National Landscape Conservation Act Gets a Vote

Crossposted from UNBOSSED

I’ve been told that the National Landscape Conservation Act is finally going to get a vote.  Next Wednesday, April 9, 2008.

Its about time.

The National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) was created back in 2000 by then Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbit:

In June 2000, the National Landscape Conservation System - the most innovative American land system created in the last 40 years - was established to protect the crown jewels of the public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

The 26 million-acre Conservation System includes more than 800 individual units: 15 National Monuments, 13 National Conservation Areas, Steens Mountain Cooperative Management Protection Area in Oregon, Headwaters Forest Reserve in northern California, 38 Wild and Scenic Rivers, 183 Wilderness Areas, more than 5,100 miles of National Scenic and Historic Trails, and 604 Wilderness Study Areas.

The mission of the National Landscape Conservation System is to "conserve, protect, and restore these nationally significant landscapes that have outstanding cultural, ecological, and scientific values for the benefit of current and future generations."

Conservation hero Rep. Grijalva from southern Arizona is sponsoring the bill along with 67 co-sponsors.

The bill is intended to protect places like

The Steens Mountains

The Vermillion Cliffs

The Snake River

Kasha-Katuwe

The Ironwood Forest

and MANY others.

Since its creation almost nine years ago, the NLCS has languished from lack of funding and lack of attention.  While the Bush Administration’s BLM has turned nearly its entire focus to issuing drilling to permits to multi-billion dollar oil and gas companies, volunteers have done their best to pick up the slack  when it comes to managing public lands.  Grijalva’s bill would be a big step towards changing that situation for the better.

A few weeks ago the Christian Science Monitor laid out exactly what Grijalva’s bill would do:

The congressional stamp of approval also would create a systematic way to manage these areas. Currently, the 860 disparate units don't have the same designations or protections. Some were created by states, others by various departments of the federal government.

says Elena Daly, BLM's director of the NLCS in Washington. "It gives us legislative authority to exist and would require legislative action to undo. It would put us on par with National Park Service."

Its fairly simple stuff that should have been done years ago.  

Please, get your calls in to your representative and demand that they support H.R 2016 when it comes to vote next week.

UPDATE  (boy, that was fast....I forgot this): Jodi Peterson also picked up on this over at the High Country News blog. She points to two articles published by High Country News over the last few years highlighting the problems the NLCS has faced. Here are the links:

linky one

linky two