Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Max Baucus (D-MT) have introduced legislation to permanently provide $900 million to the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), the federal government's main program to protect land and provide outdoor recreation opportunities. The legislation, S. 2747, is supported by a broad coalition of conservation and recreation organizations.

The LWCF, created in 1965, has helped protect land at some of America's most famous and popular places including our country's iconic national parks, national forests, wildlife refuges and National Landscape Conservation System Lands where millions of Americans recreate; beaches on the Gulf Coast and Atlantic seaboard; as well as cultural and historic places like Civil War battlefields and Native American sites.

The program also includes grants to support state and local parks. Those grants help develop park facilities and recreational amenities - creating jobs and supporting the quality-of-life factors that allow communities to attract employers and a strong work force.

We get to protect places like Rocky Fork Tennessee and Catawba Falls North Carolina at the same time that we improve parks, trails, ball fields, and pools - that's a win for everyone.

Every year, $900 million goes into the fund from oil and gas leases on federal lands. Because only a fraction of the funds dedicated to the purpose have actually been spent, there is a backlog of more than $30 billion worth of lands that federal agencies would like to protect. In addition, states say they have a huge unmet need for local parks and recreation resources totaling more than $27 billion in eligible projects.

The irony is that billions of dollars are collected every year from existing offshore oil and gas leasing revenues – the designated revenue stream for LWCF – and yet that money is regularly diverted for other purposes. We need to make sure the money is spent for the purposes for which it was originally collected and to ensure that our children and grandchildren have a place to play.

Federal and state public lands as well local parks and recreation facilities greatly enhance communities' quality of life, which in turn helps large and small localities to attract new residents and businesses and to generate tourism-related jobs and revenues. Outdoor recreation including hunting, fishing, camping, climbing, hiking, paddling, backcountry skiing, mountain biking, wildlife viewing, and other activities contributes a total of $730 billion annually to the economy, supporting 6.5 million jobs (1 of every 20 jobs in the U.S.) and stimulates 8 percent of all consumer spending according to the Outdoor Industry Foundation.

The Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition, in its association with Eastern Forest Partners and the Land and Water Conservation Fund Coalition work together to support full and dedicated funding for LWCF.

Labels: Conservation, LWCF, Rocky Fork, TN

Coalition Files Suit to Restore Protections Stripped Away by Bush

WASHINGTON- A coalition of conservation groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of Blackwater, Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition, The Wilderness Society, and Wild South, filed suit today in federal court in Washington, D.C., seeking to overturn a Bush-administration decision stripping the West Virginia Northern Flying Squirrel of protection under the Endangered Species Act.

"We're going to bat for 'Ginny,' the West Virginia northern flying squirrel who should never have been stripped of federal protection," said Judy Rodd, director of Friends of Blackwater, a West Virginia-based conservation group. "The decision to take the flying squirrel off the endangered species list was a political move, to allow more destruction of the squirrel's forest habitat for timbering, energy extraction, and development."

The decision to delist the squirrel ignored a scientifically based recovery plan for the species. Recovery plans are required under the Endangered Species Act to have measurable criteria for determining when a species' endangered status should be changed, and are developed by a recovery team made up of scientific experts on the species and its habitat. The rule removing protection for the squirrel acknowledged that not all recovery criteria from the recovery plan were met.

"The decision to remove protection for the West Virginia flying squirrel flies in the face of the science on the species," said Mary Krueger of The Wilderness Society. "With the filing of this lawsuit, we hope the Obama administration will move quickly to restore protections for the flying squirrel."

To justify removing protections for the squirrel, the Bush administration claimed that threats to the squirrel have been alleviated. In making this conclusion, however, they ignored climate change models showing decline for the cool mountaintop forests the West Virginia northern flying squirrel calls home.

"Climate change is a serious threat to the West Virginia northern flying squirrel and countless other species," said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "When you're a species that lives at the top of the mountain and the forest beneath you disappears because the climate is warming, you've got nowhere else to go. Even the flying squirrel can only glide so far."
The organizations are represented by Meyer, Glitzenstein & Crystal, a Washington, D.C. public-interest law firm.