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by Tom Valtin
Endangered Species Act: The Endangered Species Act is one of our most effective tools for protecting America’s wildlands and safeguarding our fish and wildlife. Thanks to this landmark law, passed in 1973, wild salmon still spawn in the rivers of the Pacific Northwest, wolves have returned to Yellowstone, and bald eagles have made a comeback from coast to coast. Click here for more.
National Forests: Not For Sale: President Bush’s proposed 2007 federal budget includes a billion-dollar public land sell-off scheme that flies in the face of widespread opposition to recent proposals to privatize some of this country’s most treasured public lands. The president wants to sell off 800,000 acres of National Forest and Bureau of Land Management lands to raise money. The Sierra Club is rallying public opposition to the plan. The Club is also working to defeat the Walden-Baird logging bill to fast-track commercial salvage logging in our national forests. Click here for more on the Walden Bill, and here to sign our petition.
Tongass National Forest: Protecting the Tongass National Forest—the world’s largest temperate rainforest—is among the Club’s top wildlands priorities. Alaska organizers have gotten nearly 100 businesses, including the Municipality of Anchorage, to sign the Club’s Wild Lands for Wild Salmon proclamation, and organized gatherings and outings in Tongass communities to celebrate the benefits of Tongass wildlands and wild salmon on their economy and quality of life. Press events, community potlucks, outings, tabling events, phone banks, and door-to-door canvassing efforts are ongoing in Anchorage and around the state. Click here for more.
Klamath Basin: The plight of Klamath River salmon highlights the importance of the Endangered Species Act. The Sierra Club is working with an array of partners to restore salmon populations after water releases for irrigated farming have devastated their numbers in recent years. Click here for more.
West Virginia Wildlands: The Monongahela National Forest contains some of the most spectacular unprotected wild places in the eastern United States, like the Roaring Plains proposed wilderness pictured above. But the state’s wildlands are now threatened by mining, logging, road-building, and industrial energy development. The Wild Legacy campaign is helping local activists move wilderness support and legislation forward in the state. The West Virginia Chapter has initiated a joint West Virginia Wilderness Campaign with the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and the Wilderness Society. Click here for more.
Giant Sequoia National Monument: Giant Sequoia National Monument, home to more than half the world’s Sequoia redwoods, was protected by President Clinton in 2001. But the Bush administration is calling for the removal of large, healthy trees up to 30 inches in diameter, even within the sequoia groves, violating the original monument designation and contradicting a proclamation by the first President Bush declaring these forests off limits to commercial logging. In late July, the House Resources subcommittee took up legislation that would allow two commercial logging projects in Giant Sequoia Monument to move forward and would shield the timber sales from any environmental or legal review. The bill would also exempt from review another highly controversial 130,000-acre logging project in the Kings River watershed in nearby Sierra National Forest. Click here for more.
Off-Road Vehicles: Hunters and anglers, native nations, faith organizations, and ranchers are increasingly allied with conservation groups in fighting the rampant growth of ORV use on national forests and other public lands. The Wild Legacy campaign is building constituencies to combat this abuse. Click here for more.
Photo by Jonathan Jessup
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