Helping Farmers Who Help Wildlife

August 4 – The extreme flooding of 2011 has affected thousands of Americans. Year to date, there have been 47 declared disasters and emergencies in the U.S. in response to the impacts of severe storms and flooding. These events have taken lives, destroyed communities and racked up millions, if not billions, of dollars in damages.

Here is a look at how the floods have impacted one sector of the economy, and how the solutions NWF helped craft made a real difference for people and wildlife.

Major Victory for Salmon

August 3 – A U.S. District Court judge ruled yesterday that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Service failed for the third time in 10 years to produce a legal and scientifically adequate plan (biological opinion) to protect imperiled Columbia-Snake River salmon from extinction.

“For a decade now, we have been advocating for real solutions to save salmon,” said John Kostyack, Vice President of Wildlife Conservation at the National Wildlife Federation. “With salmon populations hovering near 1 percent of their historic levels, the time for half-measures and vague promises is over.

Climate Change Hurts Indian Tribes Disproportionately, Report Finds

August 3 – North American Indian Tribes are especially harmed by climate change, as more ecological shifts and more frequent, more extreme weather events occur. Because Tribes are heavily dependent on natural resources, severe weather events like droughts, floods, wildfires, and snowstorms make tribal communities particularly vulnerable and impact Native Americans more than they impact the general population.

“Extreme weather events can be very destructive for Tribes, many of whom are already suffering from lack of resources to begin with,” said Dr. Amanda Staudt, scientist, National Wildlife Federation. “Heat waves and droughts can exacerbate plant and wildlife mortality, heighten the risk of wildfires and habitat loss, and compromise tribal lands.”

Science Solid: America’s Polar Bears on Thin Ice

August 2 – The Bureau of Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) has reportedly placed on administrative leave Dr. Charles Monnett, a wildlife biologist, pending an internal investigation into “integrity issues.” Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) has alleged the probe is a “political attempt to impugn [Dr. Monnett’s] observations on polar bears’ vulnerability to retreating sea ice.”

“When it comes to science demonstrating the threat to polar bears posed by global warming, this study is only the tip of the iceberg,” said Dr. Doug Inkley, senior scientist with the National Wildlife Federation. “There’s a massive body of established scientific evidence showing receding Arctic sea ice is putting polar bears in greater danger with each passing year.”

Wildlife Bears Heavy Burden Under Debt Ceiling Deal

August 2 – Legislation to raise the debt ceiling and cut federal spending passed Congress today and was signed into law by President Obama. The deal imposes discretionary budget program caps, resulting in reductions for the Departments of Interior, Agriculture and Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, and other agencies that focus on conservation.

“The deal to resolve the Congressional debt ceiling crisis and avoid the catastrophe of a national default is clearly a relief for America,” said Larry Schweiger, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. But moving forward, members of Congress must remember the heavier a burden our conservation programs are forced to bear in the short term, the higher a risk we face in the long term – not just in higher public health costs, but in jeopardizing the wildlife and special places that generations of Americans have protected and handed down to their children and grandchildren.”

And here are highlights from NWF in the News:

• The New York Times: Climate Change an Extra Burden for Native Americans, Study Says
• The National Journal: U.S. Oil Giants Poised to Gain on Keystone Pipeline

For more, visit www.nwf.org/News

Now, endangered salmon are facing yet another challenge – one which most people don’t know about.

Starting this year, Exxon Mobil is planning to barge over 200 loads of Korean-made massive mining equipment (two-thirds the length of a football field, three stories high, 24 feet wide, and weighing up to 650,000 pounds!) up the Columbia and Snake rivers, and then transport it on super-sized trucks through Idaho and Montana to the tar sands oil operations in the boreal forest of Alberta, Canada.

And somehow, these plans have quietly moved forward with little environmental review or public input so far.

The proposed route includes the Lewis & Clark Trail, a National Scenic By-way, a Wild & Scenic River corridor, and the famed Blackfoot River of “A River Runs Through It.” If you’ve ever travelled the narrow mountain and valley roads in Idaho and Montana, you might be as baffled me as to how they are going to transport such massive loads. It’s apparent that these shipments will block traffic and access to emergency services, and disrupt local businesses. Construction and potential accidents will inevitably impact these special places and the fish and wildlife that depend on them.

Besides the impacts to the states along this route, these shipments will speed up Canadian dirty tar sands oil production — one of the most destructive and polluting industrial projects on earth. Oil companies are digging up pristine boreal forest and leaving behind huge toxic wastelands, posing a deadly threat to migrating waterfowl and other wildlife. Woodland caribou populations have already plummeted 70%, moose populations have dropped 60%, and scientists estimate bird mortality from the toxic tar sands lakes could be 8,000 to 100,000 birds a year.

The Canadian tar sands project is also one of the largest contributors on earth to climate disruption, creating global warming pollution three times that of conventional oil projects and devastating one of the best carbon storage sites on the planet: Canada’s Boreal Forest.  The enormous amounts of carbon that tar sands mining adds to our atmosphere is further heating up the waters that salmon rely on.

According to recently released documents, if this project is approved, other companies are planning to immediately use this route to transport their tar sands machinery to Canada. If it’s not stopped, Big Oil will have a permanent industrial shipping route through the Pacific Northwest to the environmental disaster that is the Alberta tar sands.

Lots of questions must be answered before permission should be granted. How will endangered salmon be affected? What are the risks and potential impacts to local businesses, communities and our natural resources?  We cannot stand quietly by while Big Oil turns our rivers and roads into a conveyer belt for one of the world’s largest environmental disasters.

TAKE ACTION: Insist upon a full federal environmental review and analysis of this project, including impacts to endangered wild salmon.

When Lewis and Clark arrived on the banks of the Snake River in 1805, the Columbia Basin of the Pacific Northwest boasted the greatest salmon stocks on Earth – up to 30 million salmon returned home each year. It must have been quite a sight!

Today, however, populations linger near just one percent of that historic number. Every run of salmon and steelhead on the Snake River are either extinct or listed under the Endangered Species Act.

As a Pacific Northwesterner, the impacts of the salmon crisis on our economy, ecology and culture are very apparent. Wild salmon support rural communities and tribal cultures, stable jobs, world-renowned fishing opportunities and thriving communities.

Over the last several decades, we have seen the federal government repeatedly fail to develop a lawful, science-based, and economical plan to restore endangered salmon to abundance. A lack of leadership from many elected officials has left our wild salmon and West Coast communities that rely on them high and dry.

Fortunately, President Obama and Congress now have a rare opportunity to bring together fishing, farming,energy interests and others to collaboratively solve this long-running conflict in a way that restores salmon, creates jobs, and invests in our communities and a clean energy economy.

Within just a few weeks, the Obama Administration will decide whether to “stay the course” on the Bush Administration’s failed federal plan or to chart a new path that helps both people and salmon flourish.

They need to hear from you –tell the Obama Administration that it’s time for a salmon plan that works.

Salmon recovery in the Columbia and Snake Basin is still possible, but it depends on immediate and strong actions to counter threats to their survival. Let’s make sure that our iconic Columbia and Snake River salmon survive today and thrive tomorrow.

To make matters worse, prominent orca scientists agree that Puget Sound’s endangered orcas won’t recover without a lot more salmon to eat–and those salmon must come from the Columbia and Snake Rivers.

NWF is gathering as many messages from the general public during the federal comment period to help protect the iconic salmon of the Pacific Northwest and the orcas that depend upon them. The time is now for us to show NOAA and our elected leaders that wild salmon and orcas are national treasures that must be protected and restored.

If you can, please forward this link to friends or post it on your blog or website to help spark as many actions as possible!