Alaska and Hawaii

"The Biden administration took a key step toward approving a huge oil drilling project in the North Slope of Alaska, angering environmental activists who said allowing it to go forward would make a mockery of President Biden’s climate-change promise to end new oil leases."

"Alaska is on pace for a historic fire season, spurred on by warm temperatures, a diminished snowpack, and an apparent uptick in lightning strikes. Fires have ripped through 2 million acres so far this year, roughly 10 times the total area burned in all of 2021."

"Maui is a hub for GMO research but Indigenous farmers are trying to bring back the abundant and thriving landscapes of their ancestors for Hawaiians who took only what they needed."

"Even as scientists are still trying to figure out why the Bering Sea snow crab stock crashed in 2021, federal managers are working on a plan to help rebuild it."

"A tundra wildfire continued to creep closer to an Alaska Native community in southwest Alaska, but mandatory evacuations have not been ordered, fire officials said Sunday."

"An Alaska Native tribe has nominated for consideration as a national marine sanctuary an area around the Pribilof Islands that supports Stellar sea lions, northern fur seals and other marine life."

"A federal appeals court today [Wednesday] upheld the Trump-era approval of a land exchange agreement that could lead to the construction of a hotly contested road through congressionally designated wilderness within Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge."

"Authorities are investigating a natural gas leak detected last week at a ConocoPhillips Alaska oil drill site on Alaska’s North Slope, officials said."