Top 12 Campaigns in 2012, Coming to you on the 12th

Dear Guardian,      

1. Year of the Wolf

This year will be a critical year for wolves — even more important than 2011 — as we work to advance our vision of viable, connected populations of wolves throughout the West, from Canada to Mexico. Critical to that vision is to bring an end to both government-sponsored and recreational wolf killing in the Northern Rockies. We’ll continue our litigation to overturn the Congressional rider that de-listed wolves under the Endangered Species Act throughout all or parts of five states.

In the Southwest, we’ll work to protect the critically endangered Mexican wolf by banning trapping and elevating federal protection for the Lobo; in Colorado, we’ll continue our lawsuit to require Rocky Mountain National Park to fully evaluate wolf reintroduction; and in Wyoming we’ll challenge a government plan to de-list wolves in that state.

2. Guardians Historic Endangered Species Agreement, Year Two 

3. Protecting the Greater Gila, America's First Wilderness

The wildlands of the Greater Gila Bioregion inspired Aldo Leopold to convince the U.S. Forest Service to designate America’s first wilderness in 1924. We intend to deepen Leopold’s Legacy by securing voluntary grazing permit retirements on more than 100,000 acres — providing ranchers with financial payments and giving wolves the room they need to thrive and roam. 

4. Defending Public Lands From Oil and Gas Extraction

The past year saw the Environmental Protection Agency unveil new, draft air quality regulations that will govern the oil and gas industry across the Nation. We will ensure that the final regulations, undertaken to settle a WildEarth Guardians lawsuit — are as strong as possible. Our campaign to defend public lands from oil and gas development will also focus on local fights, whether along the front range of Colorado or the wild mesas and canyons surrounding Chaco Culture National Park in New Mexico.  

5. Powering Past Coal in the West and Confronting the Climate Crisis

Coal kills, plain and simple. Coal is not only the biggest contributor to the climate crisis but also coal mining threatens wildlands, clean air and water all across the West. Our work in 2012 to confront coal will focus on two critical fronts: new coal leases and mines, and existing coal fired power plants. In 2012 we’ll intensify our commitment to halt or slow down the Interior Department’s efforts to massively expand coal mining in the Powder River Basin, where nearly half of our Nation’s coal is mined. One example is we’ll challenge every single new lease while working to overturn a sweet-heart policy that prevents any competition for federal coal, keeping it dirt-cheap.

With climate policy in Congress going nowhere fast thanks to hard-line opposition from conservatives, we’ll target existing coal-fired power plants. From New Mexico to Utah to North Dakota we’ll bring litigation that requires polluters to clean up their acts and internalize the cost of coal-combustion. Increasing the cost of coal is one of the single most effective ways we can level the playing field and transition more quickly to the new era of clean energy.  

6. Climate Adaptation on Public Lands

Climate change is here and while Guardians is doing what we can to transition to clean energy we also need to help ecosystems and species adapt to a changing climate. We’ve identified the hard working beaver as our perfect ally; its dams will enhance the resilience of stream ecosystems, benefiting a suite of species from Rio Grande cutthroat trout and leopard frogs to Southwestern willow flycatcher and the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse. WildEarth Guardians will promote beaver reintroductions and recovery plans on headwater streams throughout the Southwest in 2012.

7. Ending the Government’s War on Wildlife 

The Obama Administration and Congress continue to spend more than $120 million annually to subsidize agribusiness by killing millions of animals each year, many of them ecologically critical large carnivores. We’re taking the gloves off in 2012 by increasing our efforts in the courts and with the American people to stop aerial gunning of animals and halt the use of poisons like Compound 1080 and M-44’s.

At the same time we’ll intensify our statewide campaigns — focusing initially in New Mexico — to ban the use of steel leg-hold traps and poisons on public lands.

8. Conserving the Greater Sage-Grouse and the Sagebrush Sea

We’ll continue our decade plus commitment to conserving the iconic Greater sage-grouse and the Sagebrush Sea, which includes some of the last great wild landscapes in North America. In the first quarter of the year, we’ll unveil our conservation vision for this critical species and landscape at the same time that the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service begin to develop a new rangewide conservation strategy that will affect more than 50 million acres of public lands from California to Colorado. We will identify the crown jewels of the Sagebrush Sea and defend them from the major threats of livestock grazing and oil and gas development.

9. The Rio Grande, America’s Great River 

Last year was all about inspiration with the unveiling of our stunning, aerial photography book, The Rio Grande: An Eagle’s View; 2012 will be all about action. We’ll continuing challenging water transfers that threaten to dry up the river, further imperiling the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow. We’ll also demand that the Bureau of Reclamation secure flows in the Rio Grande protecting endangered species habitats and crown jewels like the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge.

10. Public Lands Grazing Reform

Livestock grazing has caused more damage to public lands and resources than the chainsaw and bulldozer combined; it’s also by far the most ubiquitous activity on public land effecting more than 250 million acres. Our efforts to protect imperiled species, fragile uplands and vital streams and wetlands would best be accomplished through permanent removal of livestock from the landscape. To this end, we will continue our decadal effort to enact permanent, voluntary federal grazing permit retirement legislation in Congress in 2012.

On the local level we hope the Valles Caldera National Preserve accepts our financial bid to “unranch” the Preserve and keep the cows off this 98,000 acre crown-jewel in New Mexico.

11. National Forests and Water

The campaign to protect roadless national forests across the Nation received a boost in the final quarter of 2012 when a federal judge reinstated the Clinton-era roadless rule — affecting 58.5 million acres. To strengthen that designation and reinforce the importance of national forests to our water supplies, WildEarth Guardians wants to protect the streams and rivers of these roadless national forests by designating them as “outstanding waters” — the highest level of water protection possible under the Clean Water Act.

Building on our successful campaign in New Mexico, in the coming year our “Clean Waters, Wild Forests” campaign will focus on protecting waterways in roadless national forests in Colorado.  We will be working with cities and towns, anglers, and wild rivers enthusiasts to secure the “outstanding waters” designation for hundreds of miles of streams throughout Southwestern Colorado.

12. Southwestern Ecosystem Restoration

Our restoration program continues to bring degraded streams and fragmented landscapes back to life the old-fashioned way: one tree planted and one mile of road closed at a time. In the coming year we’ll focus on restoring six different headwater streams in New Mexico by planting nearly 40,000 cottonwoods, willows, aspens and other trees and shrubs — and possibly even reintroducing beaver! We’d love to have you at one of our Stream Team restoration events in 2012; I promise you that you’ll feel great after being a part of bringing a landscape back to life.

Thank you for being a Guardian and for believing in our vision of what’s possible. We’re excited about our ambitious plan for 2012 and look forward to updating you on our progress!

---

John Horning
Executive Director
WildEarth Guardians
jhorning@wildearthguardians.org

photo credit: Ray Rafiti
 
Protecting and restoring wolves to their natural place in our wild ecosystems is just one of many goals WildEarth Guardians has for 2012.