U.S. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton recently toured the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in support of President Bush’s plan to open the area to oil drilling. Protesters followed her, criticizing the plan, which they say will threaten the subsistence lifestyles of Alaska Natives by endangering caribou populations and other critical elements of the northern ecosystem. A representative of the Wilderness Society pointed out the irony of eliminating ANWR this year, on the 100th anniversary of the refuge system, created in 1903 by President Teddy Roosevelt.
