ANCHORAGE, Alaska –Tuesday the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued a right of way to Nuiqsut Trilateral, Inc. that provides durable, long-term protections for the Teshekpuk Caribou Herd and its key habitat across roughly 1 million acres within an existing Special Area in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A). The new Teshekpuk Lake Conservation Right of Way acts on a community proposal received during the environmental analysis for the Willow Project. It gives Nuiqsut, the community closest to and most impacted by oil and gas development on the North Slope, the power to protect this important place for the duration of the Willow Project’s impacts on the Herd and associated subsistence uses by restricting certain other oil and gas activities in the area, subject to valid existing rights.  

Teshekpuk Lake has long been recognized as significant for the habitat it provides to migratory birds and the Teshekpuk Caribou Herd and its importance to North Slope residents who depend upon the area and its wildlife for customary and traditional use. Under this right of way, Nuiqsut Trilateral, Inc. —a non-profit corporation formed by the Native Village of Nuiqsut, Kuukpik Corporation, and the City of Nuiqsut—is positioned to protect these values for the duration of the Willow Project by giving them certain rights to restrict oil and gas development in an approximately one-million-acre area, subject to valid existing rights. Though the area is mostly closed to leasing under the existing Integrated Activity Plan for the NPR-A, the new right-of-way provides more durable protections for the area, which is located within the existing, statutorily designated 3.6-million-acre Teshekpuk Lake Special Area.  

The agreement signed today acts on Mitigation Measure 27 from the Willow Master Development Plan Record of Decision from March 2023, which directed that the BLM develop compensatory mitigation that provides durable, long-term protection for the Teshekpuk Caribou Herd to fully offset impacts of the Willow project on that Herd. This action was taken under authorities in the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act. 

Last month, the BLM took this proposal from the Nuiqsut Trilateral to the broader North Slope community and the NPR-A Working Group for a 30-day consultation period. Community input received in that process informed the final right of way, and the BLM will continue conversations on complementary measures to this right of way that can protect important subsistence resources, including the Teshekpuk Caribou Herd. 

More information on the Teshekpuk Lake Conservation Right of Way, including a project factsheet and BLM’s Determination of NEPA adequacy, can be found on the BLM National NEPA Register.