[at-l] > RELIGIOUS, SENATE LEADERS OPPOSE ANWR DRILLING

[yumitori@montana.com (Ron Martino)]

kahley wrote:

> I agree about the drilling, but not the exploration.  To not explore,
> to me, would be like driving a car with no fuel indicator.  I want
> to know how much fuel I have "in the tank" <g>

        Unfortunately the exploration process itself has negative side
effects.
 
> If I can press, can you tell me why the land was set aside in
> the first place?  Or rather, why you agree with the reasoning
> behind it's protection?

        While the area included in the ANWR is vast by some measures, by
others
it is but a small portion of the total that once existed. Traditionally
we have done a poor job of considering the entirety of ecosystems when
setting aside lands for non-extraction uses. We see this in the
Yellowstone area where bison are killed for roaming outside arbitrary
boundaries.

        The area included in the Refuge needs to be large enough to
sufficiently support healthy numbers of the wildlife populations that
live there. We destroyed the passenger pigeon by reducing its population
to the point where individuals would no longer breed. By the time we
understood, it was too late. We can do the same with other species.

        In some ways we end up destroying wilderness by a thousand cuts.
Roadless areas make up only a small fraction of the United States
anymore. Only some of that area ends up being saved for wildlife and
recreation, however. And even then it's not fully protected - there's
constant demand to whittle away at what's left. Mines that will 'only
have minimal' impact are planned, reducing still further the regions
available. Each time a bit more is nibbled away. Eventually too little
will be left.

        Ron
-- 

yumitori(AT)montana(DOT)com