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Rising to the challenge: A note from our Executive Director
In the wake of last week's election, the stakes for our climate, our wildlife, our Western public lands, and our wild rivers could not be higher. Without a doubt, we now face one of the most anti-environmental presidential administrations ever to take over the White House. Here at WildEarth Guardians, we always put our values and vision first, regardless of who is the president. Moving forward, we're more committed than ever to protecting our sacred lands, our irreplaceable animals, our clean water, and our future. We're going to rise to the challenge and I hope you'll join us as we step up our advocacy and do everything possible to defend the American West. If you haven't yet, read my latest note and stay tuned for more bold Guardians action. We will prevail—we can't afford not to. Read more >> Sawtooth National Forest agrees to give bull trout a fighting chance
Thanks to Guardians' legal action filed in late September, the Sawtooth National Forest in central Idaho has agreed to reconsider how its roads and motorized trails may harm critical habitat of the threatened bull trout. We agreed to put the litigation on hold as the Forest Service consults with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about how logging roads and motorized trails harm cold, clean, complex, and connected waters that are essential to bull trout survival and recovery, and how to incorporate new climate change science in management decisions that better protect bull trout. Read more >>Utah public lands threatened by new fracking proposal
Guardians joined a coalition of health and environmental organizations at the end of October in appealing a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) decision that opens 119,000 acres of public lands in Utah for fracking. According to the BLM, the drilling and fracking would unleash as much carbon pollution as 17 coal-fired power plants. The Monument Butte project opens the door for 5,750 oil and gas wells in the Greater Dinosaur region, an area surrounding Dinosaur National Monument. With the Trump administration set to open the door for more fossil fuel development, it’s critical to confront this oil and gas giveaway. Read more >>Rare Glacier National Park insect proposed for Endangered Species Act protection
A tiny insect dependent on the rapidly disappearing glaciers of Glacier National Park is now in line for Endangered Species Act protection, thanks to a scientific petition from WildEarth Guardians. The health of the meltwater lednian stonefly depends on cold streams from glaciers. Climate change is threatening both the stonefly and the park’s namesake glaciers with oblivion by 2030. Only swift action to halt and reverse the effects of climate change can save the iconic landscape of Glacier National Park and its inhabitants, both large and small. Read more >>Restoring streams and public lands in New Mexico with youth
WildEarth Guardians partnered with Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) to employ 20 young men and women this year, providing valuable skills for future opportunities in restoration. YCC is a New Mexico state-funded program assisting organizations to provide jobs to youths ages 14-25. With the YCC crew, we planted more than 30,000 willow and hundreds of thinleaf alder and narrowleaf cottonwood along Jaramillo Creek in the Valles Caldera National Preserve and built exclosures to protect streamside habitat; planted 8,000 ponderosa pines; removed livestock pasture fencing to aid wildlife migration; and constructed erosion controls to mitigate impacts of recent wildfires. We also worked with the YCC crew to restore a mile of Rio Grande streamside habitat. See our photos >>Water managers ignore crisis on the Rio Grande
Despite warnings from Guardians and the agency’s own scientists of the climate-induced flow declines that are predicted to plague the Rio Grande for the rest of the century, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation last month doubled down on status-quo water management. Instead of considering Guardians’ strong recommendation to use the environmental review process as an opportunity to evaluate a long-term comprehensive solution—like storing water from low-elevation reservoirs upstream to conserve water that would otherwise be lost to evaporation—Reclamation rubber-stamped the existing storage regime and permitted additional storage in Elephant Butte. Guardians will continue to dog the agency to ensure protection of the Rio Grande. Read more >>Calling for an end to criminalizing climate speech
A coalition of indigenous and environmental groups this month demanded the Obama administration put an end to criminalizing climate activists and renewed calls for a moratorium on fossil fuel leasing on our public lands. In response to calls to protect the climate from oil, gas, and coal production, the Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management have spied on peaceful activists, moved oil and gas lease sales online to avoid protests, and gone so far as to make demonstrations a punishable crime. In a letter, Guardians and dozens of other groups called on the agencies to stop making climate speech illegal and start putting Americans first. Read more >>Rare fish receive Endangered Species Act safeguards
In response to a scientific petition from Guardians, the National Marine Fisheries Service recently protected the imperiled island grouper and gulf grouper under the Endangered Species Act. The gulf grouper was listed as “endangered” and the island grouper was listed as “threatened.” Groupers are large fish threatened by overfishing. They gather in groups to spawn, making them easy targets for fishing at unsustainable levels. Many areas where groupers traditionally spawn have already been emptied. Endangered Species Act protections will help give these rare fish a chance to recover from overfishing and escape extinction. Read more >>Bundys may still face justice
All who value our public lands were disheartened by the shocking acquittals of Ammon and Ryan Bundy and five others for their roles in the violent takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Opportunities remain, however, to bring the Bundys and their compatriots to justice. The trial for a second set of seven Malheur NWR occupiers is set to begin in February. And Ammon and Ryan Bundy are back in federal custody ahead of a trial that also starts in February. This trial is for their roles in an armed standoff with federal agents in 2014 near Bunkerville, Nev. If convicted of all charges, the Bundys could spend the rest of their lives in prison. We hope justice is served and public lands are recognized as our common wealth, not as a private fiefdom of welfare ranchers. Read more >>Imperiled bluefin tuna move closer to protection
Because of a scientific petition from Guardians and our allies, Pacific bluefin tuna may soon receive the strong protections of the Endangered Species Act. The National Marine Fisheries Service is conducting an in-depth review of the science available on bluefin tuna and will make a decision in the next year. Bluefin tuna populations have reached dangerously low levels, declining more than 97 percent. Japan, South Korea, Mexico, the United States, and other countries have failed to reduce fishing enough to protect the iconic species, which is a luxury item on sushi menus. Endangered Species Act protections would help ensure that human appetites don’t wipe out these majestic ocean fish. Read more >> It’s now or never for Greater Chaco
In the face of mounting pressure from WildEarth Guardians, Navajo allies, and thousands of petitioners, the Obama administration agreed to hold public meetings on the Navajo Nation through Dec. 2 and consult with Tribal communities concerning the surge of oil and gas development in the Greater Chaco region of northwestern New Mexico. Greater Chaco faces an onslaught of new drilling and fracking that threatens the region’s cultural heritage, environment, and human communities. Together with our indigenous allies, we’ve been calling on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to stop letting the oil and gas industry trash Native lands and communities. Take action >>photo credits: (Left column) bald eagle—adobestock. bull trout—Jim Mogen, USFWS. Monument Butte oil well—WildEarth Guardians. mist forestfly—Joe Giersch. YCC fence pulling—WildEarth Guardians. Rio Grande near Lunas—WildEarth Guardians. climate action—WildEarth Guardians. Mycteroperca fusca—Phillippe Guillaume, Creative Commons. Cliven and Ammon Bundy—Gage Skidmore. Pacific bluefin tuna—aes256, Creative Commons. no fracking way—WildEarth Guardians. (Right column) Alan Solomon—Alan Solomon. climate rally—WildEarth Guardians. wild at heart newsletter—WildEarth Guardians. wolverine—Oregon FWS. |
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