FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 4, 2026
CONTACT: Ben Boettger, (603) 306-1352
New Report Warns Alaska LNG Pipeline Would Threaten Critically Endangered Cook Inlet Beluga Whales and Coastal Communities
A new report released today by Earth Insight, in partnership with Cook Inletkeeper and other civil society organizations, highlights how the proposed Alaska LNG project threatens the critically endangered Cook Inlet beluga whale and some of Alaska’s most ecologically important marine habitats. Fossil Fuel Threats to the Ocean: Marine Life and Coastal Communities at Risk draws on geospatial analysis across eleven worldwide case studies, including Cook Inlet and the Alaska LNG project, to document how planned and active fossil fuel infrastructure overlaps with Protected Areas, Key Biodiversity Areas, Important Marine Mammal Areas, coral reefs, mangroves, whale migration corridors, and the fishing grounds that coastal and Indigenous communities have depended on for generations. The downloadable maps for each country are available here.
The report is being released ahead of World Oceans Day (June 8) and the Our Ocean Conference, the premier global forum on ocean protection, which convenes in Mombasa, Kenya, June 16–18, 2026.
“Current shipping traffic in Cook Inlet (Tikahtnu) is already so noisy that it exceeds beluga whale harassment thresholds on a near-daily basis,” said Ben Boettger, Energy Policy Analyst for Cook Inletkeeper. “If completed, the AK LNG pipeline would increase vessel traffic to disastrous levels, further threatening these critically endangered whales and the communities connected to them.”
Cook Inlet is already one of Alaska’s most industrially affected marine environments. Yet it remains ecologically critical — home to all five species of Pacific salmon, halibut, herring, harbor seals, sea otters, orcas, humpback whales, and the Cook Inlet beluga, a genetically distinct and critically endangered population that lives year-round in the inlet and does not migrate. The proposed Alaska LNG project — an 800-mile pipeline connecting the North Slope to a new LNG export terminal in Nikiski — would add a new and compounding layer of industrial pressure to this already stressed ecosystem.
Key Alaska Report Findings:
- The proposed Alaska LNG pipeline and predicted tanker routes cross the critical habitat of the Cook Inlet beluga whale, a critically endangered species, as well as three Key Biodiversity Areas. The Cook Inlet beluga population has declined sharply in recent decades, and the current population is likely in the low 300s, according to a 2023 estimate. Export operations could increase large-vessel traffic in Cook Inlet by 40–70%, adding underwater noise, collision risk, and cumulative stress to an ecosystem already heavily impacted by decades of oil and gas extraction, aging offshore infrastructure, and existing vessel traffic.
- Cook Inlet holds 5,750 km² of Marine and Coastal Protected Areas and is particularly important for Pacific salmon — the foundation of both commercial fisheries and the subsistence food systems of Alaska Native communities throughout the region.
- Construction of the LNG terminal at Nikiski and the two pipeline crossings would involve dredging and pile driving. A material offloading dock would be built near the Susitna River delta — one of the inlet’s most important summer beluga feeding grounds, where whales gather to hunt salmon and where calving occurs.
- The 800-mile pipeline crossing from the North Slope to Cook Inlet would permanently affect an estimated 7,419 acres of wetlands and cross 533 water bodies, passing through landscapes central to caribou migration and the subsistence practices of Iñupiat communities.
- Cook Inletkeeper and other civil society groups have raised sustained concerns that the project is not economically viable, is incompatible with U.S. climate commitments, and would deepen risks to the coastal communities and fisheries that depend on the health of Cook Inlet.
The Alaska findings are part of a broader global analysis spanning eleven case studies. The report finds that, among the case studies investigated worldwide, 27% of marine and coastal Protected Areas, 38% of coral reefs, and 18% of seagrasses in the case studies fall within oil and gas risk zones, while 29% of mangroves, 50% of all Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMAs), and 39% of all Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSAs) are directly overlapped by oil and gas blocks. Oil and gas blocks across the eleven case studies cover over 430,200 square kilometers, with predicted LNG tanker routes overlapping the habitats of 41 unique IMMA species and 3 EBSAs.
The report urges governments, financial institutions, and international bodies to:
- Stop granting new licenses, permits, and approvals for offshore and coastal oil, gas, and LNG projects in or near protected areas, Key Biodiversity Areas, IMMAs, EBSAs, coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass meadows;
- Establish legally binding Fossil Free Zones in areas of high ecological, cultural, and community importance;
- Align ocean protection with the 30×30 commitment to protect 30% of marine areas by 2030, and ensure that designation is backed by real restrictions on fossil fuel activity;
- Require free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous peoples and affected communities before any licensing or permitting proceeds; and
- End public and private finance for new offshore oil, gas, and LNG expansion.
“It is alarming to see the research findings and the sheer scale of fossil fuel expansion trajectories threatening the health and future of our shared ocean,” said Tyson Miller, Executive Director of Earth Insight. “Country commitments to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030 represent a unique opportunity to restrict fossil fuel blocks and concessions in order to uphold the integrity of existing and future Marine Protected Areas, whale and marine mammal corridors, and the health of coral reefs, seagrasses, and mangroves, and the communities who depend on them.”
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