Urgent Attention is Needed to Preserve & Protect Public Lands

From an Article by Carole King, Opinion Editorial, New York Times, August 25, 2022

Ms. King is a singer, songwriter, author and environmental advocate.

My career as a songwriter began in Manhattan, not far from where I was born. When I moved to Los Angeles in 1968, I became part of the singer-songwriter community that coalesced around Laurel Canyon. I thought California would be wild in the sense of nature. It turned out to be wild in the sense of drugs and parties. I wanted to live close to the kind of wild nature that must exist somewhere on a large scale. Somewhere turned out to be Idaho.

In 1977 I moved to a mobile home on Robie Creek, a 40-minute drive from Boise. For the next three years, I lived in the backcountry northeast of McCall in a cabin with no running water or electricity. After that I lived adjacent to the Salmon River for 38 years, with a national forest as my nearest neighbor.

The future of America’s national forests is being shaped now. The Biden administration is developing a system to inventory old-growth and mature forests on federal land that the president wants to be completed by next April. But given the immediate threats facing many of these forests and their importance to slowing climate change, bold action is required immediately to preserve not just old-growth and mature trees but entire national forest ecosystems comprising thousands of interdependent species.

President Biden should issue an executive order immediately directing his secretaries of the interior and agriculture to take all steps available to them to stop commercial logging on public land. We can’t wait a year.

One of the best technologies to store carbon is an unlogged forest with minimal human intrusion. Forests sequester vast amounts of carbon in the trunks, leaves and roots of trees of all ages and sizes and the soil beneath them. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and water from the air and ground and through the process of photosynthesis release oxygen into the air. It costs nothing to leave them as they are. Allowing commercial logging to continue in our national forests would also be a catastrophe for the biodiversity they contain.

The order I propose would bring about a significant reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide. And it will help the United States meet the requirements of the Paris agreement, which Mr. Biden rejoined on the first day of his presidency. Even with the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, he will fall short of his promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 50 to 52 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. Cutting more forests isn’t going to help hit that mark.

Last fall, over 200 climate scientists from around the country sent Mr. Biden a letter underscoring the consequences if timber harvesting continues in the national forests. They wrote that “greenhouse gas emissions from logging in U.S. forests are now comparable to the annual” carbon dioxide “emissions from U.S. coal burning.” Protecting federal forestlands from logging, on the other hand, would remove 84 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year, they wrote.

My experience in Idaho led me to become involved as a volunteer in the ongoing effort to protect a bioregion of 23 million acres of nationally owned public land in Idaho, Montana, Washington, Oregon and Wyoming by means of the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act.

That legislation would designate corridors for the safe passage of wildlife between existing wilderness and roadless areas on federal forestland. It was proposed by scientists in the late 1980s who understood that protecting and connecting large-scale forest ecosystems is necessary for species to thrive. Despite the legislation receiving some bipartisan support in past years, it has not been enacted in the nearly 30 years since it was introduced.

Forest preservation is a climate solution. That’s why we need action to safeguard the forests on the public lands we all share. Federal law requires that most public lands be managed for multiple uses, such as recreation, gas and oil development, mining and logging. But this longstanding policy is running headlong into efforts to slow the warming of our planet.

Forests on federally owned land are being destroyed at breakneck speed by heavy equipment that can saw through a tree, strip its branches and set that tree on a pile of logs in the time it took me to type this sentence.

The effects of the climate crisis are undeniable. People are suffering, and the scale of the problem sometimes makes us feel helpless. But the public can do something right now by asking Mr. Biden — in numbers too big to ignore — to use all of his powers to stop the logging of the nation’s mature and old-growth forests.

In 1970, my collaborator Toni Stern wrote the lyrics to my most popular song, “It’s Too Late.” That title should not refer to the climate. That’s why, at age 80, I’m using my voice to call on Mr. Biden to stop commercial logging in our national forests. Please add your voice to mine.

>>> A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 26, 2022, Section A, Page 18 of the New York edition with the headline: Leave Forests Alone, Before It’s Too Late.

Veterinarian Gundi Rhoades lives in Inverell, NSW, Australia

From an Article by Gundi Rhoades, Sydney Morning Herald, December 26, 2019

Bulls cannot breed at Inverell. They are becoming infertile from their testicles overheating. Mares are not falling pregnant, and through the heat, piglets and calves are aborting.

My work as a veterinarian has changed so much. While I would normally test bulls for fertility, or herds of cattle for pregnancy, I no longer do, because the livestock has been sold. A client’s stud stock in Inverell has reduced from 2000 breeders to zero.

I once assisted farmers who have spent their lives developing breeding programs, with historic bloodlines that go back 80 years. These stud farmers are now left with a handful of breeders that they can’t bear to part with, spending thousands keeping them fed, and going broke doing it.

Cattle that sold for thousands are now in the sale yards at $70 a head. Those classed as too skinny for sale are costing the farmer $130 to be destroyed. They are all gone and it was all for nothing. The paddocks are bare, the dams dry, the grass crispy and brown. The whole region has been completely destocked and is devoid of life.

For 22 years, I have been the vet in this once-thriving town in northern NSW, which, as climate change continues to fuel extreme heat, drought and bushfires, has become hell on Earth.

Here, we are seeing extreme weather events like never before. The other day we had about eight centimetres of rain in 20 minutes. These downpours are like rain bombs. They are so ferocious that a farmer lost all of his fences, and all it did was silt up the dam so he had to use a machine to excavate the mud.

Most farmers in my district have not a blade of grass remaining on their properties. Topsoil has been blown away by the terrible, strong winds this spring and summer. We have experienced the hottest days that I can remember, and right now I can’t even open any windows because my eyes sting and lungs hurt from bushfire smoke.

For days, I have watched as the bushland around us went up like a tinderbox. I just waited for the next day when my clinic would be flooded with evacuated dogs, cats, goats and horses in desperate need of water and food.

The impact of the drought on wildlife is devastating to watch, too. Members of the public are bringing us koalas, sugar gliders, possums, galahs, cockatoos and kangaroos on a daily basis.

The koalas affect me the most. To see these gorgeous, iconic animals dying from thirst is too hard to bear. We save some, but we lose just as many.

The whole town is devastated. My business has halved. But with no horses to breed, no cattle to test and care for, what am I going to do? I have worked day and night to build a future for my family, but who would want to buy our property out here? Who would want to buy a vet clinic in a town where there are no animals to treat because it’s too hot and dry? Where the cattle become infertile from the 40-degree heat. All this on black, baked ground.

I am 53 years old. Can I start again?

Climate change for us is every day, and I am not suffering on the same level as my friends, my clients and the helpless animals I treat. As a veterinarian I am becoming more and more distressed, not just about the state of my town, but the whole world.

Bushfire smoke moves over Inverell.

Personally, I have had weeks when I just cry. It just bloody hurts me. I also have times when I get really angry and I start to swear, which I have never done in my life.

I also have times when I think about the potential this country has to create a renewable future with clean, green energy, and end our reliance on fossil fuels.

You only have to look at how resilient our farmers are in the face of devastating, extreme weather conditions to understand that we can make a powerful, meaningful difference to our future.

The government has no idea what it’s like for us. It has no empathy. Its members don’t know how much it hurts when they just say yes to another coal mine.

I would invite Scott Morrison (Prime Minister) to come and see what life in Inverell is like. In case he chooses not to, I’ll paint this picture for the country and hope people can start to realise and understand the devastating impact climate change is having. I hope they will take a stand for the people, the places and the animals whose voices are too small for him to hear.

>>> Gundi Rhoades is a veterinarian, scientist, mother, beef cattle farmer and member of Veterinarians for Climate Action.

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See also: ‘The Darling River will die’: Scientists say mass fish kill due to over-extraction and drought | The Guardian, February 18, 2019

Are birds made of paper, to be manipulated?

Editorial of the Morgantown Dominion Post, May 14, 2018

EPA & Interior policy shifts focused on economics, not health or wildlife

Protecting the environment and wildlife often calls for balancing benefits and costs. No, it’s not written as such into relevant legal codes or regulations. And though this tradeoff is almost a matter of course for wildlife, it’s also apparent in many decisions for humans. However, the nation’s Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency are about to put an exclamation mark on that idea.

First, Interior is about to change how agencies under its umbrella enforce the more than 100-year-old Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Formerly, potential penalties served as incentive for businesses and agriculture to take reasonable measures to avoid killing birds. For instance, installing netting over oil waste pits or restricting certain pesticides spare thousands of birds annually. In other words, taking reasonable steps at a reasonable cost to protect bird populations.

But now, the Interior Department has decided it will only prosecute those that “d e l i b e r a t e l y” kill birds, not those that kill them by “accident.” This treaty has never attempted to altogether end the deaths of birds from unintentional consequences (wind turbines, skyscrapers, vehicles and power lines come to mind). There’s an unwritten understanding that such deaths are unavoidable. What this treaty does is aim to prevent those deaths that can be prevented. But to argue that gross negligence does not translate into criminal intent is as good as a blank check to ignore practical protections for birds.

Meanwhile, the EPA is intent on putting a price tag on the protections the Clean Air Act provides for breathing. The EPA now wants to calculate what the economic impact of your need to breathe clean air is.

Formerly, federal law and court decisions have required the EPA to focus on public health — not what it cost businesses or tax revenues — to set limits on pollution. Now, before defining regulations on pollution, smog, soot, etc. it will need to determine their impact on the economy. We don’t have a problem with having all the facts about such issues, but protecting public health should win every argument.

The EPA was never a perfect agency but once it cared as much about the environment as it now does the ability of polluters to get rich. This shifting of the principles of the EPA and the Interior Department to “reform” regulations can only muddy their efforts. What is clear though, is these policies tip the scales for wreaking havoc on clean air and wildlife.

Endangered Species Day is this Friday! You can set up a fundraising page and personalize it to raise money on behalf of your favorite vulnerable species. The money you raise will go towards Sierra Club’s mission, which includes protecting vulnerable wildlife and the lands they live in. Bonus — you’ll earn the chance to symbolically adopt your own wild animal when you reach the $39 fundraising milestone*.

I hope you’ll join!

>> Jenny Muschinske, Team Sierra Coordinator,
jenny.muschinske@sierraclub.org

*When you pass the $39 fundraising milestone, I’ll send you a coupon code to redeem your adoptable animal. Shipping is US only and takes 5-10 business days. Join in here.

Access roads & land disturbances are real problems

From the WV Rivers Coalition, January 16, 2018

A bill to allow commercial logging in West Virginia’s State Parks, Senate Bill 270, was introduced in the WV Legislature at the request of Governor Justice. This bill would end an 80-year ban on logging in West Virginia’s State Parks. Contact the Governor now, tell him you oppose lifting the logging ban!

Send a Letter

The bill is an ill-conceived plan to log our parks, presented as a way to pay for park maintenance — but it risks destroying the Wild & Wonderful places we love.

Take action now! ASAP send the Governor a letter. After you’ve sent your letter, amplify your voice by calling the Governor’s Office at 304-558-2000 and share your concerns about logging our state parks.

For more information, check out the Save Our State Parks webpage, and email info@wvpubliclands.org.