Study Identifies U.S. Arctic Marine Areas Essential to Ecosystem Health

Pew, in collaboration with Oceana, Audubon Alaska, WWF, and Ocean Conservancy, has created A Synthesis of Important Areas in the U.S. Chukchi and Beaufort Seas: Best Available Data to Inform Management Decisions. By aggregating and analyzing the best available science from over 1,200 Arctic research sources, the document identifies important marine areas that are critical to the functioning of the ecosystem in the U.S. Chukchi and Beaufort seas federal planning areas. The synthesis was submitted as public comment to the U.S. Department of the Interior regarding the federal 2017-22 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement.