Tag: Theodore Roosevelt Conversation Partnership

Politics

Action Opportunity: Comment deadline Monday, July 10, to say ‘hands off our national monuments’
(Courtesy Sequoia Vistors’ Guide)

I received this email from Jessica Strickland, Trout Unlimited’s Field Coordination here in California:

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Monument issue that’s going on and how San Gabriel NM is one of the ones under review.  TU has a huge campaign out right now.  We are working hard to protect the National Monuments being reviewed by the Executive Order to analyze all monuments designated after 1996.  There are six here in California under review, and we’ve been told the most at risk are Giant Sequoia and Cascade-Siskiyou National Monuments.  Giant Sequoia is being reviewed to decreased by 2/3’s in size, which would remove the current protections for many waterways (Upper Kings River, Tule River, and the headwaters of the North Fork Kern River).”

Trout Unlimited has a couple things going on:

National campaign form letter that’s sent to the Dept of the Interior found here: http://www.tu.org/action-center?vvsrc=%2fcampaigns%2f52695%2frespond

OR you can send your comment directly to the DOI here:

https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=DOI-2017-0002-0001

*****

I wrote about the efforts by TU and other conservation organizations back in May and asked readers  to write a letter. Here’s our last chance to voice an opinion. Check out this strong letter that appeared today as inspiration for your own letter.

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Re “Trump can topple national monuments,” Los Angeles Times Opinion, July 6

I’m a scientist and not a lawyer, so I won’t argue the legal claims made by attorneys from a conservative think tank. But the real “magical thinking” is to believe President Trump’s claims that he’s acting in the public interest by opening up dozens of national monuments for “review.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. This is a blatant attempt to industrialize these magnificent places, with the oil, gas, private water and logging industries as the beneficiaries.

The public is not calling for clear cutting in Giant Sequoia National Monument. It has not asked for drilling or fracking in Carrizo Plain or pumping underground water from underneath Mojave Trails. National monuments in California and other states enjoy devoted, widespread local support.

Ileene Anderson is public lands director and senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity in Los Angeles.

See you on the river, Jim Burns

 

Politics

Hands off San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, NGOs say
The old sign.(Courtesy Forest Camping)
And the new. (Courtesy Pasadena Now)

Just as millions joined women’s marches around the country in January to protest the election of President Donald Trump, now more than 100 hunting and fishing business owners and sporting organizations, and a California state congresswoman are reacting to the president’s executive order to review the Antiquities Act.

While the earlier protests were shouted into megaphones and emblazoned on signs, this one is quieter, in the form of a letter to Congress and a renewed attempt at legislation.

” We are writing in support of the Antiquities Act of 1906 and to request that it be used responsibly and in a way that supports the continuation of hunting and fishing in America,” begins the letter, signed by multiple companies across the country, including Abel,  Charlton and Ross reels in Colorado, but only one firm in California.

Four NGOs have lead the effort, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, the National Wildlife Federation, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and Trout Unlimited.

“The outdoor industry accounts for $887 billion in consumer spending and 7.6 million jobs, making it one of the largest economic sectors in the country,” said Jen Ripple, editor in chief of DUN Magazine and a Tennessee resident. “Much of this economic output depends on public lands. Tools for conservation like the Antiquities Act will help ensure that America’s public lands remain not only a great place to hunt and fish but also an important pillar of the hunting and fishing industry.”

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, currently in Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, must produce an interim report in June and make a recommendation on that national monument, and then issue a final report within 120 days.

According to NewsMax,  Trump said the protections imposed by his predecessors “unilaterally put millions of acres of land and water under strict federal control, eliminating the ability of the people who actually live in those states to decide how best to use that land.”

The land-controls have “gotten worse and worse and worse, and now we’re going to free it up, which is what should have happened in the first place,” Trump said at a signing ceremony marking the executive order.

Trump accused Obama in particular of exploiting the 1906 Antiquities Act in an “egregious abuse of federal power,” adding that he was giving power “back to the states and to the people, where it belongs.”

In December, shortly before leaving office, Obama infuriated Utah Republicans by creating the Bears Ears National Monument on more than 1 million acres of land that’s sacred to Native Americans and home to tens of thousands of archaeological sites, including ancient cliff dwellings.

Meanwhile, closer to home the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, created by Obama in 2014, is one of 27 under review, which are mostly in western states. Last week, Rep. Judy Chu (CA-27) reintroduced the San Gabriel Mountains Foothills and Rivers Protection Act, according to Pasadena Now.

“President Trump has declared an open assault on our nation’s natural resources and outdoor spaces in favor of energy companies and oil exploration. Well I will not let him threaten our rivers, forests, wildlife, and outdoor opportunities in the San Gabriel Mountains. That is why I am proud to be reintroducing this bill to establish a National Recreation Area and expand monument designation boundaries, Chu said.”

At the time of its creation, some local conservation groups, including the Arroyo Seco Foundation, wondered why the national monument borders precluded some areas of the San Gabriel Mountains.

In an interview with Jeff Vail, supervisor of the Angeles National Forest and the national monument, that appeared in Sunday’s Pasadena Star-News, readers got a taste for what changes have occurred within the monument.

“The first year, we had five field rangers, last year, we had eight or 10 and this year we are upping that to 14,” he told columnist Steve Scauzillo. “We have a volunteer coordinator, Chris Fabbro. He has been in place now for close to two years. We have new positions, a partnership coordinator and conservation/education coordinator.”

According to Vail, last year Congress appropriated $33 million to his budget, while corporations have donated $5 million since 2014.

If you want to weigh in on why this national monument so close to 14 million Angelinos is important, comments may be submitted online after May 12 at http://www.regulations.gov by entering “DOI-2017-0002” in the search bar and clicking “Search,” or by mail to Monument Review, MS-1530, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1849 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20240.

According to the Interior Department, this is the first-ever formal comment period for Antiquities Act monuments.

See you on the river, Jim Burns

News

Major conservation organization awards philanthropist

 

Bacon
Louis Bacon (Courtesy TRCP)

(Press release) Philanthropist Louis Bacon, Sen. Martin Heinrich, and Sen. James Risch will be recognized at eighth annual awards dinner in April 2016

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership is proud to announce the recipients of our eighth annual Capital Conservation Awards, to be presented on April 27, 2016, to three honorees building a legacy of support for fish and wildlife on Capitol Hill and across the country.

The TRCP’s 2016 Lifetime Conservation Achievement Award will go to Louis Bacon, a conservation philanthropist and founder of The Moore Charitable Foundation, Inc. As the president of MCF and chairman of its affiliate foundations, Bacon has spent more than two decades conserving threatened habitat, protecting open spaces, and safeguarding clean water through the support of more than 200 local, national, and international organizations. He was also instrumental in the founding of the Waterkeeper Alliance, an international organization of over 260 Waterkeeper organizations working across six continents to protect rivers, lakes, and coastal waterways.

Bacon has authorized conservation easements on more than 210,600 acres throughout the United States—including a parcel which is the largest such donation received by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a critical step in the establishment of the Sangre de Cristo Conservation Area as the nation’s 558th unit of the National Wildlife Refuge System. Combined with additional donations authorized by Bacon of conservation easements on Tercio and Red River Ranches, these donations help form a landscape-scale conservation effort of 800,000 acres of protected lands stretching from Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado to northern New Mexico.

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) will be presented with the 2016 James D. Range Conservation Award—named after TRCP’s co-founder and conservation visionary—for their dedication to protecting what sportsmen value from both sides of the aisle in Congress.

An avid sportsman, Sen. Heinrich has championed conservation funding, clean water protections, and the expansion of recreational access to America’s public lands. He is the principal Democratic co-sponsor of the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act, which would reauthorize key conservation programs and protect public access to hunting and fishing, and has staunchly opposed the transfer of national public lands to individual Western states.

Sen. Risch is a leader of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus and has co-sponsored legislation designed to reauthorize key conservation programs, put an end to fire borrowing, and promote renewable energy on public lands. As governor of Idaho, Risch worked with local government, tribes, conservation groups, and sportsmen to author a strong state roadless rule that protects national forests.

The TRCP’s gala event in April will bring together policy-makers, conservation advocates, and outdoor industry leaders at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C.