Save The West   The West   Global Warming     You Can Help
 

Facing the Future:
A New Land Ethic And New Tools To Protect The West From Global Warming

We can help protect our scarce water supplies and wildlife in the West from global warming – but we must act now, while we still have time.

The reality of global warming demands a new vision – a new land ethic – of how we manage the 300+ million acres of federal public lands in the West. SaveTheWest.org promotes the following specific steps as part of this new land ethic:

Place a priority on managing western public lands to protect water supplies and wildlife habitats.

     

Develop new tools to reduce stressors on the landscape and improve the resilience of habitats and water sources.

     

Industries that benefit from our public lands must “give back to the land.”

     

•Current laws and policies do not require such protection, and are inadequate to address the new threat of global warming.

•The new Administration taking office in 2009 will have an historic opportunity to reevaluate and change current policies to address global warming – if the public requires it.

•Public demand for new protections on our western lands is vital to ensure the new administration takes the necessary actions.

•Some historic practices are stressing the land by reducing water sources, fragmenting wildlife habitats, and allowing weed invasions.

•Many of these practices require large subsidies. Federal money should no longer be spent on practices that harm the land, but on practices that help it.

•We need to encourage – and pay – people to help the land by becoming better stewards. This requires new programs and new institutions.

•Fairness and the reality of global warming demand that the energy industry return some of its profits to help protect western public lands.

•This new funding will be used to reduce other stressors on the landscape, such as voluntary livestock grazing permit retirements.

•New funding can also pay land owners to set aside key water supplies and habitats for permanent protection, or to restore areas damaged by fire or other impacts.

These steps are reasonable, feasible, and offer tangible benefits to protect water supplies and wildlife in the West from the effects of global warming. But they will not happen unless you and others demand it.

Please join SaveTheWest.org in calling for a new land ethic to adopt these steps to protect The West from global warming!

next page

 

For information, email: info@savethewest.org

© 2008 Save The West.org

Featured Photograph © Matt Barney