Growing Returns

Selected tag(s): greater sage-grouse

How the farm bill helps landowners and wildlife thrive together

By Sara Brodnax / Bio / Published: June 27, 2018

This week, the Senate advanced a farm bill that includes many important provisions for conservation on America’s working farms, ranches and forestlands. Among these provisions is language codifying the Working Lands for Wildlife program that helps farmers and ranchers restore habitat for at-risk wildlife. It’s the first time the program has been formally recognized in the farm bill.

Thanks to the work of private landowners, conservation groups, tribes, and state and government agencies, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided in September 2015 to remove the New England cottontail from the endangered species candidate list due to recovery. (Photo credit: Brian Tefft, Principal Wildlife Biologist at Rhode Island Division of Fish and Wildlife.)

Through the Natural Resources Conservation Service program, USDA provides technical and financial assistance to landowners who voluntarily make improvements to wildlife habitat on their property. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service pairs this with regulatory predictability under the Endangered Species Act.

It’s a win-win approach for improving agricultural productivity while enhancing habitat for wildlife.

Posted in Wildlife Protection / Also tagged conservation, endangered species, Endangered Species Act, ESA, farm bill, habitat, lesser prairie-chicken, monarch butterfly, NRCS, prairie-chicken, sage grouse, sustainable agriculture, USDA, USDA NRCS, wildlife, wildlife conservation, Working Lands for Wildlife | Comments are closed

Federal rollbacks + huge new oil and gas project = trouble for Wyoming

By Sara Brodnax / Bio / Published: March 23, 2018

This blog was co-authored by Jon Goldstein and Sara Brodnax.

Last week, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management collected comments from citizens and groups concerned about the impacts of a proposed 5,000-well oil and gas project in eastern Wyoming.

The situation has a troubling irony, because as BLM reviews the project’s environmental risks, it is simultaneously working to roll back its own commonsense standards to stop oil and gas companies from venting, flaring, and leaking away pollution and valuable natural gas.

Rapid oil and gas development at times put Pinedale, Wyoming on par with smoggy Los Angeles in terms of ozone levels.

It’s the same story for the greater sage-grouse, which without strong mitigation measures will likely abandon critical breeding sites in the area set to be impacted by the planned oil and gas project. Here, too, BLM has signaled several attempts to unravel the collaborative, decades-forged plans to protect the imperiled bird.

The combination of weakening policies while expanding development could have disastrous consequences for Wyoming and other western states if methane pollution goes unchecked and the greater sage-grouse continues to decline.

[Tweet “Federal rollbacks + huge new oil and gas project = trouble for Wyoming”] Read More »

Posted in Climate Resilience, Wildlife Protection / Also tagged air quality, BLM, BLM methane rule, Converse County, ecosystems, Interior, Matt Mead, methane, natural gas, oil and gas, Pinedale, public health, report, secretary zinke, wildlife, Wyoming | Read 1 Response

Why Trump should care about the fate of the sage-grouse even more than African elephants

By Eric Holst / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: February 5, 2018

When the Trump administration announced that it was lifting the ban on imports of game trophies, there was public outcry. For days, my twitter feed was filled with photos of African elephants. It was, in Trump’s words, a “horror show” – one that ultimately ended when the president made the decision to keep the trophy ban in place.

At the same time the trophy ban was making headlines across the globe, a different story was unfolding back home. A great American wildlife conservation story was being rewritten. Read More »

Posted in Wildlife Protection / Also tagged America first, conservation, ecosystems, elephant trophies, Endangered Species Act, Interior department, oil and gas, ryan zinke, trophy hunting, wildlife | Read 2 Responses

“We sink or swim together” in the sagebrush sea, and beyond

By Eric Holst / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: October 5, 2017

Western governors, landowners, conservationists and others celebrated the collaborative and bipartisan conservation effort that led to a “not warranted” listing decision for sage-grouse in September 2015.

Today, the Interior Department opened up federal sage-grouse plans to potential changes, despite the concerns of many state, industry, landowner and conservation stakeholders across the country.

John Swartout, a senior policy advisor to Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, said that it would be bad for Colorado if the sage-grouse plan, developed over years with local and state involvement, was eliminated, for fears that this would lead to a future Endangered Species Act listing.

“We didn’t work this hard to throw it all away and get a listing,” he said, echoing concerns of others that upending the plans could ultimately lead to the sage-grouse being listed.

Wyoming Governor Matt Mead reiterated what many western governors have told Secretary Zinke – that the states should be consulted about revisions to the plans because they are ultimately the ones who have to face the consequences if the plans fail and a federal listing is warranted.

“If it was a state by state listing decision, that’d be one thing,” Mead said. “But the way we are with the law right now, if one state gets listed, we all are going to get listed. We sink or swim together.” Read More »

Posted in Wildlife Protection / Also tagged department of interior, ecosystems, Endangered Species Act, Governor Hickenlooper, governor mead, mitigation, Partnerships, secretary zinke | Comments are closed

A bird has united thousands. It will not divide us.

By Eric Holst / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: August 18, 2017

An icon of the sagebrush sea, the greater sage-grouse is a sight to behold. Males often gather in large numbers to woo females and strut with chests puffed and spiky tails fanned. (Photo credit: Tatiana Gettelman)

It was a sunny, cool morning – a typical September day in Colorado. I pulled up to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge and walked towards a stage where the state flags for Colorado, Nevada, Montana and Wyoming waved in the wind alongside the American flag.

It was a good morning. Then-Secretary of the Interior Department, Sally Jewell, had announced earlier that morning that the greater sage-grouse – a bird with habitat spanning parts of 11 western states – was “not warranted” for listing under the Endangered Species Act, thanks to one of the largest collaborative conservation efforts in America’s history.

A success story in the sagebrush sea

Sixteen million sage-grouse once roamed the American West. The Plain Indian tribes lived among the birds, hunting them for food and mimicking the males in their ceremonial dances. Meriwether Lewis spotted them “in great abundance” in 1805 during his expedition with William Clark, providing the first written account of the species.

As of 2010, there were approximately 200,000 to 500,000 birds remaining.

Posted in Uncategorized / Also tagged conservation, department of interior, ecosystems, Endangered Species Act, endangered species act success stories, endangered species list, mitigation, Partnerships, sage grouse, sagebrush ecosystem, secretary zinke, western governors, wildlife | Comments are closed

What we’ve learned from 50 years of wildlife conservation

By David Festa / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: May 18, 2017

Wildlife conservation practices are helping protect our nation's treasured emblem: the bald eagle

Photo: © Holger Ehlers

When the first endangered species list was created 50 years ago, it started out with 78 animals. The grizzly bear and bald eagle were among American icons that made that first list.

Today, it counts 1,400 animals and 900 plants – an expansion that reflects more petitions for listings over time, but also the fact that threats to habitats and ecosystems have become more widespread and complex.

In the early days of the Endangered Species Act, we could more easily identify the threat and go straight to the source. When DDT was thinning egg shells, killing embryos and endangering multiple bird species, we worked to curb applications of the harmful pesticide. After a federal ban against DDT, the problem was solved.

Today, threats are more likely to come from broad landscape changes that occur when growing populations push housing and commercial developments outward, energy development and large-scale farming fragment and encroach on habitats, and climate change-related droughts and wildfires degrade entire ecosystems. Read More »

Posted in Habitat Exchange, Wildlife Protection / Also tagged california, Chinook salmon, colorado, ecosystems, endangered species act success stories, ESA, monarch butterfly, Nevada, Partnerships, Safe Harbor, Swainson's hawk, Wyoming | Comments are closed

Let’s make ESA listings extinct, not wildlife

By Eric Holst / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: March 3, 2017

The listing process for the lesser prairie-chicken was tumultuous, with a 2016 ruling that stripped the bird of its previous federal protections and sparked questions about ESA implementation, in addition to what moral obligation humans have to protect wildlife. Photo credit: USDA NRCS

Since the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works held a hearing two weeks ago to discuss the “Modernization of the Endangered Species Act (ESA),” a new public debate over the act’s effectiveness has begun, even if the arguments on each side haven’t changed much.

On one hand, reform proponents point to the fact that only 47 of 1,652 species have been removed from the Endangered Species List since 1973. On the other, the act’s defenders note that nearly every species on the list has been saved from extinction.

Yet those may be the wrong metrics. Instead, we may want to ask why those species end up on the list in the first place, and whether we are taking common-sense approaches to wildlife conservation before they do. Read More »

Posted in Habitat Exchange / Also tagged conservation, endangered species list, ESA reform, farmers, habitat exchange, lesser prairie-chicken, modernization of the endangered species act, monarch butterfly, ranchers | Read 5 Responses

The year the private sector stepped up for land, water and wildlife

By David Festa / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: December 29, 2016

Read an update on methane, manure and community impacts in North Carolina

The private sector stepped up for land, water and wildlife

By this time next year, I believe we’ll reflect back on 2017 as the year that the private sector stepped up to protect our land, water and wildlife for future generations.

I believe this because major retailers, food companies, agricultural businesses and farmers laid the groundwork in 2016, making sizeable commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), improve water quality and conserve habitat for imperiled wildlife.

President-elect Trump has made political theater by threatening to kill the regulations that protect our nation’s air and water. But in the real world, the private sector is going the other direction.

Forward-thinking businesses are rolling up their sleeves and finding ways to make those regulations work better by accelerating the uptake of practices that are good for the planet and the bottom line.

These are three areas to watch in 2017.

Posted in Habitat Exchange, Supply Chain, Wildlife Protection / Also tagged Arizona, at-risk species, california, Campbell Soup, Cargill, drought, Drought Contingency Plan, ecosystems, fertilizer, fertilizer efficiency, General Mills, habitat quantification tool, Kellogg's, Land O'Lakes, midwest row crop collaborative, monarch butterfly, Nevada, Partnerships, PepsiCo, Smithfield, soil health, SUSTAIN, sustainable agriculture, voluntary conservation, Walmart, water quality, water scarcity, western water | Read 3 Responses

Despite a new political landscape, landscape conservation commitments remain

By Brian Jackson / Bio / Published: November 15, 2016

Sagebrush landscape in Carson Valley, Nevada. Photo credit: Flickr user loren chipman.

The presidential election has changed the political landscape both nationally and in the states we work. As we continue to make sense of the changes, what hasn’t changed is the commitment of many state leaders – Republicans and Democrats – to protecting our nation’s treasured landscapes.

In Nevada, the state just made a second wave of funding available to Nevada landowners who enhance and restore high-quality habitat for greater sage-grouse. This funding supplements an initial $1 million made available earlier this year to fund the first four credit projects through the Nevada Conservation Credit System (CCS).

Nevada created the CCS to keep the greater sage-grouse off the Endangered Species List and to provide a robust, efficient mitigation program for industries seeking to offset impacts to the imperiled bird’s habitat. Under the system, landowners sell credits to industries needing to mitigate future disturbances to the bird’s habitat in order to receive permits from the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Read More »

Posted in Habitat Exchange, Wildlife Protection / Also tagged Bureau of Land Management, conservation, donald trump, ecosystems, election, habitat, mining, mitigation, Nevada, neveda conservation credit system, ranchers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service | Comments are closed

What do western ranchers and a southern environmentalist have in common?

By Will McDow / Bio / Published: May 12, 2016

Sagebrush in Carson Valley, Nevada. Photo credit: Flickr user loren chipman.

I trace my love of the outdoors to two memories: the first, sitting with my grandmother watching the goldfinches, chickadees and wrens that visited her feeder, and the second, camping in Pisgah National Forest with my parents and sister.

Days spent with my grandmother in our small South Carolina town left an indelible mark on my life. She taught me a conservation ethic that led me to Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). Camping taught me a love of the land and a respect for those that manage it.

As director of habitat markets, I’m focused on building conservation solutions for wildlife like the greater sage-grouse, a bird that lives more than 2,000 miles from my home in a landscape unlike any of the forests or farms I grew up exploring.

The sage-grouse is an indicator species of a vast declining ecosystem spanning more than 150 million acres across 11 states. The grouse relies on the cover of sagebrush – one of the most iconic symbols of the western landscape.

Because EDF puts a premium on policy, science and collaboration with diverse stakeholders, we’ve been working with landowners, industry, and state and federal agencies to create a habitat exchange program to better ensure the bird’s survival. Common values make this collaboration possible. Read More »

Posted in Habitat Exchange, Wildlife Protection / Also tagged colorado, Colorado Cattlemen's Association, Colorado Habitat Exchange, conservation, ecosystems, environmental defense fund, farmers, habitat exchange, habitat exchanges, habitat markets, landowners, natural resources, Nevada, North Carolina, Partnerships, ranchers, South Carolina, wildlife, Wyoming | Comments are closed