The Brooks Range in Alaska’s far north is one of the most beautiful and prehistorically wild places on the planet. Polar bears wander the shorelines all winter, grizzlies prowl the tundras through the summer, wolves hunt in packs, and a thousand different species of birds nest and pass through in migration.
And, of course, the Porcupine caribou herd, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, thunders across the land in an endless migration — one that’s been ongoing since the last ice age.
Now, Patagonia wants your help protecting this region. The brand released a video called Save Big on Nov. 16. It’s a call to action pleading with the American people to stand up and protect the places that rightfully belong to us from the threat of resource extraction and development.
Defend the Brooks Range: ‘Save Big’ by Patagonia
The proposed mining road would stretch 211 miles across the Brooks Range, plowing over 3,000 rivers and streams, and cutting into cherished public lands like the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve (GANP). It would destroy habitats, disrupt migration patterns, and invite industrial pollutive extractors to move deeper into areas that are currently untouched.
This road would not only threaten the wildlife and ecosystems but also the Native communities that exist there and have relied on those animals for food for millennia. They survive off the land and are part of the ecosystem as such. Disrupting the natural balance with a construction project of this magnitude would upend their way of life.
So visit the Patagonia website and click on the “Take Action” button to sign your name to a prewritten letter to Tracy Stone-Manning, the director of the Bureau of Land Management. Fill in your information and send it to make your voice heard and help tip the scale in favor of Alaska’s Brook’s range — and against the oil and gas companies that want to develop it.
Check out Save Big to learn more.
Runtime: 1 minute 27 seconds
