Wilderness Campaigns

Wilderness and Water Mix Well

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:56:24 +0000

Water loves Wilderness. That seems obvious when you compare two maps of the United States – one showing healthy watersheds, and another showing protected lands.

In a new report, we examine watershed health in Wilderness, Roadless, and Roaded Areas of the National Forest System.

Last year, the U.S. Forest Service released a national map depicting the condition of all 15,000 watersheds located in the 193 million-acre National Forest System. Pieced together by specialists in every national forest, the Watershed Condition Classification Map was the first nationwide assessment of its kind.

Naturally, we were curious to find out how well America’s treasured wild lands fared in the assessment. So The Wilderness Society performed a computerized map overlay analysis to investigate the spatial relationships between watershed conditions and land designations.

We took the Forest Service’s maps of the three watershed condition classes -- High, Moderate, and Poor watershed health – and matched them with maps of three land categories -- Wilderness Areas, Roadless Areas, and all other National Forest System lands.

We found a striking correspondence between watershed health and protected lands.
Specifically, 80 percent of the Wilderness land is located in the healthiest watersheds, while 18 percent is in moderately healthy watersheds.

The Roadless Areas came in second place, with 64 percent of the land in the healthiest watersheds.

The remaining national forest lands were a distant third, with just 38 percent in top watershed condition.

For each land management category, this chart shows the percent of its area in each of the three watershed condition classes.

Everyone needs good, clean water, and the National Forest System produces lots of it. In fact, the majority of the water in the western U.S. flows from the national forests. One in five Americans get their drinking water mostly from the national forests.

Wilderness and Roadless Areas are exceptionally valuable because they protect healthy watersheds that produce top-notch water and fish habitat.

As we celebrate and enjoy National Fishing and Boating Week this week, let’s appreciate our superb Wilderness water.

View the report and maps here:
http://wilderness.org/files/Watershed-Health-in-Wilderness_0.pdf

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Watershed-Health-in-Wilderness.pdf	2.88 MB

Roadless rule becomes law of the land

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 15:49:02 +0000

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March came in like a lion to defend our national forests. After years of courtroom wrangling and legal uncertainty, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule has finally become the law of the land.

In early March a Wyoming federal district judge officially lifted a nationwide injunction that had blocked the US Forest Service from implementing the roadless rule. Adopted more than a decade ago, the roadless rule protects 58 million acres of national forest inventoried roadless areas across the country from road construction and commercial logging.

Roadless protection will protect special forests across the country

Montana’s Whitefish Range
Although its eastern neighbor, Glacier National Park, gets all the attention, the little-known Whitefish Range is a rugged wild experience with its own brand of solitude. Comprising 140,000 acres of roadless lands, it supports native Montana cutthroat trout and a recovering population of grizzly bears. The wild core of the range contains the headwaters of the North Fork of the Flathead River and hiking trails through old-growth forests to windswept peaks, glaciated valleys and chains of alpine lakes.

Southeast’s Blue Ridge Range
At 3.7 million acres, these wildlands are the largest concentration of public lands in the eastern United States. The mountains of the Southern Blue Ridge are among the oldest in the world. Its mixed-hardwood and conifer forests—the most diverse in the temperate world—harbor hundreds of species, from salamanders to carnivorous pitcher plants, found nowhere else on the planet. 178,000 acres of roadless forests remain protected under the 2001 Roadless Rule. The Southern Blue Ridge forests are beloved by local residents and within a day’s drive of one-third of the nation’s population, who together utilize the forests in many ways, including hunting, fishing and camping.

Washington’s Teanaway Roadless Area
Just a two-hour drive from Seattle, Washington state’s largest city, the North Cascades’ 74,000-acre Teanaway Roadless Area is known for having a rain shadow effect – when the westside is pouring rain, head east just over the Cascade Range and you’ll likely find blue skies. The Teanaway offers a home to wide-ranging wildlife species, including one of the state’s rare gray wolf packs. The weather and unique rocky and forested terrain in the Teanaway make it a recreation mecca for horseback riders, hikers, hunters and mountain bikers as they play in a relatively arid environment.

Due to the court’s ruling, roadless national forest lands from the Southern Appalachian Blue Ridge Range, to Montana’s Whitefish Range and Washington state’s Teanaway Roadless Area will remain wild and open to world-class recreation, including hunting, hiking and mountain biking. These same forests also help supply drinking water to nearby communities, especially in the West.

The Wyoming court’s action came in response to a historic ruling in the fall of 2011, in which a U.S. Court of Appeals reversed the Wyoming district court and upheld the legality of the roadless rule. The Wilderness Society and other conservation groups, represented by Earthjustice, intervened in the case to defend the rule.

History of the roadless rule

The Roadless Rule was developed through an extensive public comment process during the Clinton Administration. Along with the 1964 Wilderness Act and the 1980 Alaska Lands Act, the Roadless Rule is considered to be one of the most significant conservation actions ever taken by the federal government.

Almost upon the day it was adopted in 2001, the roadless rule was wrought with controversy, including legal attacks from the Bush Administration and other interests. Now, after a back-and-forth struggle in which The Wilderness Society has fought every step of the way, some of the wildest forests in the country are protected.

Forest roadless areas are still threatened

Serious legal and political threats to national forest roadless areas remain in Colorado and across the West. In the courts, the State of Wyoming intends to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and overturn the roadless rule fully. In Idaho, nine million acres of roadless areas have less protection under a state-specific Idaho roadless rule adopted by the Bush Administration.

The fate of Colorado’s four million acres of roadless forests remains in question. The State of Colorado has asked the Obama Administration for a state-specific rule -- similar to Idaho’s -- but that would allow more road building and logging that would set aside quiet recreation in favor of extractive industries, like coal mining.

One of Colorado’s justifications for a state-specific rule was the legal uncertainty surrounding the roadless rule. However, the courts now have resolved the legal issues and declared the roadless rule to be the law for roadless areas across the country-- one set of rules for our nation's valued forests. There is not a need for state-specific roadless rules in Colorado or elsewhere.

Why protect roadless forests?

Did you know that almost 80 percent of our country’s freshwater originates in forests? And of that, national forests are the largest source of water in the United States, much of that water being of the highest quality available. Millions of people depend on this water for drinking and personal use. Protected forests keep that water safe and clean.

Roadless forests also provide playgrounds for children and adults alike. Each year millions of people visit our national forests to fish, watch wildlife, camp, hike, bike and ski. A study by the Forest Service shows that recreation activities in national forests and grasslands have helped to sustain an estimated 223,000 jobs in rural areas and contribute approximately $14.5 billion annually to the U.S. economy.

Your voice needed to defend wild places in the Highway Bill

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:06:47 +0000

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The Senate is beginning to vote on their version of the Highways bill (which does not include the bad parts of the House’s “Drilling for Highways” bill) – starting with amendments to the bill.

While The Wilderness Society supports some of these amendments, some of them are clear giveaways to special interests like the oil industry. It is vital that supporters of wild places like you take a moment to call your Senators and weigh in on these conservation issues in order to protect our nation’s vanishing wild places.

Call your Senators at (202) 224-3121 and ask them to support our wild places, not special interests.

The amendments are (in order they will be voted on):

Vitter Offshore Drilling Amendment: This amendment would open up places like Bristol Bay, the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico to offshore oil drilling. Less than 2 years after the worst oil spill in American history, this amendment would rush oil drilling without significant improvements to safety and cleanup ability, threatening another catastrophe. VOTE NO on AMENDMENT 1535(UPDATE: Amendment defeated!)
Baucus Secure Rural Schools Amendment: This amendment would extend the “Secure Rural Schools” program – which provides critical funding for schoolchildren in rural areas – for another year. More importantly, it does so without forcing unnecessary logging and timber sales on our National Forests. VOTE YES on BAUCUS SCHOOL AMENDMENT (UPDATE: Amendment passes!)
Nelson RESTORE Act and Land and Water Conservation Fund Amendment: Tying together two good ideas, this amendment would provide 2 years of dedicated funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (keeping it safe from potential budget cuts) and direct money to the Gulf Coast to restore the damage done by the BP oil spill. This amendment is a great way to protect disappearing wild lands with LWCF and restore damaged ones on the Gulf Coast – a win-win situation. VOTE YES on AMENDMENT 1822 (UPDATE: Amendment Passes!)
Hoeven Keystone XL Amendment: Like zombies crawling from the grave, the Keystone XL will not stay down. An amendment Sen. Hoeven, would take the decision away from the President and mandate that the pipeline be built. The Keystone XL pipeline would threaten clean water along the entire 2100 mile route from Canada to the Gulf Coast, and do nothing to help Americans lower the price at the pump. VOTE NO on AMENDMENT 1537 (Hoeven) (Update: Amendment Defeated!)
DeMint Anti-Clean Energy Amendment: This amendment would outlaw all government support for clean, renewable wind and solar energy, but leave in place much of the government support for the oil and gas industry. Rather than moving us toward clean, renewable energy sources, this amendment would keep us dependent on dirty fossil fuels. VOTE NO on AMENDMENT 1589

The special interests pushing for the bad amendments have legions of lobbyists working the halls of Capitol Hill to get their amendments passed. We need your voice to drown them out and remind Members of Congress that they work for the people, not the lobbyists.

When you call, remember to tell them your name and where you are from, and remember to be polite – kindness goes much farther than hostility.

Call your Senators at (202) 224-3121 and ask them to support wild places, not special interests.

Movie with a Message: The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 19:21:46 +0000

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With lead stars Zac Efron and Taylor Swift, you might think that the Lorax is just for kids. But The Wilderness Society supporter Betty White also lends her voice to Grammy Norma, continuing her commitment to conservation for future generations.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.”

These are the worlds the Once-Ler, one of the main characters from Universal Pictures new movie, The Lorax. Based upon Dr. Seuss’ classic book of the same name, the movie follows a young boy, Ted, as he sets out from his artificial town to find a real living tree. Ted eventually meets the Once-Ler, a recluse who tells how he met the Lorax, the guardian of the forest, and how the magnificent Truffula trees were all chopped down.

Produced in part with the US Forest Service’s Discover the Forest campaign, the film simply explains the environmental conservation using bright colors and vibrant images. The Truffula forests are alive with birds, fish, swans, and bears. By contrast, the wastelands where the Truffula trees once stood are stark, barren landscapes. The Lorax uses these to show how one person, no matter how small, can have in order to make a difference for our environment.

The Lorax, in movie form and the original book, carries a message for for children and their parents alike. It inspires hope in the future and in doing so shows us that it’s up to us, and our children, to protect the earth we live on.

As the Once-ler says, “Truffula trees are what everyone needs…Plant a new tree, treat it with care. Give it clean water. And feed it fresh air.”

Discover the Forest: www.discovertheforest.org

Official Lorax Movie site