Carter asks court to defend Alaska’s ‘unrivaled wilderness’

By MARK THIESSEN
Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Former President Jimmy Carter is weighing in on a court case involving his landmark conservation act and a remote refuge in Alaska. Carter filed an amicus brief in a longstanding legal dispute over efforts to build a road through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. Carter said he worries that a recent decision by a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could allow millions of acres to be opened for “adverse development.” Carter in 1980 signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which established 162,500 square miles of national park lands in Alaska. He says the act struck a “careful and lasting balance” between development and protection.