The Road-RIPorter, Winter Solstice 2006
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© 2006 Wildlands CPR
Wildlands CPR works to protect and restore wildland ecosystems by preventing and removing roads and limiting motorized recreation. We are a national clearinghouse and network, providing citizens with tools and strategies to fght road construction,deter motorized recreation, and promote road removal and revegetation.
P.O. Box 7516Missoula, MT 59807(406) 543-9551 www.wildlandscpr.org
Director
Bethanie Walder
Development Director
Tom Petersen
Restoration ProgramCoordinator
Marnie Criley
Science Coordinator
Adam Switalski
NTWC Forest CampaignCoordinator
Jason Kiely
Transportation Policy Coordinator
Tim Peterson
Program Assistant
Cathy Adams
Newsletter
Dan Funsch & Marianne Zugel
Interns & Volunteers
Carla Abrams, Mike Fiebig, Laura Harris, Anna Holden, Noah Jackson, Gini Porter, Tiany Saleh
Board of Directors
Amy Atwood, Greg Fishbein, Jim Furnish, William Geer, Dave Havlick, Rebecca Lloyd, Cara Nelson,Sonya Newenhouse, Patrick Parenteau
Advisory Committee
Jasper Carlton, Dave Foreman,Keith Hammer, Timothy Hermach,Marion Hourdequin, Kraig Klungness, Lorin Lind- ner, Andy Mahler, Robert McConnell, Stephanie Mills, Reed Noss, Michael Soulé, Steve Trombulak,Louisa Willcox, Bill Willers, Howie Wolke
W
hile we’ve tried to avoid ocusing too much on politics within the pages o theRoad-RIPorter, Tuesday November 7 was certainly an upliting day or thoseo us who care about environmental protection. Not only did voters changecontrol o both houses o Congress rom republican to democratic, but some o the mostaggressively anti-environment representatives lost their seats this year, including Con-gressman Richard Pombo rom Caliornia, Congressman Charles Taylor rom North Caro-lina and Senator Rick Santorum rom Pennsylvania. Representative Pombo, in particular,had led an all-out assault on the Endangered Species Act and on the concept o publiclands itsel, with his numerous proposals to sell o public lands to private interests.The loss o these pro-business, pro-privatization members o Congress gives Wild-lands CPR sta some hope that we might nally be able to usher in a new era o restora-tion on our public lands. This hope comes not only rom having more environmentallyconscious olks in elected oce, but rom the act that conservationists might not needto dedicate quite as much time to deending our bedrock environmental laws like the En-dangered Species Act. I this new Congress even stays mum on the environment, it wouldree up a signicant amount o time to work on proactive, restorative strategies. For thepast six years, conservationists have been ocused on deense, deense, deense. Whilethreats and challenges won’t go away completely, conservationists and conservationunders now have an opportunity to move orward with a restoration agenda. And whilethis should be a broad agenda, there is one vital element that it must include: Dedicatedrestoration unding.O course, any restoration work that proceeds on public lands must comply withenvironmental laws like the National Environmental Policy Act. But it is not these legalquestions that have proven most dicult in implementing restoration programs, it is thelack o dedicated, appropriated dollars or restoration. I we can increase the undingagencies put into restoration, then we will see many more restoration programs imple-mented on the ground, projects like the one highlighted in the cover story o this issue o
The RIPorter
.This story about collaborative restoration and conservation on the Giord PinchotNational Forest provides a model we can learn rom. The Giord Pinchot Task Forceset out to change the way the public and the agency were approaching national orestmanagement, and especially restoration, and they have largely succeeded. Their biggestchallenge now, to complete the work they want to complete, is nding additional unding.Congress has been willing to subsidize timber sales and road construction or decadesand decades — now it’s time to shit those allocations to watershed restoration. Not onlywill this enable us to restore the land that is so vital to our health, but i we take a holisticapproach to restoration, it may also allow us to heal long-standing rits in resource-de-pendent communities, as people realize the economic and ecological gains that can comerom investing in on-the-ground restoration projects.
Converting recently purchased orange groves into productive wildlie habitat or the birds o Pelican Island, FL. Photo courtesy o U.S. Fish & Wildlie Service.
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