Orion > The Gallery > Subhankar Banerjee

One of the earth's most remote wildernesses, the huge refuge encompasses all the sub-Arctic and Arctic ecosystems, from the boreal forest of the Porcupine River uplands to the dry Arctic tundra of the coastal plain.

--Peter Matthiessen from "In the Great Country," in
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land

After the Senate vote, the Smithsonian edited the caption to read: "Buff-Breasted Sandpiper / Coastal Plain of the Jago River."

Despite obstructions like these, democracy seems to have worked for ANWR for the time being. But as economics and nature collide, this could just be the calm before the (re)election storm.

While the Arctic Refuge contains roughly a six-month supply of oil at current national consumption levels, President George W. Bush's 2005 budget has designated the area as a billion-dollar revenue machine for its oil lease sales in 2006. Recently, Congress voted (again) not to open the refuge for drilling this year. Come November, the refuge is in the voters' hands.

For his part, Banerjee continues to travel across the country lecturing on the Arctic Refuge, and pressing forward with warm memories of frostbite as he fights for the sanctity of this pristine wilderness.

Tricia Louvar

There are few places on earth as wild and free as the Arctic Refuge. It is a symbol of our natural heritage, a remnant of frontier America that our first settlers once called wilderness. Little of that precious wilderness remains.

President Jimmy Carter, from his foreword to
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land

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Tricia Louvar is a senior editor at Glencoe/McGraw-Hill. She lives in Los Angeles.

For more information about the work of Subhankar Banerjee, visit his website: World Without Borders.