Canada believes opening up the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas development would seriously disrupt the calving grounds of the Porcupine Caribou herd and threaten other migratory wildlife Canada shares with the United States.

The herd of more than 129,000 caribou ranges across northeastern Alaska, northern Yukon and the Mackenzie Delta in the Northwest Territories. Thousands of Aboriginal people in both countries depend on the herd for food and for the survival of their traditional way of life.

In 1987 Canada and the United States signed the Agreement on the Conservation of the Porcupine Caribou Herd, under which they agreed to protect the herd and its habitat and to consult promptly if either the herd or its habitat were damaged or its migration routes disrupted. U.S. and Canadian scientific experts have concluded that any development in the coastal plain could pose a major threat to the calving and migration patterns of the herd.

Canada believes that the best way to ensure the future of the Porcupine caribou herd is to designate the Arctic coastal plain as wilderness, thereby providing equal protection on both sides of the border for this shared wildlife resource.

In 1984, with the creation of the Northern Yukon (now Ivvavik) National Park, Canada permanently protected as wilderness a large portion of the herd's habitat, including an area of the Yukon coastal plain where the caribou occasionally calve. The creation of Vuntut National Park south of Ivvavik put additional areas of the caribou's habitat off-limits to development. Most of the rest of the herd's Canadian range is located in areas that have either been withdrawn from development or are subject to Aboriginal land claim agreements that place stringent restrictions on development.

Much of the herd's Alaskan habitat lies within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, created in 1960 and expanded twenty years later under the Alaska National Interest Conservation Lands Act. Although development is prohibited in most of the refuge, the calving grounds lie in an area east of Prudhoe Bay that Congress set aside for possible oil and gas development under Section 1002 of the act. The act instructs the Secretary of the Interior to consult with Canada in evaluating the impact of development,"particularly with respect to the Porcupine Caribou Herd."

The 1.5-million-acre coastal area known as the 1002 lands is home to a rich variety of other wildlife--wolves, wolverines, polar bear, barren-ground grizzlies, muskox and Dall sheep. About 140 species of birds, including bald eagles, tundra swans and snow geese, use the area as a staging ground for migration. Many of these species migrate between Canada and the United States.

Canada is most concerned about the effects of development on the Porcupine caribou, whose life cycle makes it particularly susceptible to disturbance.

In the spring the cows begin their migration from the herd's winter range (located mostly in Canada) to the calving grounds on the coastal plain. Although some calving takes place in the Yukon's Ivvavik National Park, most of the calves are born in Alaska on a narrow band of tundra that lies between the Brooks Mountain Range and the Beaufort Sea--the 1002 lands.

After calving is complete, the rest of the herd joins the cows to form an enormous aggregation along the coast where the caribou graze and gather strength for the fall migration. The density of the herd (up to 50,000 per square mile) provides protection from predators.

A scientific advisory panel to the International Porcupine Caribou Board set up under the Canada-U.S. agreement reported in 1993 that the calving and immediate post-calving period is the most important phase of the caribou life cycle and the time when the animals are most sensitive to human disturbance.

Because the herd's principal calving and post-calving grounds lie within the area proposed for development, this most critical phase of the caribou's life cycle could be severely disrupted. The 1002 lands contain the richest grazing land and the most protection from predators and insects. If the herd were displaced to poorer and less protected feeding grounds, the survival of the cows and newborn calves during migration could be threatened. Canada is also concerned that the pipelines, roads and other infrastructure associated with development could alter the herd's migration routes into Canada.

Any decline in the herd would significantly alter the lifestyles of Aboriginal people who have depended on the Porcupine caribou for thousands of years. The herd is the primary source of food and an essential element of social structure for the 7,000 members of the Gwitch'in Nation in Canada and Alaska. Unlike Aboriginal groups who live on the Alaskan coastal plain, the inland Gwitch'in would have few alternative sources of food if the caribou herd were diminished or its migration routes altered.

Because of the potential consequences for Canadian wildlife and Aboriginal people of developing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain, Canada has repeatedly urged the U.S. government to permanently protect the area by designating it as wilderness, as Canada has done for the area in Yukon Territory where the herd occasionally calves.