Is any animal more magnificent than the tiger?  What a loss it would be for the world if this sleek, strong, and beautiful cat, so admiringly described by William Blake (see below), were no more.  And until recently, it looked as if the tiger could soon disappear.

     But  with a hopeful heart I can report that the numbers of this greatly endangered animal are increasing in India.  A recent survey conducted by India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority found that there are 1,706 tigers living in the wild in India.  This is 225 more than existed there in the wild in 2004, the last time such a survey was taken.  About 70% of India’s tigers live in 39 tiger preserves around the country.   

     At the start of the twentieth century, more than 100,000 tigers roamed wild in India.  But in just 100 years, their numbers plummeted by 97%, as 94% of their home range was lost, and they were hunted for body parts.  But in recent years, India’s government has made a concerted effort to save the tiger from extinction. 

     “The good news is that we can save the tiger,” says Azzedine Downes, executive vice president of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.  India’s success shows that strong protection of core areas where tigers live and the areas that connect them, combined with effective management of surrounding areas. produce results, explains Mike Baltzer, head of the World Wildlife Fund’s Tigers Alive Initiative.  ”We can not only halt their decline, but ensure tigers make a strong and lasting comeback,” says Baltzer.     

     In addition to working to protect the wild tigers within its own borders, India is working with other tiger range nations as well.  About half of the world’s wild tigers live in India, and the others are spread among many other Asian countries.  Last November, scientists and government leaders of 13 tiger range nations gathered to launch the Global Tiger Recovery Program (GTRP).  GTRP’s goal is to double the number of tigers in the wild by 2022.   The tiger range nations are supported in their initiative by the World Wildlife Fund, National Geographic, Wildlife Conservation Society, and many other organizations.

     Besides India, wild tigers are found in Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, China, and Russia.–April Moore

 

photo credit: Dave Watts

 

P.S.  If you’d like to read William Blake’s breathless poem The Tyger, just click here:   http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/tyger.html

 

 

 

     Millions of acres of Alaskan rainforest are now protected from highly damaging development.   A federal judge in Alaska ruled recently that 9.5 million roadless acres in southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest will be offlimits to logging and road construction.

     The judge’s decision restores federal protection to one of the largest remaining unspoiled temperate rainforests in the world.  This land had received protection in 2001 when the U.S. Forest Service issued the Roadless Area Conservation Rule to protect the nation’s last expanses of truly wild lands from development.  However, in 2003, the Bush administration bowed to logging interests and exempted the Tongass National Forest from the Roadless Rule.  

     But the Roadless Rule is needed to protect this extraordinary area, with its towering groves of ancient trees and its vibrant populations of grizzlies, wolves, eagles, and salmon.  The construction of roads crisscrossing the area would seriously disrupt natural ecosystems.  “As the realities of global climate change become ever more apparent, the critical need to preserve these last remaining, intact roadless areas within the national forests could not be more urgent,” wrote a group of leading scientists in support of ending the exemption of the Roadless Rule in the Tongass.

     Thanks to the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, and other environmental groups who fought the Roadless Rule exemption in court, we can celebrate this great victory!–April Moore

     Back in the 1970s, there was not a black-footed ferret to be found anywhere on America’s vast western plains.  Once numbering in the hundreds of thousands, this small mammal had kept the population of the prairie dog, its only prey, in check.  But after decades of ranchers’ successful efforts to exterminate the prairie dog, the ferret population also plummeted.  By the 1970s, scientists feared the black-footed ferret had become extinct. 

  Then in 1981, a Wyoming ranch dog brought home something that shocked everyone.  He had captured a black-footed ferret!  Scientists rushed to the area and searched for more ferrets.  Eventually, more than 120 of the bandit-masked creatures were discovered.

     For a few years, this Wyoming ferret population seemed to hold their own.  But after dozens of them succumbed to disease in 1985, researchers began capturing the remaining animals to keep them in a safe facility.  Within just a couple of years, only 18 were left. 

     Then came a second chance for North America’s only native ferret species.   The animal became the focus of a multi-state, captive breeding and release program sponsored by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, state agencies, and other organizations.  No young were born that first year.  But then came a male named Scarface, who saved the day.  He sired litter after litter of healthy kits, reports the National Wildlife Federation, which bought time, while scientists figured out what they needed to do to enable this little-studied animal to survive and thrive.

     Preparing young ferrets, or kits, born in captivity for life in the wild involves preconditioning.  Because black-footed ferrets make their homes in prairie dog burrows, the young ferrets are exposed to natural prairie dog burrow systems and prairie dog prey during the ferrets’ early developmental stages.  The young ferrets are placed in large, outdoor pens for extended periods.  This process significantly increases the animals’ chance of survival once released into the wild. 

     Today, 30 years after the black-footed ferret’s rediscovery, about 500 of the little mammals are living in the wild in Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Colorado, Utah,  New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico.   Hundreds more are living in captivity and will later be released.  “Ferret recovery has been a huge success story,” says Mike Lockhart, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service biologist who coordinates the recovery program at the National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center near Fort Collins, Colorado.  Lockhart is hopeful that the black-footed ferret will rebound in great enough numbers that it can be removed from the Endangered Species List.  That goal will be achieved, Lockhart explains, when there are at least 1,500 ferrets living in 10 locations, with at least 30 breeding adults in each population.  

     It’s looking good for the ferret.  Of the 19 reintroduction sites around the west, successful reproduction has been documented at all but two.  About half of the sites are considered ’successful’ or ‘improving.’  Successful sites are those that are self-sustaining, with at least 30 breeding adults.  Improving sites have growing populations, but have not yet reached sustainability. 

A Few Fun Ferret Facts

Black-footed ferrets are 18-24 inches long, including a 5-6 inch tail.  Their short, sleek fur is pale yellow.  They have a black ‘face mask’ and black feet.

Nocturnal and elusive, black-footed ferrets spend about 90% of their time underground.

Black-footed ferrets are very playful, especially as kits.  They chase and stalk each other and stage mock attacks.  And they do the ‘ferret dance,’ hopping, leaping, and bucking, with mouths wide open.–April Moore

  

 

        

 

 

    

       What terrific news!  After an absence of almost a century, whales have returned to the waters just off New York and New Jersey.  That’s right, whales!  In the last few years, six species of whale–humpback, fin, right, sei, blue, and mike–have all been spotted in the waters just outside New York Harbor.  

     And whales are not the only marine mammals who have returned to waters near the Big Apple.  Seals and dolphins are also showing up.  Pods of aquatic animals have increased ten-fold off New York City’s coast, reports Tom Paladino, captain of two ferry boats in the area.   “We used to see 10 whales a year,” he says, “but now we see 100.”  Between June and September 2010, says Paladino, “we saw dolphins almost on a daily basis.”   With so many whales, seals, and dolphins in New York City waters, Paladino has launched weekend whale and seal watching tours.  On one recent tour, Paladino says, he spotted 14 seals splashing about near a small island off of Staten Island.

     Many of these animals have become full-time New York residents.  According to Cornell University Professor Christopher Clark, who has studied the animals’ return, 30-50 fin whales now live year-round in the waters just past the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

     So why are whales, seals, and dolphins returning to waters near New York City?  Scientists believe that because these waters are cleaner than they used to be, and because whales and other sea mammals are now off-limits to hunters, these waters are once again attractive to leviathans and their cousins.  “The numbers are far, far more than expected, even for me,” says Clark.  “I’ve been surprised elsewhere in the world, but off New York–yikes!” 

     Clark participated in a study conducted by Cornell and New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation to monitor whale activity off New York’s shores.  When underwater sound equipment was set up in 2008, researchers were surprised to hear 20-minute serenades by humpbacks.  While the federally funded study has been abandoned due to budget cuts,  Clark hopes the good news of the whales’ return will make it possible to raise $1 million to revive the study and to install a sophisticated monitoring system to help boats avoid hitting whales and other large animals in the water.–April Moore

 

 

New York tourists enjoy the whales

 

 

 

 

     Now and then something surprisingly good comes from something very bad.  I am thinking of two sites where horrific twentieth century events took place.  Now these two sites are world class nature reserves!

     One is the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that has separated North Korea from South Korea since the end of World War II.  The other is Chernobyl, in Ukraine, where the world’s most serious nuclear accident took place in 1986.  Today an international effort is underway to designate the DMZ a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the area surrounding Chernobyl has been called Europe’s largest nature sanctuary. 

WHAT HAPPENED IN KOREA? 

     For 5,000 years before the Korean War, much of the 2.4 mile wide and 155 mile long strip of land that is now the DMZ was farmed.  Then, during the Korean War, the area became a battlefield.  Many landmines still remain in the DMZ.  As part of the 1953 armistice ending the Korean War, this strip of land dividing North and South Korea was sequestered behind barbed wire on both sides.  A ‘buffer’ the two nations use to keep each other at bay, the DMZ has been largely untouched by human activity for more than 50 years.

     Without a human presence, the DMZ has reverted to its natural state.  The west is largely prairie and shrub land, while the east is mountainous, with rich green forests.  There are rivers, wetlands, bogs, estuaries, and more than 1,100 plant species.    Hundreds of bird species and more than 80 fish species live in the DMZ.  The 50+ mammal species there include Asiatic black bears, Eurasian lynxes, and leopards.  Even many endangered species thrive in the DMZ, including red-crowned cranes, white-naped cranes, and black-faced spoonbills.  “Many of the species that disappeared from the rest of Korea are still there,” says Ke Chung Kim, a Penn State scientist, who is urging the two Korean governments to request World Heritage Site status for the DMZ.  

WHAT HAPPENED IN UKRAINE?

     When Chernobyl’s Reactor #4 exploded 25 years ago this spring, hundreds of tons of radioactive material were spewed into the surrounding environment.  All the human residents in an 1,100 square mile area were evacuated.  And while most of the humans have stayed away, the area surrounding the reactor is not the barren wasteland most had anticipated.  Instead, “dense forests have reclaimed farm fields and apartment courtyards,” writes Douglas Birch in The Washington Post.

     When reporter and author of Wormwood Forest:  A Natural History of Chernobyl Mary Mycio first visited Chernobyl in 1996, a decade after the accident, she wore protective gear as she moved through various radioactive ‘hot spots.’  To her amazement, she found wildlife flourishing.  During return visits, Mycio has cataloged birds and mammals that have repopulated the area.  Even in the area closest to the ruined reactor, where radioactive levels are still fairly high, red foxes, grey wolves, moose, river otters, Russian wild boars, and brown hares have all been spotted.

     Mycio and others who have studied the “zone of alienation” of Chernobyl are astonished and heartened to see so much wildlife.  “This stunning natural ecosystem is evidence of the awesome recuperative powers of nature,” says Mycio.  Paradoxically, the area around Chernobyl is home to many more animal species than it was before the accident, when the area was inhabited by people. 

EVERY SILVER LINING HAS A CLOUD

     Despite the wonderful news that these ‘wastelands’ have become fecund sanctuaries for wildlife, the news is not all good.  South Korean development is creeping right up to the barbed wire of the DMZ’s southern edge, threatening the wildness on the fence’s other side.  And North Korean deforestation has caused severe flooding in the zone’s northern part.  Besides, given the recent increase in rancor between the two Koreas, it seems unlikely that they will join together to petition the United Nations for  World Heritage status for their shared natural treasure.

     And while wildlife appears to be flourishing around Chernobyl, scientists are unsure just how the area’s high radiation levels are affecting animals.  One scientist reports that a high proportion of birds he and his colleagues have studied suffer from radiation-induced sickness and genetic damage.  Other scientists report that the disaster has not affected either the diversity or the abundance of many rodent species, including shrews, weasels, and mice.  In any event, scientists agree that more study is needed to understand better how radiation in the environment is affecting wildlife.

WHEN HUMANS GET OUT OF THE WAY

     What I find most fascinating about the flourishing of wildlife in the DMZ and around Chernobyl is the astonishing increase in biodiversity that develops simply because humans get out of the way!  Despite the presence of numerous landmines or high levels of radiation, nature can still thrive, it seems, when we humans quit interfering!  In a way, this is a hopeful message about the resilience of nature, when left alone.  But, in a sense, the message is not especially hopeful, since we humans can’t seem to leave nature alone unless we are forced to for our own safety!–April Moore 

 

 

 

black-faced spoonbills in the DMZ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

elk running near the former Chernobyl nuclear plant

     I am happy to report that in the final days of 2010, the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) overturned what could fairly be called a “no more wilderness” policy. 

     Originally created by the Bush Administration in 2003, the “no more wilderness” policy had put a stop to citizen-organized proposals for designating protected wilderness areas, and it also opened up huge areas for oil and gas development.  But the Obama administration has restored BLM’s ability to curtail development on more than 200 million publicly-owned back-country acres by inventorying them and setting them aside as “Wild Lands.”

     “Wild Lands” status protects lands while Congress decides whether or not to accord them this country’s greatest protection, a designation of Wilderness.  And that is a process that can take decades.  Without the ”Wild Lands” designation, land is vulnerable to energy development, road building, motorized recreation, and mining.  And once thus degraded, land becomes ineligible for Wilderness protection.  Now, once again, publicly-owned “Wild Lands” will receive the same no-development protections as Congressionally-designated Wilderness areas.

     Thanks to this recent administrative action, important provisions of the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act will be reinstated.  Specifically, citizens can ask that the federal government set aside lands that meet BLM’s requirements for protection–areas larger than 5,000 acres that are roadless and free from human disturbance–until Congress can decide to grant or deny Wilderness protection to such lands.

     Since the Wilderness Act was enacted in 1964, Congress has granted Wilderness protection to just under 110 million acres in 756 areas of 44 states and Puerto Rico.  Just 4.7% of U.S. land is currently designated Wilderness.  The most recent Wilderness designation was in 2009, when President Obama signed the Omnibus Public Land Management Act, which expanded the Wilderness system by two million acres, the largest addition in 25 years.–April Moore 

 

photo by Jotor

 

    

     Brazil deserves praise and thanks from all of us for its recent, extraordinarily effective efforts to protect the Amazon rainforest. 

     For many years, increasing destruction of vast swaths of the Brazilian rainforest contributed significantly to planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and to a diminution of the world’s most biologically diverse region.

     But things have changed.  Between August 2008 and July 2009, Brazil slowed the rainforest deforestation rate by 45% over the previous 12-month period.  And between August 2009 and July 2010, the deforestation rate fell another 14% below that of the previous year.  These dramatic reductions will help Brazil to meet its goal of reducing deforestation by 80% by 2020.  In fact, says Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, conservation efforts are going so well that he expects his country to meet that goal by 2016, four years ahead of schedule.  If Brazil can meet its deforestation reduction goals, the country will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by almost 25%, according to a government statement. 

     Once the world’s biggest source of deforestation-caused greenhouse emissions, Brazil now leads the world in reducing deforestation. 

     And how has Brazil managed to curb deforestation so dramatically?  The answer, according to Brazil’s Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira, lies with the Action Plan for Deforestation Control and Prevention in the Amazon.  Launched in 2004, the Action Plan includes policies to improve monitoring, strengthen enforcement, and encourage sustainable activities in the region.

     A key ingredient in Brazil’s approach has been the government’s near-real time deforestation detection system.  Relying on up-to-date satellite images, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, in conjunction with the Federal Police, have been able to set up precise and effective enforcement operations to halt illegal deforestation as it happens. 

     Other factors in Brazil’s success include the engagement of the citizenry and the private sector to support deforestation efforts.  And seven of the nine states in the Amazon region have developed their own action plans to fight deforestation at the local level. 

     ”Brazil has done more than any other country over the past five years to cut global warming emissions by dramatically reducing its deforestation,” says Doug Boucher, director of climate research and analysis at the Washington-based Union of Concerned Scientists.  “Destroying tropical forests is responsible for about 15 percent of global warming pollution,” he explains, “and Brazil had been the biggest source of deforestation pollution. Its reduction is a stunning turnaround.”

     Some of the credit for Brazil’s effectiveness should go to Norway.  Norway has agreed to give Brazil as much as $1 billion over five years if it reduced deforestation, Boucher explained.   “That funding has compensated farmers, ranchers and other Brazilians whose livelihoods depend on clearing trees,” says Boucher.  Norway’s contribution has amounted to about $100 a year for each of its citizens. By contrast, the amount of aid the United States has pledged to protect tropical forests amounts to only about $1 a year for each American, Boucher notes.–April Moore

     Here is a feel-good story that is both true and inspiring.  It reminds me that we can do a lot to move our country in a green direction, even if Congress is failing to address climate change and other pressing environmental issues.

     Three and a half years ago, the western Kansas town of Greensburg was flattened by a tornado.   A week after the tornado, which destroyed 95% of the buildings in town, Greensburg officials passed a resolution that the town would rebuild, and it would rebuild green.  Municipal buildings over 4,000 square feet would be built to meet the U.S. Green Building Council’s prestigious LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum designation.

     Greensburg’s commitment to rebuilding green attracted a great deal of media attention.  It even sparked the creation of a reality TV show on Planet Green that starred Leonardo DiCaprio.  Thanks to all the outside interest, the town was able to attract help from many sources as it began its green rebuilding initiative.

     The nonprofit Greensburg GreenTown was launched to coordinate the green rebuilding efforts.  With support from the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) formed a team to work with city and county administrators, businesses, and residents to rebuild the town greenly.  Numerous corporate sponsors also contributed a great deal.

     Today, three and a half years after the devastating tornado tore through the town, Greensburg truly lives up to its name.  The town is carbon neutral, and it has more LEED Platinum-certified buildings per capita than anywhere else in the world.  More than 100 new Greensburg homes are 40% more efficient than code requires, and many buildings are headed toward LEED certification.  A wind farm owned by John Deere produces enough power for more than 4,000 households.

     A few highlights of the Greensburg of 2010:

• The new City Hall is LEED Platinum-certified.  The building has solar panels and geothermal technology.  It was built of reclaimed brick from a power plant destroyed by the tornado.  The building will have a green roof with a vegetable garden on it.
• The new Centera Bank has energy-efficient heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems and energy-efficient lighting systems.  The building uses water efficiently and has an onsite bioswale (a landscape feature designed to remove pollutants and silt from runoff surface water).  The bank is seeking LEED certification.
• The  Eco Silo Home has solar panels, a green roof, eco-friendly finishes, energy-efficient mechanical systems, water-efficient fixtures, and more.  The building is cylindrically shaped to withstand winds of up to 200 miles per hour.  The Eco Silo Home is headquarters for Greensburg GreenTown and also serves as a bed and breakfast for tourists interested in experiencing green living. 
• Kiowa County Memorial Hospital was rebuilt with an onsite wind turbine and is expected to use 40% less energy than a hospital built to standard code.
• Thanks to help from NREL in developing a conservation plan, the John Deere dealership slashed its utility bills 40% and its water use by 50%.
• Greensburg has become an eco-tourist destination, with interested individuals and groups coming from all over the world to learn from Greensburg’s experience.

     I find the story of Greensburg extremely heartening.  Here is a town in a conservative area that has enthusiastically embraced a much greener way of life than the one they had before the tornado hit.  Greensburg Mayor Bob Dixon told E Magazine, “Sometimes we hear the word ‘green,’ and we think modernistic.  But green is just being good stewards of the resources we’ve been blessed with.”

     If Greensburg, Kansas, can go green in a big way, it should be possible anywhere.–April Moore

Greensburg's green new City Hall

   

Eco Silo Home in Greensburg

     While I wish President Obama had made climate change his first legislative priority, instead of health care, he nonetheless has publicly committed to making progress to address climate change.  And he has taken some significant steps in the right direction.   Since most of Obama’s efforts in this area have gone largely unnoticed, I am highlighting some of them here:

• Obama’s 2011 budget request includes significant increases in energy efficiency and renewable energy programs at the federal Departments of Energy, Interior, and Agriculture.
• The Administration is raising vehicle efficiency standards to historic levels.  Most notable are the first national emissions and efficiency standards for heavy vehicles.
• The Administration is reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the nation’s largest energy consumer, the federal government. 
• The Administration is moving forward on greater renewable energy production on public lands.
• Having determined that climate change is a threat to public health and welfare, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is about to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from large polluters.
• EPA is toughening its regulation of environmental impacts from fossil energy industries, such as the impacts of mountain top removal coal mining in Appalachia.
• A presidential task force has been working for more than a year to frame a national strategy for climate adaptation.
• Another presidential task force is developing national policy for protecting our oceans, coasts, and the Great Lakes.
• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has incorporated the effects of climate change on wildlife into the grants it makes for protecting endangered species.
• The U.S. Department of Energy has cleared its backlog of new appliance efficiency standards, an achievement expected to save the public billions of dollars over the next 30 years.
• The Administration has created a strategic plan for high-speed rail in America.
• The Administration included more than $80 billion in green investments in the stimulus package, making it the largest piece of energy legislation in U.S. history.
• President Obama has directed nine federal agencies to expedite construction of transmission lines on public lands to help distribute renewable energy.
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Nature Conservancy are working to protect coral reefs from climate-related damage in the Caribbean, Florida, Hawaii, and the Pacific Islands.
• The Federal Trade Commission has issued new guidelines on truth in green labeling.
• The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued guidance on how publicly traded companies should report climate risks.
• EPA and the Department of Transportation are revising fuel-economy labeling for cars and light trucks to show each vehicle’s carbon emissions profile.
• EPA requires 10,000 of the nation’s largest carbon emitters, as well as federal agencies, to publicly report their emissions.
• The Administration is working on a requirement that climate impacts must be considered in environmental assessments of federally funded projects.
• Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued an order to improve federal water policies to deal with climate change, population growth, and other pressures on freshwater supplies.
• NOAA created a new office to improve climate change information for local governments, academia, and industry.
• Just weeks ago the military equipped a field encampment of Marines in Afghanistan with fold-up solar panels, energy-efficient lights, solar chargers for phones and computers, and solar tent shields that provide both shade and power for tents.
• The Navy recently introduced its first hybrid vessel, the USS Makin Island.  On its first voyage, from Mississippi to San Diego, the ship used 900,000 gallons less fuel than a traditional vessel.
• The Air Force is slated to operate its entire fleet on biofuels by next year.
• The Administration has negotiated agreements to collaborate on carbon sequestration and clean energy technologies with Canada, Mexico, China, and India.

     All of the above actions are helpful steps in addressing climate change.  But it cannot be denied that they are extremely modest.  Taken together, they account for about 70% of Obama’s goal to reduce U.S. carbon emissions by a mere 3% by 2020, according to Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.  Still, “Obama and his team have made more progress on this issue in 22 months than all his predecessors managed since Lyndon Johnson was warned about climate change by his science advisors in the 1960s,” writes Becker.  And he’s done it at the same time he’s wrestled with his immediate predecessor’s debilitating legacy of red ink, the Great Recession, Wall Street scandals, the housing crisis, the collapse of some of the nation’s biggest companies, and two wars.”

     The above list of the Obama administration’s accomplishments on global warming come from Bill Becker.–April Moore

     In an unusual alliance of conservation organizations, oil and gas interests, and local governments, Utah’s dramatic Desolation Canyon has been saved from massive natural gas exploration.   

     One of the most remote and rugged stretches of riverland  in the American West, eastern Utah’s Desolation Canyon offers breathtaking views of red rock cliffs and multicolored rock spires.  This canyon, carved by the Green River, is a favorite of rafters and hikers.  And the largest existing collection of Native American rock art can be found along one of Desolation Canyon’s tributary canyons.

     Back in 1969, Desolation Canyon was designated a National Historic Landmark.  Even so, under the Bush administration, Desolation Canyon was one of many prized Utah public lands that were rushed to the oil and gas leasing block.  Environmental reviews were limited or bypassed altogether for many of these lands, including Desolation Canyon.  Consequently, the Denver-based Bill Barrett Corporation (BBC) obtained the rights to drill for natural gas on the western side of Desolation Canyon.  BBC planned to install 225 surface drill pads in the area, which would have  caused severe fragmentation of wildlife habitat, and would have resulted in heavy traffic and pollution in the area.

     But thanks to the recent historic agreement, hammered out after years of negotiation, BBC has agreed to develop only five locations in this wilderness land.  And all five sites will be underground, out of sght.  None of the five will be near the proposed Wilderness sections of the canyon, nor will any be near the canyon’s Native American archeological sites.    Measures will also be taken to protect the area’s air quality.   

     “We were able to convince the Bill Barrett Corporation to walk away from the vast majority of their leases and to agree to specific precautions in others so that these lands can be protected as designated wilderness someday,” says Laura Bailey of the Wilderness Society, one of the conservation groups that worked to forge the historic agreement.  “Without this agreement,” she says, “we would be continuing to fight drilling on every acre of this spectacular landscape rich with culture.”

     Conservationists are hopeful that Desolation Canyon will someday be designated Wilderness by Congress.  The recent agreement is a critical step toward that goal.  If the area were to be inundated with drills and industrial equipment, then it would not qualify for permanent Wilderness protections.

     Not only is the recent agreement a great victory for all who care about Utah’s rugged southwest canyons, but it is also a new and rare example of conservation groups, oil and gas interests, and local governments working together to balance energy development with conservation needs on public lands, according to the Wilderness Society.–April Moore

 

 

 

Desolation Canyon, Utah