Growing Returns

Selected tag(s): mitigation

3 urgent areas for Zinke to focus beyond departmental reorganization

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke last week invited members of the conservation community to meet with him to discuss a number of his department’s near-term priorities.

Among these priorities was a “grand pivot” that Secretary Zinke described as a shift from focusing on energy dominance and shrinking monuments to a focus on conservation. When outlining his specific conservation priorities, Secretary Zinke spoke mostly in broad strokes about the reorganization of his department and infrastructure backlogs.

Some of his ideas on the reorganization had merit and we’d be willing to work with his agency to ensure that it is staffed to meet the needs of near and long-term conservation challenges.

While departmental organization and infrastructure needs are both worthy of administrative attention, I’m concerned that these priorities could detract from three urgent environmental and public health needs.

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4 ways to strengthen coastal communities’ resilience before the next storm

This blog was authored by Shannon Cunniff, with contributions from Kate Zerrenner.

The 2017 hurricane season sounded the alarm for coastal communities across the country and across the world that are facing increased exposure to powerful storms.

Nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population lives in coastal counties, where hurricanes are often the most destructive weather phenomena bringing rain, wind, waves and storm surge that too often result in significant loss of life. With a changing climate, we can expect more extreme weather. But we don’t have to expect the same levels of devastation.

There are steps we can take to decrease coastal communities’ vulnerability to storms, lower the risk of damaging floodwaters, and reduce the impacts associated with these disasters. Read More »

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10,000-acre deal to protect sage-grouse marks milestone in conservation

The imperiled greater sage-grouse avoided an endangered species listing in September 2015 after Western landowners, conservation groups, and state and federal agencies forged a plan to protect its habitat. Read more >>

Today, Kinross Gold U.S.A., Inc., will complete the first purchase of habitat credits to offset impacts to greater sage-grouse through the Nevada Conservation Credit System. The transaction will take place at a signing ceremony in Carson City, Nevada to commemorate the long-term stewardship of nearly 10,000 acres of vital sage-grouse habitat.

Kinross is the first company to participate in the program, buying credits to offset the environmental impacts of its Bald Mountain gold mine in northeast Nevada. The credit projects will include a variety of conservation activities, such as grazing management and fencing maintenance, which will take place over the next 30 years.

The transaction marks a significant milestone in the sage-grouse story, and in America’s conservation history. Read More »

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

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 »

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

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.

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How Interior pick can make good on Trump’s promise to honor Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

On Tuesday, President-elect Trump vowed to honor “the legacy of Theodore Roosevelt … one of our great environmentalists.” How will he make good on this promise with his Interior pick? (Credit: Harvard College Library)

Let’s face it. Over the last 30 years, when a democrat is elected president, the environmental community tends to let out a sigh of relief and cheer the appointment of a conservation-minded Secretary of the Interior. Aggies and industry, meanwhile, prepare to hunker down and fight against more endangered species listings and greater restrictions on public lands.

When a republican is elected president, enviros dust off their armor and prepare for battle against the likes of James Watt and Manuel Lujan – two former Interior secretaries known for their anti-environmental, anti-ESA agendas – while farmers and energy industry staff anxiously await the promised freedom of relaxed regulatory burdens.

Appointees on both sides take office prepared to undo the so-called “overreach” of the previous administration. But the new appointees often overreach themselves, resulting in years of lawsuits and delays in achieving their ideological master plan.

Lawyers prosper, but it’s not clear that anyone else does. Meanwhile, the environment continues to suffer. Read More »

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Despite a new political landscape, landscape conservation commitments remain

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

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 »

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California’s new law means more bang for every buck invested in wildlife

The Swainson's hawk was listed as a threatened species in California in 1983 due to loss of habitat and decreased numbers across the state.

The Swainson’s hawk is one of the at-risk species that AB 2087 benefits.

Prudent investors know to keep a few key things in mind. They anticipate the timing of spending priorities, like retirement, and evaluate investment risk accordingly. They might spread resources across funds to meet different objectives. And of course, they look to maximize their return on investment.

Why shouldn’t these same principles apply to investments in our natural resources?

Thanks to a new bill signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown, these principles will now apply to regional conservation investment strategies for wildlife and other resource management activities in California.

AB 2087: A new approach to conservation planning and mitigation

Assembly Bill (AB) 2087 (Levine), will establish voluntary, non-regulatory strategies to help conservationists, local agencies and the state apply core investment principles when planning conservation or mitigation projects.

This legislation comes at a critical time. Expanding development in California has supported a growth in food production, flood protection, transportation and housing, but it has also resulted in various impacts on the environment. The loss and fragmentation of wildlife habitat, in particular, has created a need for the state to restore and maintain at least 600,000 acres for multiple at-risk species in the coming decades. Read More »

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The snake at the crux of California’s wildlife challenge, and the policy that can solve it

Giant garter snake

Giant garter snake (license)

Enter the giant garter snake. The giant garter snake is an aquatic species native to California and a federally-listed “threatened” species that largely persists today – along with many other critters – in the vast acreage of Central Valley rice fields and water distribution canals.

In the past, seasonal floods would transform California’s Central Valley into a great inland sea of floodplain habitats teeming with fish and wildlife, including the giant garter snake.

Over time, development of the flood and irrigation systems that enabled the Central Valley’s $17 billion agricultural economy has led to the destruction of 95 percent of the region’s historic wetlands, putting countless California wildlife at risk of extinction.

For example, ongoing flood system operations and maintenance activities—required to protect farms and communities in the floodplain—continue to disrupt giant garter snake habitat. What’s more, when drought or fallowing reduces water deliveries to rice growers, the snake’s remaining habitat can dry up.

We need a better way to protect and restore habitat for wildlife like the giant garter snake, before it’s too late.

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My quest to balance nature and the agricultural economy

California's Sutter Buttes are the remnants of a volcano that are sometimes called the "smallest mountain range in the world."

California’s Sutter Buttes are the remnants of a volcano that are sometimes called the “smallest mountain range in the world.”

On a clear day I can see the Sutter Buttes, the smallest mountain range in the world, from my office in Sacramento. It’s a landscape that inspires me.

Although the Sacramento Valley is not without its problems, when I look out my office window, explore the local outdoors with my kids, or catch the woodsy whiff of a pencil made from California incense cedar (yes, I collect those), what I sense in those sights, sounds and smells is balance.

Striking the right balance in our working landscapes

The Sacramento Valley is a real working landscape. I use that term a lot: “working landscape.” By that I mean a place where natural resources are used to provide economic benefit – “working” to support jobs, industries and economies, both local and of scale – in a way that strikes a balance between maximizing profits and sustaining the natural resources, or the “landscape.”

Striking that balance between economic output and environmental protection has been a pillar of my work at EDF. I’ve long believed that if we can find and replicate this delicate mix everywhere, we’d be in much better shape. Read More »

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