Environmental protection versus resource exploitation
Oil and gas account for 80 per cent of Alaska's revenues, the largest oil-producing state in the United States along with Texas. Next in line are commercial fishing (which is running out of steam due to the proliferation of salmon farms), mineral exploitation and logging, which has also been affected by an unfavourable economic climate with very low prices. Mining, which experienced a major crisis until 2001, has been steadily recovering since then. The Alaskan reserves seem to be enormous and the importance of this economy is crucial today. A huge oil deposit has also been discovered by the Texan company Caelus Energy in Smith Bay, 500 km from the Arctic Circle. A promise between 6 and 10 billion barrels of black gold. This would double the Alaskan crude oil reserve and would constitute the largest discovery since that of Prudhoe Bay in 1967. This is "good news" for the supporters of its exploitation, at a time when the pipeline is three quarters empty. Oil provides many jobs and considerable subsidies to the state. But it is also a concern for indigenous people and environmentalists. Whatever the scale of development in the area in the coming years, there is a need to balance economic development with environmental protection, modernization and the preservation of the cultural traditions of the local people, as well as cross-border cooperation between the United States and Canada. Concerns that have fallen by the wayside under the reign of Donald Trump, who wanted to revive the oil project, and which is currently frozen by the Biden administration since 2021. However, the issue has not been resolved.
The growing importance of tourism
Alaska's tourism industry, while still highly seasonal, is intense. Forecasts were for 2.26 million visitors in 2020 prior to Covid, a number that is expected to rise in the next few years as the industry returns to normal. Most of the tourists are Americans, and this increase is due in part to the ever-increasing number of visitors carried by cruise ships. While in winter 95% of arrivals are by air, in summer cruises bring in nearly 51% of tourists. This mass tourism is strongly felt on the east coast where many establishments have schedules adapted to the arrival of ships. This is not very encouraging for Alaskan waters, especially since the local economy benefits little from the spin-offs of this tourism, which visits the area quickly and badly.
Earthquakes, oil spills and fires threaten Alaska
In 1964, North America recorded the strongest earthquake in its history: 9.2 degrees on the Richter scale in the Prince William Sound region. The ports and cities of Seward, Valdez and Kodiak were wiped off the map and Anchorage was hit hard by the ensuing tsunami. On March 24, 1989, the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground shortly after leaving Valdez harbour in Prince William Sound. Part of its cargo, 41,000 liters of crude oil, spilled on the Alaskan coast, causing the largest oil spill in the state. In 2006, a pipeline belonging to the British oil giant BP leaked between 700,000 and 1,000,000 liters of oil into the Prudhoe Bay tundra and the Arctic. Forest fires are also very destructive, and are accelerating with global warming. Vegetation, after spending many months under the snow, is completely dried out. Six of the 10 largest wildfires in the United States burned in Alaska in 2021. Even before this outbreak, fires burned more than 12.7 million hectares in 20 years, more than double the previous two decades. The East Fork fire, west of Anchorage, consumed more than 100,000 hectares of tundra and forced Yup'ik villagers to evacuate.
A strategic area for maritime trade and the military
The Polar Code, which came into force in 2017 and was developed by the International Maritime Organization, intends to "strengthen the safety of ship operations and mitigate its impact on people and the environment in polar waters." A step to try to reassure international opinion and local populations in this desire to develop trade in the area. Because with global warming, the Bering Strait, which was once always encumbered by ice, is gradually opening up as a new major trade route for the United States. In addition, the USA wants to make Alaska a rear base for the US armed forces, in order to control the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. Thus, the region is progressively increasing its strategic weight in the country's defense and economic expansion, firmly holding its role as the key to the Arctic. Even more so today with the war in Ukraine in 2022 and the very close neighbor on the other side of the Bering Strait: Russia is reviving tensions in the region that had faded with the end of the Cold War.
Aboriginal claims
Following the population boom brought about by the gold rushes in the region and fearing dispossession of their land, the natives began to mobilize. In 1962, they launched the first Aboriginal newspaper: the Tundra Times. In 1966, they created the Alaska Native Federation (AFN) to demand the return of their ancestral lands. In 1971, the struggle led to the signing of theAlaska Native Claims Settlement Act: the federal government returned 17.6 million hectares, or 11% of Alaska's territory, to the natives and paid them $963 million in exchange for giving up their traditional hunting and fishing rights on the rest of the land. The 23 reserves created since 1936 were dissolved, except for the Metlakalta reserve, and the management of the money and the selection of the land were entrusted to 12 regional corporations, 4 urban corporations and 200 village corporations. Each member of these corporations receives a hundred shares, which must be put on the public market after 20 years... The trap: these shares can be bought by multinationals, which ruins the economy of the indigenous people.
