Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act

The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) is a United States federal law signed by President Jimmy Carter on December 2, 1980.^[1] ANILCA provided varying degrees of special protection to over 157,000,000 acres (64,000,000 ha) of land, including national parks, national wildlife refuges, national monuments, wild and scenic rivers, recreational areas, national forests, and conservation areas. It was, and remains to date, the single largest expansion of protected lands in history and more than doubled the size of the National Park System.

The Act provided for 43,585,000 acres (17,638,000 ha) of new national parklands in Alaska; the addition of 9,800,000 acres (4,000,000 ha) to the National Wildlife Refuge System; twenty-five wild and scenic rivers, with twelve more to be studied for that designation; establishment of Misty Fjords and Admiralty Island National Monuments in Southeast Alaska; establishment of Steese National Conservation Area and White Mountains National Recreation Area to be managed by the Bureau of Land Management; the addition of 9,100,000 acres (3,700,000 ha) to the Wilderness Preservation System, and the addition of 3,350,000 acres (1,360,000 ha) to Tongass and Chugach National Forests.^[2]