The National Park Service is proposing to update regulations for Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve to give the Superintendent authority to impose mitigation measures on off-road vehicle use by residents of Anaktuvuk Pass who rely on ORVs for subsistence activities. It wouldn't ban ORV use outright, but it'd allow restrictions when that use is causing or likely to cause harm to public safety, natural resources, subsistence activities, or threatened and endangered species. This primarily affects the Indigenous rural residents of Anaktuvuk Pass and the ecosystems within Gates of the Arctic.

In the agency’s own words

The National Park Service (NPS) proposes to amend special regulations for Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve (Gates) to establish a process by which the Superintendent can establish reasonable mitigation measures on the use of off-road vehicles (ORVs) for subsistence purposes by local rural residents of Anaktuvuk Pass, but only when such use is causing or likely to cause an adverse impact to public health and safety, resources, historic or scientific values, subsistence uses, or endangered or threatened species.

Federal Register 2026-21300 ↗

The groups on this fight

4 groups predicted likely to care in Alaska

Predicted likely to care is a guess from the group's sourced work in Alaska, with no link to this decision. Give straight to them; nothing routes through us.

• Alaska Wilderness League

  Predicted likely to care · a guess

  Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska: Built around defending the Arctic Refuge from oil and gas drilling.

• Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges

  Predicted likely to care · a guess

  Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska: Lead plaintiff in the November 2025 federal suit challenging the land exchange signed to put a road through the Izembek Wilderness.

• Northern Alaska Environmental Center

  Predicted likely to care · a guess

  Gates of the Arctic (Ambler Road), Alaska: First-named plaintiff in Northern Alaska Environmental Center v. Trump, the Ambler road suit filed in 2020.

• Southeast Alaska Conservation Council

  Predicted likely to care · a guess

  Tongass National Forest, Alaska: Southeast Alaska’s homegrown defender of the Tongass since 1970.

Every group above is on STAND for Public Lands, with its court record, its filings and who backs it.

Who signs it

The notice names no signer PLAN could read. PLAN names a decision-maker only when the document names one.

The ground

This fight isn’t bound to a map place in PLAN’s record yet. The notice names Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve (AK); none is a unit on the threatened lands map, so there’s no place page to open or watch.

The photograph on this page: Caribou on foggy tundra. More Than Just Parks.

Who holds the vote

PLAN’s record doesn’t tie a member of Congress to this fight yet. The scorecard grades the votes and bills that decide public lands; nothing joins a vote or a bill to this decision, so there’s no member to name here without guessing.

Calling your two senators and your representative is the Call door on this page.