Current Events

Alaska Native Communities Ask the Bureau of Land Management to Designate a New Nuiqsut Subsistence Use Special Area

September 16, 2024

Read the joint comments of Grandmothers Growing Goodness, SILA, and Native Movement:

Final Comments to BLM|Appendix A: Traditional Knowledge|Appendix B: Impacts of aircraft on subsistence

During the Public Comment Period, Alaska Native Communities Also Urged More Co-Management and Tribally-led Stewardship

(Nuiqsut, Alaska) – Today, the Biden Administration concluded its Request for Information on Special Areas in Alaska’s Western Arctic, in which it solicited public input on how to update protections in existing Special Areas, expand existing Special Areas, and create new Special Areas.

As a part of this process, Grandmothers Growing Goodness, Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic (SILA), and Native Movement submitted joint comments to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Their comments recommend that the BLM: 

  • Designate a new Nuiqsut Subsistence Use Special Area, which would include an area that Native Alaskans rely on most for all of their subsistence uses;

  • Manage this area through co-management and Tribally-led stewardship to provide Tribes a meaningful role in the decision-making for their lands; and

  • Manage these lands to prioritize Inupiat subsistence, culture, and tradition.

  • Prohibit industry’s use of the existing road during periods of high subsistence or caribou use, to ensure the safety and success of their hunters and the health of their herd. To help stem the ever-expansive web of development around Nuiqsut, additional permanent roads should not be built. 

“I hope the Administration will heed these recommendations and expand protections for new special areas in Nuqsuit to protect the areas my village depends on most for subsistence as well as the migration routes and wintering grounds of the Teshekpuk Caribou Herd,” said Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, Founder, Grandmothers Growing Goodness. “We have lived off of these lands and called this place home since time immemorial. To protect these places, it is essential that Indigenous Knowledge and our community’s needs are prioritized and meaningfully integrated with public lands management in the Western Arctic.”

People and wildlife need large, undisturbed areas. The no leasing and no infrastructure zones that are already in place in Teshekpuk Lake provide key protections for the caribou herd that calves there and the people of Nuiqsut who rely on these animals. The protection of these areas also helps provide climate resilience and natural carbon storage, and limits on oil production in these zones reduces the extraction of fossil fuels that is pushing against our transition to renewable energy. 

Existing protections have proven to be important in safeguarding key subsistence resources, but further protection is needed to protect the region and the people and wildlife that live there. Especially as the Western Arctic is warming at a rate four times faster than the rest of the Earth.

Press Contact: Abby Grehlinger, abby@team-arc.com, (865) 340-6656

Grandmothers Welcomes New NPRA regulations

Watch a special message from

Dr. Rosemary Ahtuangaruak on the new regulation announcement

The Biden Administration just took historic action to protect the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) with a new rule to ensure any resource development in the Arctic is balanced with protections for Alaska Native communities and the lands and wildlife that shape our lives.

This action will:

  • Prioritize the protection of subsistence activities and enhance the ability of native communities to carry out our hunting, fishing, and gathering traditions.

  • Ensure that the best available science – including Indigenous Knowledge – is prioritized and incorporated in the management of the area, while also emphasizing consultation and genuine co-stewardship with the people who call this area home.

  • Provide an opportunity to designate new Special Areas and new Maximum Protection Measures, which can help protect subsistence hunting and caribou.

Updates on Teshekpuk Lake Conservation Instrument

The Record of Decision allowing Willow to move forward includes mitigation for a conservation instrument on Teshekpuk Lake. This is mitigation for the impacts of Willow on subsistence.

BLM is considering how this instrument should be created and what it should include.

Read about why we need both the Teshekpuk Lake Conservation Instrument and the Nuiqsut Subsistence Use Special Area.

Some important questions are:

  • Who would hold the instrument?

  • What land would the instrument cover?

  • What is the purpose of the instrument (e.g., protect hunting grounds, or parts or all of important caribou habitat)

  • What activities would be prohibited in the area protected by the instrument?

  • Who will oversee management of the area covered by the instrument?

  • How will the costs of administering the instrument and managing the land be covered?

  • What are the opportunities for co-stewardship of this area?

Grandmothers will provide additional updates about this process as we receive them.

April 2024—

Grandmothers Growing Goodness Remarks to the North Slope Borough Assembly meeting 

Rosemary Ahtuangaruak provided a statement at the April 2024 NSB Assembly meeting, explaining the work of Grandmothers Growing Goodness.

Read Rosemary’s statement.