Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act

The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) is a United States federal law passed on November 12, 1980 by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on December 2 of that year. ANILCA provided varying degrees of special protection to over 157,000,000 acres of land, including national parks, national wildlife refuges, national monuments, wild and scenic rivers, recreational areas, national forests, and conservation areas.

The Act provided for 43,585,000 acres of new national parklands in Alaska; the addition of 9.8 million acres 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 9.1 million acres to the Wilderness Preservation System, and the addition of 3,350,000 acres to Tongass and Chugach National Forests.