A federal judge on Tuesday blocked a land exchange that would have allowed a contentious road to be built through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, a vast wild area in southwestern Alaska.
The decision by Judge Sharon L. Gleason of U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska was a setback for the Trump administration, which finalized the land swap deal in October. It was a victory for Alaska Native tribes and environmental groups that sued to stop road construction.
The deal called for the Interior Department to transfer 490 acres of land within the wildlife refuge to King Cove Corporation, a tribal organization that wants to build the road. In exchange, King Cove Corporation would give the government thousands of acres of its own land, some of which would be added to the refuge.
Izembek has been at the center of a decades-long fight that has reverberated across Alaska and Washington, D.C., vexing presidents in both parties. The first Trump administration approved a similar deal in 2019, but the Biden administration canceled it in 2023, saying Trump officials failed to consider the effects of road construction on wildlife and Alaska Native communities.
Proponents of the road say it is essential for connecting the remote town of King Cove with an airport that could be used for emergency medical evacuations to hospitals in Anchorage. Opponents say road construction would cause irreparable harm to many Alaska Native tribes that rely on hunting and fishing, as well as to several species of migratory birds.
Judge Gleason, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, ruled that the Trump administration violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to study the effects on imperiled wildlife. The judge also found that the administration violated the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which governs the construction of major roads, pipelines and power lines across public lands in Alaska.
The road in question would stretch about 40 miles from King Cove to the community of Cold Bay. About 10 of those miles would cut through Izembek, whose wetlands contain some of the world’s largest beds of eelgrass, which attract several species of migratory birds.
In the spring and fall, virtually the entire global population of emperor geese and Pacific black brant geese converge on the refuge to feast on eelgrass. In the winter, tens of thousands of Steller’s eider sea ducks stop there to molt.
“Our community depends on the brant and emperor geese and subsistence use to eat, so I’m relieved the court decided to protect Izembek from a road that could hurt our harvests,” Edgar Tall Sr., the chief of the Native Village of Hooper Bay, said in a statement.
“It’s getting harder to make our voice heard and protect our right to live off the land and the sea, but if Izembek is safe, that will help,” he added.
Senator Dan Sullivan, Republican of Alaska, has argued that critics of the road appear to be prioritizing birds over people who need medical evacuations to receive potentially lifesaving care. A spokeswoman for Mr. Sullivan, who is running for re-election with Mr. Trump’s backing, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Representatives for King Cove Corporation and the Interior Department also did not immediately return requests for comment.
The decision came on the same day that the U.S. Forest Service proposed to open nearly 45 million acres of wilderness in national forests to road construction and logging. The plan would strip protections from nine million undeveloped acres within Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, the largest intact temperate rainforest in the world.
