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- By Tribal Business News Staff
- Energy | Environment
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has signed a right-of-way agreement giving an Alaska Native community new authority to protect caribou habitat near ConocoPhillips' Willow oil drilling project on Alaska's North Slope.
The agreement transfers oversight of approximately 1 million acres surrounding Teshekpuk Lake to Nuiqsut Trilateral Inc., a nonprofit formed by the City of Nuiqsut, the Nuiqsut tribal government, and Kuukpik Corp., the local Alaska Native Corporation.
Kuukpik Corp. initiated the right-of-way concept, according to a report in the Alaska Beacon, a nonprofit newsroom. While the corporation opposes establishing new protected areas in the National Petroleum Reserve, this arrangement puts conservation decisions in local hands.
"This is a completely community-led effort that BLM has adopted and supported from the ground up," Kuukpik President George Sielak wrote in a September letter to the BLM, according to the Beacon.
The agreement prohibits new leasing, roads, surface or subsurface exploration, creating a buffer zone between Willow and the Teshekpuk Caribou Herd. While the land was already part of the 3.65 million-acre Teshekpuk Lake Special Area, this establishes a new type of community-led protection.
Notably, Nuiqsut's tribal and city governments initially opposed Willow when the Biden administration approved it in March 2023, citing concerns about caribou migration and subsistence hunting practices, the Alaska Beacon reported. They have since changed their position.
When completed, Willow will become the westernmost oil development on the North Slope and is expected to produce 180,000 barrels of oil daily beginning in 2029. By comparison, total North Slope production averaged 461,000 barrels a day for the 12 months ending June 30, according to the Beacon.
Meanwhile, ConocoPhillips continues developing smaller production sites on the North Slope, including the newly operational Nuna site, which began producing oil on December 17. Nuna represents the 49th drill site in the Kuparuk unit.
"It gives Nuiqsut, the community closest to and most impacted by oil and gas development on the North Slope, the power to protect this important place for the duration of the Willow Project's impacts on the Herd and associated subsistence uses by restricting certain other oil and gas activities in the area, subject to valid existing rights," the BLM wrote in its press release.
