From Missouri, Coalition slowly planning way to pay for protecting North Fork of Flathead
WHITEFISH – A plan to forever protect Canadian wildlands north of Glacier National Park – and to pay for those protections – is slowly taking shape, cobbled together by an international coalition that includes local, state and federal partners.
The group has sketched a strategy for preserving the Canadian Flathead, which for decades has been threatened by coal mine proposals. Locals on both sides of the border have argued against industrialization of the wilderness, and Montana’s downstream interests have worried pollution would flow south.
The Canadian Flathead crosses the international border at Glacier’s northwest corner, and forms the park’s western boundary before pouring into Flathead Lake.
Earlier this year, Gov. Brian Schweitzer hammered out a deal with British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell, protecting the Flathead from mines and development.
The home page of the Flathead Coalition. The Flathead forms the western boundary of Glacier National Park.
Gulf farmers asked to flood fields for migrating birds
A federal conservation agency said Monday that it would begin paying some gulf region farmers and ranchers to flood their fields so that migratory birds can find alternative rest and nesting grounds to oil-fouled habitats.
The Migratory Bird Habitat Initiative will pay to use up to 150,000 acres of land “to provide feeding, loafing and resting areas for migratory birds,” according to an announcement by the Agriculture Department’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.
The program applies mainly to former wetlands and low-lying land in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas. Conservation officials are hoping to attract birds to safe areas before they land on shores and wetlands contaminated by the massive oil spill.
We’ll have to wait for the study for the exact numbers in terms of impact, but the pollution along the Gulf is bound to effect migratory birds for years.
Funding available for longleaf pine ecosystem conservation
The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is offering financial assistance to landowners to implement conservation practices that will maintain, improve, and restore the longleaf pine ecosystem in east Texas.
Offered through the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP), NRCS will pay landowners for most of the cost of installing conservation practices to improve the health and extent of the longleaf pine ecosystem.
“Research tells us that the longleaf pine ecosystem is one of the most diverse ecosystems outside the tropics and is in a state of decline in both ecosystem area and health,” said Don Gohmert, NRCS state conservationist for Texas. “With only 3 percent of the original 90 million acres remaining in the longleaf pine ecosystem, it is home to 29 species that are Federally listed as threatened and/or endangered.”
Longleaf pine in natural stands ( as compared to landscaping) is often a sign of a mature ecosystem. One that has, over the course of many years, reached a state of dynamic equilibrium.
A Push to Set Aside Offshore Drilling Money for Conservation
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – While efforts to stop or divert the flow of oil from the blown-out well in the Gulf continue, there’s another effort to stop the diversion of funds from offshore oil royalties. Some in New Mexico want to see Congress fully fund the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, that they believe has been under-funded for years. The state’s U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman heads the Energy and Natural Resource Committee which is looking at new regulations for offshore drilling.
Former New Mexico Game and Fish Department head Jerry Maracchini hopes they’ll add language to fully fund the conservation program.
“Take some of that money and put it back in our environment. This is the only country in the world that has tremendous public managed recreation areas and refuges, and they’re sorely underfunded. It’d be money well spent to permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund.”
He says the fund has used offshore oil money to preserve a number of places New Mexicans may be familiar with, including the Aztec ruins, Blue Water Canyon and Tent Rocks National Monument. A preservation project in Petroglyph National Monument has been held up for several years because of a lack of funds.
Petroglyph National Monument is the park distinguished by its…..petroglyphs or rock carvings.
Healthier foods and more exercise in schools may lower diabetes risk, study finds
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