Resilient Habitat in Our Backyard

Rockville Trails is a land of hidden valleys, ancient oak forest, stark bluffs and an exotic tabletop just a few miles off I-80, the major route between San Francisco and California’s capital, Sacramento.  You’ve probably never heard of it.  But for Solano County residents, it’s been a battleground since the mid-1970s when the first major development threatened. 

With climate change threatening, we are painfully aware that this is a property with the potential and the strategic location to be an important resilient habitat.

Ormond Beach One Step Closer to Becoming Largest Coastal Wetland in Southern California

In a big win for California’s coast, the Oxnard City Council adopted a final 2030 General Plan that firmly advances the protection and restoration of the Ormond Beach wetlands. The decision was a long time in the making: Sierra Club’s Los Padres Chapter has been fighting to preserve the vast ecosystem of green wetlands and unique coastline habitat at Ormond Beach since the 1980s.

Ormond Beach is already a crucial resting spot for over 200 species of migrating birds and home to twelve threatened and endangered species and species of concern. If restored as the State Coastal Conservancy envisions it, Ormond Beach could be the largest coastal wetland in southern California, integrated with the adjoining 900 acres of freshwater wetlands and the 1,500 acres of wetlands at Mugu Lagoon – a span of nine coastal miles from Point Hueneme to Point Mugu.

From Preservation to Adaptation: Safeguarding Our Natural Resources in the 21st Century

(Image: Pam Miller/Sierra Club)

Adapted from Lands Team Senior Representative Catherine Semcer's plenary speech at the Wildlife Society's 2011 conference in Hawaii. Follow us on Twitter, where Catherine live-tweeted the conference.

For me, one of the perks of working in conservation is the ability to interact with some of our world’s most beautiful and inspiring landscapes, along with the people, and wildlife, who call them home. 

A few years ago I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to help organize and participate in a media tour of Alaska’s Western Arctic, an area often underappreciated by the public, in no small part because it is named The National Petroleum Reserve. 26 million acres in size, and largely roadless, it remains one of the most remote places in our nation. Like these places often are, the region is also an important area for wildlife from caribou to migratory birds.

Our goal for our expedition was to explore the seldom travelled Kokolik River by raft and document the wildlife and recreational opportunities that could be found there. We wanted to try and dispel the claims of some politicians that the area was a wasteland, good only for the coal and other fossil fuels that can be found there.

Wilderness Bills on the Move in Senate

Cherokee National Forest (Image via Flickr: R. Neal)

Great news for wilderness advocates—after a two-year lull in action, wilderness legislation is on the move in both chambers of Congress. Last month we reported on the House Natural Resources Committee hearing, in which several bipartisan wilderness bills affecting 125,000 acres were heard. Today, several of those same bills were just marked up and moved out of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee, with the potential that they may soon be ready for inclusion in a package.

The Importance of Creating Resilient Habitats

Climate change is the largest threat that our natural heritage has ever faced. We must now actively work to create resilient habitats where plants, animals, and people are able to survive and thrive on a warmer planet.

To fully protect wildlife and wild places for future generations to experience and enjoy, we need to expand the way we think about conservation. Protecting isolated places is no longer enough. Science tells us that we must also look to the areas that connect and surround our cores wild places. And we must block damaging uses of these important lands, such as logging, drilling and mining.  The key is to protect large connected areas to create healthy natural systems - or resilient habitats - that are better able to adjust to shifting temperatures, precipitation patterns and migration routes.

For example, America’s Arctic is our nation's final conservation frontier. The coastal waters, rolling tundra, wild rivers, and precious wetlands, ponds, and deep lakes of the Arctic support a stunning array of wildlife. Nearly 200 bird species nest on the tundra and wetlands, while caribou, musk oxen, wolverines, and grizzly roam the vast expanses of wild lands. The world’s largest carnivorous land species, the polar bear, is also found roaming the land masses and ice sheets of the Artic. 

The severe effects of global warming on Arctic habitats and wildlife serve as an early warning to the dilemma that other wildlife will face as the globe heats up. Average temperatures are rising twice as fast in the Arctic as elsewhere the world, with devastating effects not only on sea ice, but on tundra, permafrost, and forests. Melting sea ice makes coastal areas more vulnerable to storm surges. Thawing permafrost accelerates erosion. Rising temperatures increase the likelihood of catastrophic wildfires, and are already causing insect outbreaks in the tundra and forests.

The Arctic is just one of many wild places we must protect from climate disruption by making it a resilient habitat. Fortunately, the Obama Administration is recommending protecting a critical core wildland area in the region, the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  Wilderness designation would safeguard this critically important place for caribou and other wildlife and prevent damaging oil and gas drilling operations in this remote pristine wildland.  Tell the Administration you support keeping it as wilderness.

Beyond the Arctic, we must protect and connect our wild places so that wildlife can move safely from one place to another. Creating a network of wild places will allow imperiled plants and animals to move to more hospitable homes as the climate changes and also help them escape the impacts of drilling, logging and other growing threats. Giving wildlife room to roam will result in healthier populations, now and in the future

As conditions on the ground shift, so will the home ranges of plants and animals. For example, warming temperatures will continue to push some wildlife north or to higher elevations where it is cooler. Increased droughts will put wildlife on the move in various directions in search of more reliable water sources.  To plan for this, we must restore critical buffer areas around our current parks and other wild areas. Those buffers, like the corridors, will allow wildlife the room it needs to adjust and survive.

Successfully creating healthy natural systems will help ensure that our wild places and wildlife are able to survive in our rapidly changing world.  Healthy natural systems also benefit our communities by cleaning and storing drinking water, filtering our air and providing protection against extreme weather events.  And of course they offer countless opportunities to explore and enjoy!

For more than a century the Sierra Club has worked to protect America's wild places, wildlife, and natural heritage. Today our outdoor heritage faces new and growing threats-- from destructive energy development, to unsustainable logging and a rapidly changing climate. We must protect, connect, and restore our wildlands, forests and waterways to function as healthy natural systems, not isolated pieces, to create resilient habitats where plants, animals and people can survive and thrive in a changing world.

-- Fran Hunt, Director of the Sierra Club Resilient Habitats Campaign

Meet the Wildlife of the Arctic Refuge

The nineteen million acre Refuge is about the size of South Carolina.

 

Watching the pair of polar bear moms and their four offspring—two sets of twins—roll around the frozen lagoon, I was reminded how the animals of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge never cease to amaze, inspire, and educate me, sometimes in very unexpected ways. I have been lucky enough to travel to the Refuge many times, and to experience the land and its inhabitants on a very personal level. With each visit, the denizens of the Arctic share something new with me.

President Obama Designates Fort Monroe a National Monument

President Obama has announced that today he will designate a substantial portion of Fort Monroe as a national monument. Located in Hampton, Virginia, Fort Monroe played a pivotal role in emancipation, earning the name ‘Freedom’s Fortress.’ The monument designation is expected to help create nearly 3,000 jobs in Virginia as part of a larger Fort Monroe Reuse plan. 

“We applaud President Obama for using his authority to protect this important historical and natural area. Though it may be little known, Fort Monroe is among the most important historic sites in our country. It is also a prime example of much needed urban park land,” said Tyla Matteson, Chair of the York River Group of the Sierra Club. Matteson’s father served in the Army and retired at Fort Monroe, and her mother continues to enjoy bird watching there, having identified several dozen species.