A worker shovels drilling mud from snowy tundra in 2007. Drilling mud typically contains chemicals, and sometimes heavy metals.

Credit: Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation

The first news from Alaska’s North Slope reads like the beginning of a disaster movie. Oil workers on a drilling rig hit a pocket of gas and quickly evacuate to avoid the hazard of an explosion as gas bursts from the ground. The well is out of control and an estimated 42,000 gallons of drilling mud spills onto the Arctic tundra. Region:  Alaska Read more

The oil and gas industry has had its eye on the Arctic Refuge for decades, but you can help protect it from drilling.

Credit: Lincoln Else

Decades of unrelenting calls from the oil industry to open Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge may finally be stymied—if we act now.The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which manages the Arctic Refuge, is considering recommending wilderness designation for the refuge’s coastal plain, where oil and gas companies have lobbied to drill since the 1980s. Read more

Amy Vedder and Nicole Whittington-Evans, right, stop for a shot while crossing the Ikpikpuk River

Credit: Courtesy Nicole Whittington-Evans

Have you ever been so close to a wild bird that you could see its dark, determined eye while it sat on its nest, or touch its soft, intricate feathers?  Dr. Amy Vedder, Senior Vice President of Conservation at The Wilderness Society, and I recently had this experience in Alaska’s Western Arctic region at a shorebird research field camp organized by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).  Region:  Alaska Read more