Alaska’s Wild Future: Trump’s Order on Conservation

On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump just released an executive order called “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential”. This order directs expansion of oil, gas, mineral, and timber extraction on Alaska’s public lands. There are pros and cons to this executive order, it will improve the economy, and it will also create many jobs. The negatives will mainly be towards wildlife, pumping oil is known to cause pollution, destruction of ecosystems and also disrupt wildlife, affecting their behavior.

For hunters, in the executive order it states that "direct all bureaus of the Department of the Interior to consider the Alaskan cultural significance of hunting and fishing and the statutory priority of subsistence management required by the ANILCA". Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) is an act that designates "more than 100 million acres of federal land in Alaska as new or expanded conservation system units". Supporting ANILCA will greatly expand national parks and wilderness areas.

Caribou herd migrating onto the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Northern Alaska. | U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/AP

The executive order also mentioned that it wants "to ensure to the greatest extent possible that hunting and fishing opportunities on Federal lands are consistent with similar opportunities on State land". This means that there will be fewer federal restrictions which could open opportunities for federal land hunting. The uncertainty around where you could hunt will revolve around where the industrial activities such as the production of gas and oil are taking place.

In the document, it mentioned that it will "rescind the cancellation of any leases within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge". The ANWR is currently one of the largest untapped oil reserves in the United States. According to an article titled "Should we drill in Alaska" in 2007, they estimated that the ANWR has an estimate of 7.06 billion barrels of oil. An image below shows where the ANWR is located.

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Map | USGS

In a perfect world, there would be no oil drilling, no pipelines just wildlife but that will likely never happen. We just have to look at the pros and cons of the situation and hope for the best. For hunters in Alaska, the future may hold fewer federal restrictions while also providing a massive increase in industrial activity which will most definitely affect hunting ground. We will see in the next couple of months or years how these policies unfold.