Copper River Delta Wilderness
Designation Threatened

- 05/19/2000 Alice Aguilar

The Copper River Delta is a key staging area for over 16 million shore birds, hosts nearly the entire population of dusky Canada geese and countless numbers of other wildlife, and is a critical habitat for the Copper River salmon. The Delta is the largest contiguous wetland on the Pacific Coast of North America and has sustained not only the Eyak, but all Native people for thousands of generations.

Without a Wilderness designation, the unique, pristine Copper River Delta will be left unprotected -- leveled by road development, strip-mined for coal, gutted by clear-cutting old growth forests, and ravaged by oil drilling.

In March 2000, the Chugach Alaska Corporation (CAC) was given the go ahead to build a road across the fragile wetlands of the eastern portion of the Delta. The road will sever nearly 400 streams in order to access 9,000 acres of old growth forest for timber extraction. This disruption to the land will ultimately wreak havoc to the delicate balance of the Delta's ecosystem.

The US Forest Service has presented a map proposing how to manage the Chugach National Forest and the Copper River Delta has been left out of Wilderness designation!

But you still have time to convince the Forest Service to consider a Wilderness Designation for the Copper River Delta in order stop further development, protect the commercial fishery, and protect the wildlife and subsistence lifestyle of the People of the Delta!

Scott Anaya from the National Wildlife Federation (http://www.nwf.org/copperriver) posted the following information on how you can participate in the public process and send your comments to the Forest Service:

Please CALL/WRITE/FAX/EMAIL DAVE GIBBONS-forest supervisor, TODAY:

Phone: 907-271-2525

Address: 3301 C St. Suite 300

Anchorage, AK 99503

Fax (907) 271-3992

Tell him that you are extremely disappointed the Copper River Delta is not Wilderness and to recommend the entire Delta as Wilderness because;

• As a U.S. citizen (or Alaska resident), I have an interest in my national forests, and want them protected for my children and future generations


• You want the Delta permanently protected from roads, strip-mines, oil rigs, and clearcuts


• Wilderness permanently protects a Native fishing and hunting way of life


• It's the largest intact wetlands ecosystem on the Pacific coast of North America


• The Delta is home to 16 million shorebirds and other waterfowl species


• Provides habitat for the world famous Copper River Salmon worth $20 million annually


• It is home to endangered Dusky Canadian Geese, the largest nesting population of Trumpeter Swans, five wolf packs, moose, and brown bears


• The 501b Wilderness designation will protect the wild stock thriving commercial fishery, which breeds in the wild streams of the Delta.

Also demand the Forest Service to protect other valuable lands of the Forest as Wilderness, such as areas recovering from the 1989 oil spill in Prince William Sound and the Brown Bear habitat in the Kenai Peninsula.

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