New Mexico Youth Conservation Educator Named “Wilderness Hero”
February 8th, 2010
The Pew Environment Group's Campaign for America's Wilderness announced today that Roberta Salazar of Taos, New Mexico, is being honored as this month's "Wilderness Hero" for working to connect young people with nature. Ten years ago, Salazar made a personal commitment to ensure that Northern New Mexico kids grow up recognizing the importance of protecting the land and the healthy ecosystems on which they depend.
Basalt Mountain Hidden Gem of the Week
February 5th, 2010
This is the first in a weekly series profiling the areas proposed by the Hidden Gems campaign for federal wilderness designation. The campaign, led by Carbondale's Wilderness Workshop, calls for more than 400,000 acres to be protected as wilderness. Most of the land is in the White River and Gunnison national forests, and includes areas in Pitkin, Gunnison, Eagle and Summit counties. An act of the U.S. Congress is required to designate new wilderness.
Opinion; Forest Jobs Bill: Working Together for Montana
February 3rd, 2010The numbers are painful. Last year, 1,700 Montanans lost jobs in our timber industry. Timber harvest across our state plummeted a staggering 40 percent. Several mills-including Montana's largest-boarded up.
If we do nothing, Montanans who work in the woods will get hit even harder. It's an industry that today directly employs just over 7,000 Montanans. Thousands more rely on the industry indirectly.
If we do nothing-or if we let partisan politics trump the ideas of Montanans who worked together for years on a common sense solution-all those jobs will be on the rocks.
Campaign for America's Wilderness and Pew Environment Group Join Forces
January 28th, 2010WASHINGTON – (Thursday, January, 28, 2010) -- The Pew Charitable Trusts today announced that effective February 1, 2010, the Campaign for America’s Wilderness (CAW) will become part of the Pew Environment Group, expanding Pew’s work to protect public lands. For more than two decades, Pew has been dedicated to securing lasting safeguards for wilderness of the United States, Canada and most recently Australia. The result has been the preservation of tens of millions of acres of pristine landscapes critical to providing clean water, healthy fish and wildlife habitat, outdoor recreation and a buffer for the impacts of climate change. A cornerstone of this effort has been the Campaign for America’s Wilderness, which Pew established in 2002.
New Wilderness Bill for Oregon
January 28th, 2010
The Campaign for America's Wilderness hailed the introduction today of The Cathedral Rock and Horse Heaven Wilderness Act of 2010, which will designate over 16,000 acres of wilderness in the Cathedral Rock and Horse Heaven areas near the lower John Day River as good for Oregonians and all Americans.
Opinion: Bill aims to save wilderness areas
January 25th, 2010
Just before the New Year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced the "California Desert Protection Act of 2010," a landmark piece of legislation that would add land to Joshua Tree and Death Valley National Parks and the Mojave National Preserve. The bill would also designate new wilderness areas in the California desert, and provide needed protection for popular rivers like Deep Creek, Whitewater, and Surprise Canyon.
Campaign Cheers House Subcommittee Consideration of Colorado Conservation Bill
January 21st, 2010
"The San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act (H.R. 3914) moved an important step closer to enactment today at a hearing of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands," said Marcia Argust, Campaign for America's Wilderness Policy Manager.
Opinion: It’s time to protect South Dakota’s grassland heritage
January 19th, 2010
Western South Dakota is blessed with some of the nation's unique and most treasured landscapes. In 2002, U.S.Forest Service under the Bush Administration recognized the value of areas of undisturbed prairie in the Buffalo Gap National Grassland and recommended them for inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System. I believe it is time to move forward with what would be the country's first national grassland wilderness so that future generations can experience this area as it has been for hundreds of years.
Tester's forest jobs bill: Bill is true collaborative effort
January 14th, 2010
When Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester introduced his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act last July, he did something that is all too uncommon in today's political world. He kept a promise.
He'd told conservationists, loggers and recreationists that if they could reach agreement on contentious issues involving public lands - including wilderness designation, deciding where logging and habitat restoration is appropriate, and, most importantly, getting popular support for their ideas - he'd introduce a bill to help implement their vision.
Great American wilderness spots; Get out and explore millions of acres of beautiful, isolated public lands
January 12th, 2010
True escape from city life doesn't have to mean a trip outside the U.S. Inside America's borders are some of the most remote, pristine spots on the planet.
The U.S. has more than 100 million acres of the National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS), public lands that - since the 1964 passage of the Wilderness Act - are protected from human influence and disruption. For the outdoorsy traveler looking for remoteness, solitude and a sense of nature, Wilderness areas offer all these things in abundance.
