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Administration and Lawmakers are Pushing to Undermine Key Protections for Public Lands
As polling shows Americans are increasingly alarmed by the relentless attacks on public lands and their caretakers, a new report shows the vast majority of public lands are open to oil and gas development.
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Defenders Denounces Misleadingly Named Fix Our Forests Act
Defenders of Wildlife once again denounced the misleadingly named Fix Our Forests Act following debate today in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, Subcommittee on Conservation, Climate, Forestry, and Natural Resources.
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Florida Passes Ill-Conceived Amendment 2, Wildlife Conflict Could Ensue
Florida voters yesterday affirmed Amendment 2 to the state’s constitution, a wholly unnecessary amendment disguised as an effort to preserve the right to fishing and
More Black Bear Press Releases
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Biden Administration Announces New Environmental Review of Possible Road Through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge
The Department of the Interior issued a Notice of Intent today to prepare a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement to reassess options for travel between King Cove and Cold Bay, Alaska, near the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. Past road proposals cut through the designated wilderness and the refuge’s internationally recognized ecological habitat.
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Defenders Applauds Biden Administration’s Move to Protect Roadless Areas in Tongass National Forest
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that next week it will propose reinstating the national Roadless Area Conservation Rule in the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska. The move would restrict development on roughly 9.3 million acres in North America’s largest temperate rainforest.
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Biden Administration Announces It Will Revisit Tongass National Forest Roadless Rule
Today, the Biden administration announced that it will be initiating a new rulemaking to revisit the Roadless Area Conservation Rule on the Tongass National Forest, which was eliminated by the Trump administration.
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Congress Introduces Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2021
The Roadless Area Conservation Rule was adopted by the U.S. Forest Service on January 12, 2001 to conserve wildlands, watersheds and wildlife habitat within national forest lands by preventing development within areas that had not been touched by road building and logging. Protecting nearly 60 million acres of unroaded areas within the national forest system, the rule is one of America’s most important conservation achievements.
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Lawsuit Takes Aim at Trump Administration Decision to Gut Tongass National Forest Protections
Alaska’s 17-million-acre Tongass National Forest, sometimes called America’s Amazon, has faced a grave threat since the Trump administration stripped away critical safeguards against logging by exempting it from the federal Roadless Rule just before the election. Today, a wide-ranging coalition of Indigenous Tribes from Southeast Alaska, businesses, and conservation organizations filed a lawsuit targeting the Trump administration rollback.
jcovey@defenders.org
