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Introduction
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the biggest and the wildest land publicly owned by the United States. ANWR includes a large variety of species of plants and animals, such as polar bears, caribou, wolves, eagles, and migratory birds, that rely on the refuge.

History
The National Wildlife Refuge was founded by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903. )This refuge started the first successful development of building refuges to protect boundless areas of wildlife and wetlands in Alaska. This refuge system created the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 which conserves the wildlife of Alaska. Nearly fifty-one years later, the National Park Service recommended that the untouched areas in the Northeastern region of Alaska be preserved for research and protection of nature. The controversy over whether to drill for oil in the National Wildlife Arctic Refuge has been a political controversy since 1977. The debate mainly concerns the "Section of 1002" in ANWR. The section of 1002 is located on the coastal plain where many of the Arctic's diverse wildlife species preside. The usage of section 1002 in ANWR depends on the amount of oil worldwide. There are two sides of this debate: support for drilling and the opposition of drilling. Most of the supporters for drilling are big oil companies and political campaigners who sought to go after the resources that could be found in the refuge. The oppositions of drilling include people who currently reside in Alaska and people who want to preserve the wildlife and land for future considerations.

Geography
The Arctic is mostly an ocean surrounded by land. The Arctic is relatively covered by water, much of it is frozen. The glaciers and icebergs in the Arctic make up about 10% of Earth’s land area. Most of the Arctic's liquid saltwater is from the Arctic ocean’s basin. Some parts of the ocean’s surface are frozen all or most of the year. The Arctic area is mainly known for sea ice surrounding the region. The Arctic experiences extreme solar radiation. During the Northern Hemisphere’s winter months, the Arctic experiences cold and darkness which makes it one of the unique places on Earth.

North America's two largest alpine lakes (Peters and Schrader) are located inside the refuge. ANWR is nearly the size of big as South Carolina.

Drilling
The Arctic is found to have an immense amount of oil and natural gas deposits. Specifically, ANWR inhabits the land which sits on 7.7 to 11.8 billion barrels of oil. In Alaska, it is known for major oil companies to work with the indigenous groups, "native corporations" to drill and export millions of oil barrels every year. It is estimated 5 billion and 16 billion barrels of oil and natural gas within the coastal plain of the refuge. This has contributed to the huge political controversy of whether or not of drilling in this area. Most of the debate over whether to drill in the “1002 area” of ANWR relies on the approximate economically recoverable oil around the world. The opposed side of the controversy stresses the potential harm that oil exploration and drilling might have on the natural wildlife. Nearly all countries in the Arctic are rushing to claim the refuge to have the resources and minerals found in the Arctic. This rivalry including these countries is known as the "New Cold War" or "Race for the Arctic." Republicans argued for years that drilling should be allowed since there would be over $30 million of revenue and create as many as 130,000 jobs. Furthermore, Republicans claim that drilling will make the United States more independent from other countries because the practice of drilling will increase the oil reserves of the country. For Republicans to grant this theory, they would need 51 votes to pass the House bill that cannot include the ANWR drilling language.

People who oppose the drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge believe that it would be a threat to the lives of indigenous tribes. Those tribes rely on the ANWR’s wildlife, its animals, and plants that reside in the refuge. Moreover, the practice of drilling could present a potential threat to the region as a whole. When companies are exploring to drill they are extracting the vegetation and destroying permafrost which causes harm to the land.

Polar Bears
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is directly connected to Polar Bears. These bears are known for traveling in the region to den and give birth. Nearly 50 of these species migrate along the coast to the refuge in September. These bears extend more than 800 miles along the coast of Northern Alaska and Canada. Due to changes in climate change, Polar bears are recorded to now spend more time on land waiting on new sea ice to form. Much controversial, the polar bears are widely affected by the climate change happening in this region. Pregnant females are forced to move onshore at unusual times to dig their dens. Usually, the bears are known to dig their dens in November, then give birth to one to two tiny cubs in December or January. The mothers then nurse and care for the young until March or early April, when they loom from the dens. After several days adapting to the outside environment, the families leave the dens. They move back to the sea ice to hunt ringed seals and other prey. The cubs always stay with their mothers for about the next two and a half years. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the only refuge that regularly dens these polar bears and resides the most consistent amount polar bears.

Climate Change
Scientists are noticing that sea levels are rising at increasing rates. Sea levels are rising because polar ice caps are melting at a rapid pace. This process starts in the Arctic region, specifically in Alaska. Researchers at Oxford University explained that increasing temperatures, melting glaciers, thawing permafrost, and rising sea levels are all indications of warming throughout the Arctic. . Polar bears are solely dependent on sea ice and are altered when there are climate change effects. Without sea ice, polar bears cannot catch enough seals to survive their annual winter fast. Polar bears that do survive are unlikely to produce a healthy offspring. With fewer food sources drive polar bears into more human environments. As a result, leads them often relying on trash abundances for nutrition. This food source impacts the health of polar bears negatively. Polar Bears follow the trace of current carrying sea ice which leads them to travel south. This also increases polar bears coming in contact with humans and effects the food chain as they prey on species who are not adapted to the polar bears. Sea Ice has thinned and decreased. Thinning has occurred due to the sun melting the ice at a higher pace. This backs up the concept of how the Arctic region is the first to be affected by climate change. Shorefast ice tends to form later in fall. In September 2007, the concentration of sea ice in the [ Arctic Ocean] was significantly less than ever previously recorded. Although the total area of ice built up in recent years, the amount of ice continued to decline because of this thinning. Climate change is happening faster and more severe in the Arctic compared to the rest of the world. According to NASA, the Arctic is the first place that will be affected by global climate change. This is because shiny ice and snow reflect a high proportion of the sun's energy into space. The Arctic gradually loses snow and ice, bare rock and water absorb more and more of the sun’s energy, making the Arctic even warmer. This phenomenon is called the albedo effect.

Marine Ecosystem
The Arctic basin is the shallowest ocean basin on Earth. It is the least salty, because of low evaporation and large current of freshwater from rivers and glaciers. River mouths and calving glaciers, are continually moving ocean currents contribute to a unique marine ecosystem in the Arctic. The cold, circulating water is rich in minerals, as well as the microscopic organisms (such as phytoplankton and algae) that need them to grow. Marine animals thrive in the Arctic. There are 12 species of marine mammals of the Arctic found in the refuge. They consist of four species of whales, polar bears, the walrus and six species of ice-associated seals, sperm whales, blue whales, fin whales, humpback whales, killer whales, Harbor Porpoise. In this Arctic marine food web consists of Primary consumers, Secondary consumers, Tertiary consumers, and scavengers. Marine mammals in the Arctic are having severe impacts from human-life that are disturbing. Such as noises from industrial activity, offshore seismic oil exploration, and well drilling have affected the migration of marine mammals.

People of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The people who live in this Refuge have accustomed over thousands of years to both survive and prosper in these harsh conditions. Different cultures may be found in the various regions of the Arctic, from Lapps in Finland and Norway to the Chuckchi and Koyaki in Siberia. There are two villages whose history are tied to the Arctic Refuge and have been for thousands of years which are the Kaktovik and the Arctic Village. Kaktovik is an Inupiaq village of about 250 current residents located within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge along the Beaufort Sea. The Inupiaq Village is used as a traditional summer fishing and hunting location. Furthermore, this location also became a usual place for commercial whalers in the late 1800s, which then led them into a permanent residents in the Refuge.

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