ENVIRONMENTALISTS have vowed resistance after the US government said it would hold oil and gas drilling lease sales within a protected Arctic reserve next month.

The US Bureau of Land Management stands accused of bringing forward the sale of rights to exploit Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to ensure contracts are in place before president-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated.

Mr Biden has opposed the Donald Trump administration’s legislation allowing drilling in the refuge’s 1.5-million-acre coastal plain, which represented a victory for fossil fuel corporations after a four-decade struggle against conservationists desperate to save the Arctic environment and its dependent wildlife, including large caribou herds, endangered marine mammals such as the blue whale and polar bears.

The bureau says it will hold a sale of leases on January 6 and companies have until December 17 to publish their bids.

Its Alaska director Chad Padgett said exploiting the area’s oil and gas would help “meet our nation’s long-term energy demands and create jobs and economic opportunities.” 

But Defenders of Wildlife CEO Jamie Rapport Clark said he was “putting the oil industry on notice. 

“Any oil companies that bid on lease sales for the coastal plain of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should brace themselves for an uphill legal battle fraught with high costs and reputational risks.”

Bernadette Dementieff, executive director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee representing the area’s indigenous peoples, said she had “cried and prayed” on hearing the news but was now working on “the next steps to make sure they don’t get their greedy hands on our sacred land.”