President Jimmy Carter's place in Alaska history
For good or bad, Carter shaped how lands are used in Alaska
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Jimmy Carter will be forever linked to the fabric of Alaska, a character in the story of the 49th State.
Carter, president of the United States from 1977 to 1981, died Sunday at his home in Georgia. He was 100.
In December 1980, Carter’s last month as president, he signed into law the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, setting aside acreage larger than the state of California and double that of existing parks and refuges in the United States.
“Domestically, there’s no doubt that the Alaska lands bill, ANILCA, is not only my greatest achievement but also, I would say, the greatest environmental legislation ever passed in history,” Carter said in 2005 while attending ANILCA’s 25th anniversary celebration in Anchorage.
Among other things, the legislation protects the subsistence rights of Alaska’s rural residents and left the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge open to the possibility of oil development.
While environmentalists celebrated ANILCA, others have detested the act.
In 2000, the late Don Young called it “still the most biggest travesty of justice as ever occurred to any one state.”
Above, watch Eric Sowl’s story of the former president’s role in preserving Alaska wilderness.
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