House Dismantles Central Yukon Plan, Jeopardizing America's Largest Park Landscape

WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives voted to dismantle the Central Yukon Resource Management Plan (RMP), which provides critical protection for Alaska’s national park wildlife, waterways, ecosystems and subsistence resources.

“The House’s use of the Congressional Review Act to try to dismantle a land use plan constructed with a decade of work by Alaskans is politics at its worst,“ said National Parks Conservation Association Senior Alaska Director Jim Adams. "Revoking the Central Yukon Resource Management plan ignores the needs and will of Alaskans and prioritizes those of industrial mining and extraction interests. It also eliminates important wildlife and landscape protections and helps clear the way towards new consideration of the disastrous Ambler industrial mining road boondoggle, putting America’s largest national park landscape in the crosshairs.”

The Central Yukon RMP covers 13.3 million acres of public lands in central and northern Alaska, including the Dalton Highway corridor contiguous to Gates of the Arctic National Park and the central Yukon River watershed. The Central Yukon plan was developed through years of extensive public outreach and included new guidelines for managing populations of salmon and caribou that are already historically low and in crisis, among other wildlife and waterway provisions. It also improved public access in the region, while conserving what makes these lands unique.

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About the National Parks Conservation Association: Since 1919, the nonpartisan National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) has been the leading voice in safeguarding our national parks. NPCA and its more than 1.6 million members and supporters work together to protect and preserve our nation’s most iconic and inspirational places for future generations. For more information, visit www.npca.org