- Northern
Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA)
On February 2nd, the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, HR 488, was introduced to the 106th Congress by Representatives Christopher Shays and Carolyn Maloney. AWR is leading a cosponsorship drive and working to secure hearings on the bill.
"The Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act serves as a valuable tool in the fight to save the Wild Rockies." - National Sierra Club, from Spare America's Wildlands 1999 special report
As many as 100,000 grizzlies once roamed the lower 48 states, but the arrival of European settlers, habitat destruction, extensive shooting, poisoning, and trapping campaigns reduced the grizzly populations to 1% of their former range. Less than 800 grizzlies exist today in the American Northern Rockies, mainly in and around Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks and the Bob Marshall Wilderness complex. AWR works to protect grizzly habitat and increase their numbers in the region.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service included AWR's Conservation Biology Alternative (#4) in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement on Grizzly Bear Recovery in the Bitterroot Ecosystem. This is the first time a federal agency has considered an alternative based on conservation biology.
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Our legal and educational campaign to protect bull trout, the leading indicator of aquatic ecosystem health, has gained national media attention. Along with two member groups we filed a petition for Endangered Species status, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared it was warranted. We also filed three lawsuits which led to the formation of state bull trout recovery teams, created draft habitat protection standards, and stopped a plan to raise hatchery bull trout that would have caused genetic damage to wild populations. These efforts have led to the monumental endangered species listing of the Klamath and Columbia River basin bull trout populations and the Jarbidge population in northern Nevada as threatened. AWR continues to monitor agency efforts to restore and protect critical bull trout habitat.
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Yellowstone Bioprospecting
Public Interest won in Yellowstone National Park due to a recent decision to suspend bioprospecting. One year after AWR, the Edmonds Institute and the International Center for Technology Assessment filed suit to stop the Department of Interior and the National Park Service from making closed-door deals for harvesting and commercialization of natural resources in Yellowstone, Federal Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the bioprospecting scheme be suspended until the Park completes an Environmental Impact Statement with full public involvement. National media covered this historic decision.
The Great Yellowstone Fires of '88
- It's been a decade since the "Summer of Fires" in Yellowstone National Park. Contrary to the pundits of the time, the park was not destroyed. Read eyewitness accounts from the fire lines, learn about fire ecology and the politics behind the suppression efforts, and see the park reborn.
The Rocky Mountain FrontThe Forest Service is certainly moving in the right direction with regard to protecting the Front. Chief Dombeck has announced a moratorium on hard rock mineral claims in this area, adding to the already existing protection from oil and gas development implemented by Gloria Flora, former Forest Supervisor of the Lewis and Clark National Forest. Unfortunately, the state of Montana is moving in the opposite direction with new calls for oil and gas development on state and private lands along the Front. These lands are critical and without their protection much of the areas unique wildlife will be threatened. Stop by our Rocky Mountain Front pages and learn a bit about this fascinating ecotone, and threats it still faces.
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Alliance for the Wild
Rockies
PO Box 8731 • Missoula, Montana • 59807
Phone: 406-721-5420 • Fax: 406-721-9917
E-mail: awr@wildrockies.org
Content Copyright 1999 Alliance
for the Wild Rockies, unless otherwise noted.
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