies, wholesale food suppliers, construction companies, power companies, hunting guides, coffee shops, photographers, farms, accounting firms, yoga studios, outfitters, restaurants…a huge range of commercial enterprises all united by the idea that the coastal plain of the refuge should continue to be used for ecotourism, recreation, and subsistence hunting—but not for industrial oil and gas drilling.
Baker runs the Anchorage Guest House, an adventure travel accomodation that he started seven years ago, and he realized that there must be many Alaska business owners who, like himself, operate companies that earn money from tourism and other sectors of the economy that need the Alaska wilderness and mystique to earn money, and that were run by people who felt the refuge should not be risked for oil, for economic and other reasons.

     Baker pointed out in a recent telephone interview with the Republic that the reasons the refuge was set aside in the first place haven’t changed, and that Alaska’s economy is based on far more than just oil. “There is a vibrant economy in the Arctic Refuge based on tourism and subsistence hunting that has existed since 1960…because it was protected.”

     “If you look at the tourism economy, it’s sort of tiered,” he said. “You have most of the mass tourism of the cruise ship industry in southeast Alaska…more independent operators in Anchorage and Fairbanks, and then you’ve got the crown jewel wilderness and wildlife experience of the Arctic Refuge.”

     “It’s the ultimate backcountry adventure,” he said.

     Baker doesn’t neglect the economic value of oil in his reasoning, however. He observes that as time passes, oil will become worth more, and extraction technology will improve. “If we go get it now, and we don’t cut our consumption back, the consumption that we’re wasting, we’re going to use up an oil reserve that was really put there as a last resort—it takes an act of Congress to get it out.”

     Oil will be worth far more in twenty to thirty years than it is now, Baker explains. “In the meantime, Americans need to learn to conserve oil, and to develop alternative technologies.”

     “The best European cars [for fuel efficiency] are not being sold in the US.” The Volkswagen Polo, for example, gets 60 mpg, but is not available in America. Why? Protective tariffs and import quota restrictions. The CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards have not been increased for fear of disrupting or injuring the domestic automobile industry market economy. However, Baker explains, this is now a self-defeating strategy, because “the American consumer is now at the mercy of rising fuel prices.”

     The value of oil to America’s independence doesn’t escape Baker’s notice, either: “If we’re talking about national security, the only way to ensure that Alaskan oil stays in America is if the export ban was reinstated.” He argues that as the law stands now, oil can go to whoever will pay more for it, and fast-growing economies like China’s or India’s may soon outstrip our own buying power, as each has approximately a sixth of the world’s population. “If we’re trying to keep it in America,” he says, “we wouldn’t want multinational corporations to sell it to China or India.”

     Baker brought up an interesting—and disturbing—point. “The Inupiat and Gwich’in cultures will be undermined if they lose access to their subsistence food and their land.”  He described how, in the 1800s, the federal government, when it decided it had an “Indian problem” with the Plains Indians, hired bounty hunters to kill buffalo. The herds went from millions of animals to less than a thousand. The land and food source of the indigenous peoples were taken away, and the culture was altered forever, virtually destroyed. “In 2005, we have the chance to respect and preserve the essential elements of Inupiat and Gwich’in cultures, and that means respecting the land and wildlife that sustains them.”

     Because of the wind, ice, and cold water temperature, cleanup of an oil spill in the Beaufort Sea could be very difficult, if not impossible. A large spill  of toxic crude oil there could have catastrophic consequences on the food chain, similar to what happened in Prince William Sound, where the herring fishery crashed. In the Beaufort Sea, the zooplankton that form the foundation of the arctic food web would be at risk—and with them the fish, birds, seals, bears, and whales, and the way of life of the people who depend on them. The risk posed by development of the refuge and the coastal plain by heavy industry to the existence of the local cultures is real, he said. The effects of a catastrophic oil spill, or the potential cumulative impact on the animals and plants on which the Inupiat and Gwich’in depend, could demolish their cultures. Said Baker: “That’s a moral argument that I think is very important.”

     His website lists reasons to oppose drilling in the refuge, with numerous links to supporting data:

• The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was established by an act of Congress in 1960 as a promise to the American people to preserve wildlife, wilderness, and recreation in this unique arctic habitat.

• There already exists an established, prosperous, and internationally respected economy of sustainable ecotourism, guided hunting, recreation, air taxis, and subsistence hunting directly related to the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge.

• The Inupiat peoples native to the north slope of Alaska depend on subsistence hunting of sea and land animals.

• The Gwich’in Athabaskan peoples native to areas south and east of the Arctic Refuge depend on subsistence hunting of land mammals which feed and calve on the coastal plain of the refuge, specifically the Porcupine caribou herd of approximately 123,000 animals.

• The United States has entered into international agreements with adjoining nations to protect habitat for polar bears, bowhead whales, and caribou which rely on the complete and healthy ecosystems still found on the Arctic Refuge coastal plain and adjacent offshore areas.

• The US Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Academy of Sciences have both conducted extensive studies of the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge to establish baseline populations of wildlife and the anticipated impacts of oil leasing on the same. These studies conclude that the impacts of oil and gas production facilities on the coastal plain ecosystem will be significant due to: requirements of land for employee and production facilities, gravel mines and roads, fresh water for ice roads, noise, air pollution, vehicle traffic, air strips, boat harbors, and pipelines.

• The oil industry has yet to demonstrate a proven and reliable method of cleaning up a spill of toxic crude oil in the Beaufort Sea which adjoins the refuge.

• The long-term effects on marine life of toxic crude oil spilled in Prince William Sound in 1989 are well documented by credible scientists and federal agencies, and more than sixteen years after the spill these effects continue to persist and prevent the recovery of cornerstone species that sustain fish, sea mammals, and birds.

     The site includes a photo gallery, a map of the refuge, and a news and action page along with the list of businesses. Baker explains that leasing of the refuge to oil companies has been included in the federal budget bill for fiscal year 2006, as yet unreconciled. The bill must be reconciled by Congress within the next month, before sending it to the president, and so the list of businesses is important because it represents Alaska voters and their financial power.

     “The politicians, they can say what they want to,” Baker said, “but that website represents a big chunk of votes and money.”

     And, as they say, money talks.






To contact Andy Baker, e-mail him at house@alaska.net, call him at (907) 274-0408, or go to www.therealalaska.net.