January 2016 Wilderness news

["Dawn Serra" <dserra@wildernesswatch.org>]

January 2016 Guardian

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January 2016  •  Volume 14, Number 1

“Wilderness, above all its definitions and uses, is sacred space,
with sacred powers, the heart of a moral world.” —Michael Frome

January 28, 2016

Welcome to the Wilderness Guardian, news and information from Wilderness Watch about your National Wilderness Preservation System. Wilderness Watch is America’s leading organization dedicated to defending and keeping wild the nation’s 110 million-acre National Wilderness Preservation System. Our work is guided by the visionary 1964 Wilderness Act. Enjoy!


Idaho Illegally Captures and Collars Wolves in River of No Return Wilderness: 
Last week we alerted you that the Forest Service (FS) had approved a plan by the Idaho Dept. of Fish and Game to use helicopters in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in central Idaho to capture and collar elk. We immediately filed a complaint in federal court (along with Friends of the Clearwater and Western Watersheds Project) to stop this project. Read more in a news article.

A few days ago we learned IDFG used the helicopters to also capture and collar wolves in the Wilderness, another violation of the law and its Forest Service permit. Read more in a news article.

Read a statement from our groups.

Retire Grazing Permits: 
Grazing on public lands has made the national news lately with the Bundys’ armed thugs illegally taking over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. One longer-term solution to grazing problems is to remove cows from our public lands. Wilderness Watch supports the Rural Economic Vitalization Act (REVA, H.R. 3410), a bill that would allow ranchers to waive livestock grazing permits in Wilderness and on other federal public lands, and retire such lands from grazing. H.R. 3410 provides financial compensation for retiring these grazing permits, and could benefit all public lands and Wildernesses that currently allow livestock grazing, one of the more destructive activities allowed on public lands. Read an article.

How you can help:

• Contact your Representative and ask him or her to support the Rural Economic Vitalization Act (REVA)

• Call the White House and tell President Obama to take back our public lands: Comments: 202-456-1111/Switchboard: 202-456-1414

Read a fact-sheet about REVA.

Wilderness in Congress:

Mountain Biking Sign-on Letter. Some mountain bikers and mountain biker organizations are working to introduce legislation in Congress to weaken the Wilderness Act to allow mountain bikes in designated Wildernesses. When Congress passed the Wilderness Act, it intentionally prohibited both motor vehicles and mechanical transport in Wilderness. The Act’s lead sponsor in the House of Representatives, Republican John P. Saylor, stated so clearly: “the stress and strain of our crowded, fast-moving, highly-mechanized and raucously noisy civilization create another great need for wilderness—a deep need for areas of solitude and quiet, for areas of wilderness where life has not yet given way to machinery.”  Read an article about this effort to weaken the Act.

To help counter this very real threat to Wilderness, Wilderness Watch is circulating a group sign-on letter to Congress for organizations to show their support for protecting the Wilderness Act from this attack. Read the sign-on letter. Please email Kevin Proescholdt at Wilderness Watch by January 31 to sign your organization on to this letter. (Please include your organization’s name, and city and state where it is located.) Please help pass the word by also circulating this letter to as many other organizations as you can. We hope to have a very long list of groups sign on, including groups from every state. Many thanks for your support for Wilderness.

ANILCA Oversight Hearing. On December 3, 2015, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held an oversight hearing on the 35^th anniversary of the landmark 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). Among other things, ANILCA designated 56 million acres of Wilderness in Alaska, more than doubling the size of the National Wilderness Preservation System. The hearing witnesses were unfortunately stacked against ANILCA (not surprising, given Committee Chair Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) antagonism towards ANILCA), with only one pro-wilderness witness allowed to testify. But Wilderness Watch prepared and submitted a formal statement for the hearing record to provide additional support for the tremendous conservation accomplishments that ANILCA brought, while also pointing out some of the challenges and unfulfilled promises yet ahead. Read Wilderness Watch’s statement.


“My Best Days have been Climbing!” 
During the Great Recession several years back, Wilderness Watch’s experience was very similar to nonprofits throughout the country. Foundation grants and donations significantly declined. In what would have been our darkest hour, a unique member gave WW an extraordinarily generous gift that instantly righted the ship.

Frances Chamberlin Carter has a deep and abiding love of wild places. She has spent her life hiking and climbing the earth’s most inaccessible places. In 1980, in fact, she became the first woman and the eighth person to climb the highest peak in all 50 U.S. states. Read more about Ms. Carter.

 

Get Social & Help Wilderness Watch Defend Wilderness: 
Wilderness Watch has expanded our social media efforts on Facebook and Twitter and we could use your help to spread the word! One of our goals in 2016 is to better position ourselves to put more people into action when Wilderness threats or opportunities arise, and the fast-paced world of social media will help us do that. 

You can find us on Twitter @WildernessWatch and connect with us on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/wildernesswatch64. Please give us a ‘like’ and a ‘follow’ and make sure to let your friends know that Wilderness Watch’s social media sites are a group source for the latest news, updates, and action alerts about America’s Wilderness system. Thanks for helping us #KeepItWild!

Help Protect a Wilder Yosemite: 
Yosemite National Park (YNP) is accepting public scoping comments on its Wilderness Stewardship Plan/Environmental Impact Statement until 1/29/16. The Yosemite Wilderness is 704,000 acres and makes up 94 percent of the Park. The Park Service has raised four issues in the scoping letter—visitor use and capacity, stock use, trail management, and commercial services. These are important issues that are all related to overuse.

If you’d like to help try to shape future management at YNP, you can submit your comments online. We encourage you to ask the Park Service to:

• respect the intent of the Wilderness Act to limit commercial services in Wilderness;

• stop routine use of helicopters and other motorized equipment in the Wilderness;

• remove nonconforming structures and uses in potential wilderness within the Park and designate those areas as Wilderness.

• ensure that all alternatives preserve and maintain wilderness character, and require the Park Service to better manage visitor use. Natural processes must be allowed to define the character of the wilderness.

Thank you for taking action to help preserve the Yosemite Wilderness.

Read Wilderness Watch’s comments.

WW Concerned About Sonic Weapons Blasting in Wildernesses:
Wilderness Watch has been concerned about a U.S. Navy plan to blast the Olympic Peninsula with sonic weapons, including within five Wildernesses: Olympic (Olympic National Park), Colonel Bob, Washington Islands, Lake Chelan-Sawtooth, and the Pasayten. The Navy’s Environmental Assessment fails to discuss the impacts to these Wildernesses. Additionally, we believe flight paths outside the project area will potentially affect the Stephen Mather, Glacier Peak, Mount Baker, Noisy Diobsud, Boulder River, Henry M. Jackson, Wild Sky, Alpine Lakes, and San Juan Islands Wildernesses as well. We have urged the Forest Service to complete an Environmental Impact Statement analyzing the impacts to Wilderness. Read Wilderness Watch's comments. Sign a petition.

Just for Fun: Stargazing

to help us protect Wilderness around the country.


Photos:  Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness by Kevin Proescholdt; Public lands grazing by George Wuerthner; Frances Carter and her husband Dave on Montana’s highest mountain—Granite Peak.; Yosemite Wilderness by George Wuerthner; Lake Chelan-Sawtooth Wilderness by CutOffTies at English Wikipedia.

WILDERNESS WATCH is America’s only organization dedicated to defending and keeping wild the nation’s 110 million-acre National Wilderness Preservation System. Our work is guided by the visionary 1964 Wilderness Act.

CONTACT Wilderness Watch

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Wilderness Watch
PO Box 9175
Missoula, Montana 59807
US