Among the spate of executive orders issued by the Trump Administration in the last two weeks was a key directive about Alaska’s public lands and natural resources. The Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential executive order is resurrecting controversial development projects like the Ambler Road and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. That same mandate could also reopen the door to millions of acres of federal land that became off limits to hunters during the Biden Administration.
Issued on Jan. 20, the order emphasizes development of the state’s natural gas, minerals, timber, seafood and other “resources to the fullest extent possible.” The White House is clear in its intent to “efficiently and effectively maximize the development and production” on both federal and state lands in Alaska.
Related: Here’s What Hunting and Conservation Groups Are Asking of the Trump Administration
A less publicized provision instructs the Department of Interior to realign hunting opportunities on federal lands with those available on state lands. In recent years the federal government has chipped away at opportunities on federal land for caribou, moose, sheep, and bear hunters. The most notable was when, over objections from the Alaska Department of Game and Fish, 60 million acres of federal lands were closed to nonresident and most nonresident caribou hunters in 2022.
Meanwhile, public hunting opportunities on state lands in Alaska have remained available. This executive order paves the way for returning many wildlife management decisions to the state.
“Ultimately, no one knows exactly what this mandate will look like over the next few years,” says Alaska outdoorsman and Outdoor Life staff writer Tyler Freel, who has reported extensively on both extraction and hunting access issues in his state. “Anti-development folks will view it as an environmental doomsday, and resource-hungry industrialists hope it will be a free-for-all. It’s likely, and should be our hope, that the state can continue to increase resource development in a responsible manner. It’s unlikely all these projects will proceed. Ultimately we should pay attention, support what’s reasonable, and oppose what isn’t.”
What Maximum Development Looks Like
It’s no surprise to see such strong language in the order, given Trump’s “drill baby, drill” refrain. But it’s still causing alarm in the conservation community, which has generally opposed increased resource development over concerns for wildlife, habitat, and wilderness.
Among other changes, the mandate has reversed the BLM’s 2024 denial of the Ambler Road permit and overturned the Alaska Roadless Rule, which will impact 9 million acres of the Tongass National Forest. As we reported in 2020, the Trump administration removed the Roadless Rule, and the Biden administration reinstated it in 2023.
The mandate also targets oil and gas leasing in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and again revokes the conservation status of 28 million acres of public land that had been withdrawn from mineral and energy development since 1971. In January 2021 the first Trump administration began withdrawing those protections, which had previously endured no matter which political party controlled the White House.
“President Trump’s actions suggest ‘energy dominance’ means letting fossil fuels totally rule over our public lands and overshadow all other uses. That isn’t what most people want,” said senior director for government relations of the Wilderness Society Lydia Weiss in a statement. “America’s public lands are part of what makes us great as a nation. They are a key part of our shared heritage and can unite us when so much is threatening to tear us apart. Today’s actions are a dire threat to this common ground. We depend on public lands as places to hunt, hike and play; havens for hallowed ancestral and cultural sites; and refuge for threatened wildlife.”
Related: Drilling for Oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Two Perspectives from Alaskan Outdoorsmen
The executive order doesn’t completely clear the way for instant development. Controversial developments like proposed mines in Alaska’s Bristol Bay and near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota have routinely been shut down, green lit, and shut down again as presidential administrations turn over. Lawsuits have proven a key weapon in the battles for these types of public lands, and we can expect to see those continue.
More Hunting Opportunity on Federal Land
While the full-speed ahead philosophy on resource extraction doesn’t signal a willingness to compromise, another section of President Trump’s mandate actually focuses on resolving a growing gulf between Alaska’s state and federal land managers.
Among other guidance, the White House instructs “all bureaus of the Department of the Interior to ensure to the greatest extent possible that hunting and fishing opportunities on Federal lands are consistent with similar opportunities on State lands.” It also requires the DOI to “conduct meaningful consultation with the State fish and wildlife management agencies prior to enacting land management plans or other regulations that affect the ability of Alaskans to hunt and fish on public lands.”
The biggest loss of hunting access in Alaska, as we mentioned, was when the Federal Subsistence Board closed 60-million acres of public land to everyone but qualified local subsistence caribou hunters in 2022. That closure followed a smaller but still notable loss of access when nearly 1.5 million acres of BLM land in unit 13 were closed in 2020 to everyone but, again, qualified local subsistence hunters.
While the proposed closures cited concerns about caribou herd health, Freel has maintained that herds fluctuate over time and the real issue was rooted in human conflict.
Another blow to Alaska sportsmen came in July 2023. Just as Alaska hunters were preparing for their 2023 sheep season, all federal lands in the central Brooks Range were closed to Dall sheep hunting. Notably, that included the archery-only Dalton Highway Corridor Management Area. These two-year closures were extended in 2024, and expanded further when the National Park Service successfully lobbied the Federal Subsistence Board to close federal lands to sheep hunters in the Yukon Charlie National Preserve.
Then, in December, the National Park Service issued its final rule restricting bear baiting on Alaska lands managed by the NPS. State officials have been trying to regain control over wildlife management on places like the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. (This dispute between the State of Alaska and the USFWS stems from an Obama administration policy that banned several common and traditional hunting practices — namely the ban on hunting brown or grizzly bears with the aid of bait on more than 6 million acres of federal refuge and preserve lands.)
“Many Alaskans have a skeptical or downright sour view of federal agencies and Interior Department-appointed land managers,” Freel wrote in 2023. “The struggle goes back decades, and agencies like the National Park Service have an earned reputation for pressing anti-hunting, especially anti-predator hunting, restrictions and agendas. The NPS proposal [then on the table] cites ‘public safety’ concerns, but ignores countless examples of successful and well-managed bear baiting areas that have healthy populations of bears and minimal negative human contact.”
Read Next: Federal Agencies Continue to Cut Hunting Opportunities in Alaska
The language in Trump’s executive order echoes the lawsuit filed by the state, urging federal agencies to comply with ANILCA. That legislation, passed in 1980, acknowledges the unique management challenges of Alaska’s vast tracts of public lands and requires federal agencies to cooperate with state managers. ANILCA also has a statutory requirement to prioritize subsistence management.
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