Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Article Analysis

This article offers insight to the controversial topic of whether or not to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska. It’s main solution is to converse with environmentalists on the issue to determine if it is worth the risks and suitable for the environment.

The first issue addressed by the article is the difference that private property makes when it comes to managing multi use resources. It gives an example regarding the Audubon Society and how they own a 26,000-acre preserve in Louisiana that contains valuable natural gas and oil reserves, along with homes for an abundance of wildlife. The example describes how the Society has not sacrificed ints environmental values for drilling, but the drilling has “served to reaffirm and promote the values in a way to help others achieve their own purposes”. Therefore, the issues of drilling on private properties can be minimized when the opposing parties discover mutual benefits (Lee 217).

This is an issue because environmental groups have no incentive to take into account the benefits of drilling. The article suggests that they are concerned about protecting the environment in area they have ownership interest, but ANWR is publicly owned. Therefore, it is not sensible for environmentalists to decide whether or not it is okay to drill. The author of the article states that if the environmentalists were responsible for both the costs and the benefits of drilling, then they would see the advantages of drilling in ANWR. Also, environmentalists would easily be able to afford hundreds of acres of land elsewhere in exchange for what they would receive for each acre of ANWR land sold (Lee