The ANWR: Just one piece of the Arctic land-use puzzle. A glossary of the parts and terms of the ANWR, and other contested areas in Northern Alaska. ANILCA-Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act: Signed by President Carter in 1980, ANILCA changed the Range into a Refuge, established the current wilderness area and doubled the size of the Refuge. But by calling for research of oil resources in the 1002 Area, it also withheld protection for the only area of the refuge that industry could possibly use. 1002 Area (click map for more info): Section 1002 of ANILCA required extensive research of a 1.5-million-acre area for biological and petroleum resources. This research area is called the 1002 Area, and is the last protected area (a mere 4%) of the North Slope. The North Slope (click map for more info): A 48.8-million-acre arctic plain that slopes northward from the foothills of the Brooks Range to the sea. This unique and fragile ecosystem sits atop massive oil fields, and is sometimes called the "Front Range Zones." Section 1003: This section of ANILCA specifically states that only an act of Congress can allow oil and gas drilling in the 1002 Area. There have been numerous underhanded attempts to attach a rider to other legislation to open the 1002 Area to drilling (please see our article on riders). NPR-A-The National Petroleum Reserve- Alaska (click map for more info): A 23-million-acre reserve established specifically as a supply "for our Navy's fighting ships" by President Harding in 1924. It was called the Naval Petroleum Reserve until 1976, when it was transferred from the control of the Navy to the Department of the Interior. The Navy successfully preserved this resource through two world wars and the Carter/Reagan-era oil crisis. The Department of the Interior attempted to open the NPR-A to drilling that same year. (Coincidentally, this gigantic oil field is almost the same shape as Texas. Funny, that...) Economically Recoverable Oil: The amount of oil that is profitable to remove. As oil prices rise, the amount of economically recoverable oil also rises, because it becomes profitable to spend more on extraction. This number is always based on future estimates of oil prices, which are subject to change.