Bristol Bay hosts the world's largest wild salmon run and is home to countless whales, seals, walrus and fish. Alaska Native communities depend on the area and on these subsistence resources.
Although Bristol has long enjoyed protections — including those issued by President George H.W. Bush in 1991 — a variety of threats are now facing the area and the people who depend on it.
In February 2007, the current Bush administration lifted the long-standing moratorium on oil and gas exploration in Alaska's salmon rich waters of Bristol Bay, opening the area to the threat of oil and gas exploration for the first time since 1988.
Bristol Bay's status as the home for the world's biggest sockeye salmon runs, as well as its importance to other forms of marine life, makes it too sensitive and valuable to risk to oil and gas development. Fishing, conservation and many Alaska Native groups remain as adamant in their opposition to Bristol Bay drilling as they were in the 1980s.
The area has also been targeted by the mining industry for its copper and gold. Pebble Mine has been proposed on the north shore of Lake Iliamna. Northern Dynasty Minerals is seeking to create a large open pit mine that would be up to two miles wide and several thousands feet deep. The toxic pollutants that would result from this project would threaten not only the area's world-class salmon runs, but also the health of nearby residents.
