Via the Natural Resources Defense Council:

Save wild Patagonia from “electrocution”

A European energy company is now scheming to build massive hydro-electric dams on every major river in Chilean Patagonia. We need your immediate action to stop this proposed “electrocution” of one of the wildest regions on earth.

Endesa-Spain’s disastrous proposal would flood thousands of acres of irreplaceable habitat for a vast array of rare wildlife including South American deer, southern river otters and many birds found only in Patagonia.

For the sake of its own profits, the company is claiming that stopping up Patagonia’s mighty rivers to produce electricity — which would then be transmitted thousands of miles — is the only way to fuel Chile’s economic growth. As part of the same plan, Brookfield Consortium, a Canadian company, would clearcut a 1,200-mile swath through five national parks and two wilderness reserves to make way for the world’s largest transmission line.

But smarter alternatives to strengthening Chile’s economy — such as stricter energy efficiency standards and the use of localized, clean and renewable energy sources — are readily available.

Chile’s new president, Michelle Bachelet, has pledged to make environmental protection a priority in her administration. To fulfill that promise, she should take a hard a look at every possible alternative before sentencing wild Patagonia to electrocution.

Please go to www.savebiogems.org/patagonia/takeaction and tell President Bachelet to spare the life of this untouched expanse of breathtaking rainforests, glaciers, fjords and rivers.

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Tagged: environment environmental environmentalist environmentalism action+alerts nrdc natural+resources+defense+council chile dam Michelle+Bachelet Patagonia hydro-electric+dam

Via the Natural Resources Defense Council:

Help protect California’s coast from Navy sonar

California has a crucial opportunity this week to protect whales and other marine life along its coast from Navy sonar, and we need your help to ensure that this opportunity is not missed. The Navy will appear this Friday before the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco, asking for the commission’s approval to conduct major sonar exercises off the southern California coast. This will be the commission’s first-ever opportunity to weigh in on mid-frequency sonar training.

As you may already know, whales around the world have been found dead or dying following encounters with mid-frequency military sonar. Although the Navy itself has acknowledged the lethal impacts of this technology, which floods vast areas of the ocean with ear-splitting noise, it has made no assurances that it will take common-sense steps necessary to protect marine life. The Navy fails to explain, for example, how it will protect migrating gray whales along California’s coast; how it will conduct exercises at night or in other conditions of low visibility; or whether it will enforce robust “safety zones” around sonar vessels to avoid exposing whales to dangerous sound. The Coastal Commission has required these and other protective measures of the Navy and other noise-producers in the past, and it should demand no less here.

Send a message right away urging the California Coastal Commission to do all it can to protect whales and other marine life from harmful Navy sonar.

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Tagged: animals animal+rights action+alerts nrdc Natural+Resources+Defense+Council navy sonar whales conservation

Via the Natural Resources Defense Council:

Tell the Bush administration not to log the wild forests of Colorado’s Hell Canyon

The Forest Service recently announced a proposal to log parts of the 5,900-acre Hell Canyon Roadless Area in Colorado’s Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest. Hell Canyon is a pristine area, and an essential habitat for a wide range of wildlife, including mountain lions, black bears, elk, mule deer, wild
turkeys, blue grouse and northern goshawks. Named by early explorers for its rugged landscape, the canyon also includes a foraging area for peregrine falcons and the headwaters for several streams; it also may contain ecologically valuable stands of old growth trees. Because the canyon has been left
untouched until now, it remains a very special island of solitude, and most Coloradans, as well as Americans across the country, want these wildlands protected.

Although the Forest Service’s overall proposal includes some important goals, including protecting houses on private land near the forest from fires, most of the proposed logging in the roadless area is far from any homes, and is not necessary to protect these or any other structures. Moreover, the proposed logging project could destroy important wildlife habitat and violate the Roadless Rule that protects roadless areas nationwide from harmful logging and road construction. Logging and roadbuilding could even increase fire risk by drying out the woods and increasing access for motor vehicles and people.

The Forest Service is accepting public comments on its proposed logging project through December 11th.

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Tagged: environment environmentalist environmentalism action+alerts nrdc natural+resources+defense+council hell+canyon colorado forest trees logging forest+service

Via the Natural Resources Defense Council:

Speak out to keep a destructive road out of California’s White Mountains

Furnace Creek is a rare desert stream that drains America’s largest desert mountain range, the White Mountains of California’s eastern Sierra. The creek’s surrounding ecosystem of cottonwoods and willows provides habitat to endangered species such as the southwestern willow flycatcher and the western sage grouse.

The Bureau of Land Management has proposed constructing a new (and unnecessary) road through the heart of Furnace Creek that would cut across the White Mountains Wilderness Study Area and invite motorized vehicles into other fragile lands of the White Mountains. The road also would lead to illegal off-road vehicle activity, resulting in habitat damage and conflicts with hikers, equestrians, hunters, anglers and other visitors.

The BLM is accepting comments on its road proposal through December 11th.

Sample letter here.

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Tagged: environment environmentalist environmentalism action+alerts nrdc natural+resources+defense+council california white+mountains blm roadless

Via the Natural Resources Defense Council:

Help protect marine life along California’s central coast

In 1999 California passed the Marine Life Protection Act, the first law of its kind in the country. The act requires the state to improve the way it protects its coastal waters and marine life. After two failed attempts to implement the law, the Fish and Game Commission is now poised to adopt a network of protected areas along California’s central coast, a region from Half Moon Bay to Point Conception. This region contains some of the most remote areas of the coast, such as Big Sur, the deep Monterey Canyon, elephant seal rookeries at Point Ano Nuevo, kelp forests and near-shore rocky reefs.

In August the commission announced its “preferred alternative” — a network of underwater parks and wilderness sites covering 18 percent of California’s central coast. Of the overall area of more than 200 square miles, eight percent would be fully protected marine reserves, 10 percent would allow limited fishing and the remaining area of the coast would remain open.

The proposed network is the product of an unprecedented partnership of the state and local fishermen, business owners and residents, involving more than 100 hours of public input, scientific review and economic analysis. Weakening the network now would undermine that process and could leave key habitats and species without safe havens. But industry is pressuring the commission to make the network even smaller.

The commission will adopt a final proposal at its March 1 meeting, and is accepting public comments through February 23rd.

Sample letter here.

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Tagged: environment environmentalist environmentalism action+alerts nrdc natural+resources+defense+council california salton+sea water endangered+species

Via the Natural Resources Defense Council:

Speak out to help save southern California’s Salton Sea

As California’s largest lake and a key stopover for threatened brown pelicans, snowy plovers and millions of other migratory birds every year, the Salton Sea is a national treasure. The more than 400 species of birds (including five endangered species) that live at and visit the sea each year have attracted avid birders from around the world.

But the fate of this southern California desert jewel hangs in the balance. The water that sustains the 360-square mile lake will decrease by more than 30 percent within the next 20 years, rapidly shrinking the lake and increasing the amount of dust and salt that blows through the Imperial and Coachella valleys.

The California Department of Water Resources has just released a draft environmental impact report assessing eight potential plans to restore the sea and outlining the consequences if we fail to act. No single plan, however, provides a solution that would maximize fish and wildlife habitat while protecting air and water quality. Instead, adopting a plan that incorporates different parts of all of the report’s alternatives would
provide the best path to restoring the Salton Sea while protecting the people and wildlife that depend on it.

The Department of Water Resources is accepting comments on its proposed plans through January 16th.

Sample letter here.

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Tagged: environment environmentalist environmentalism action+alerts nrdc natural+resources+defense+council california salton+sea water endangered+species

Via the Natural Resources Defense Council:

Preserve the Heart of the Boreal Forest

For thousands of years, the Poplar River First Nation has relied on the trees, plants and wildlife of its traditional lands in the Canadian boreal forest for food, medicine and the survival of its cultural beliefs and traditions. Today, though, proposals for industrial development loom over this stretch of rugged granite cliffs, dense evergreen woods and tranquil marshlands on the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba.

The Poplar River First Nation completed a land use plan in 2005 and formally asked for permanent protection of its territory last March. Yet despite repeated promises to protect Poplar River’s lands — an area nominated as a U.N. World Heritage site — Manitoba officials have failed to act.

» Demand that Manitoba’s premier act immediately to protect this irreplaceable old-growth forest.

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Tagged: environment environmentalist environmentalism action+alerts nrdc natural+resources+defense+council canada Poplar+River+First+Nation conservation

Via the Natural Resources Defense Council:

Speak out to keep a destructive road out of California’s White Mountains

Furnace Creek is a rare desert stream that drains America’s largest desert mountain range, the White Mountains of California’s eastern Sierra. The creek’s surrounding ecosystem of cottonwoods and willows provides habitat to endangered species such as the southwestern willow flycatcher and the western sage grouse.

The Bureau of Land Management has proposed constructing a new (and unnecessary) road through the heart of Furnace Creek that would cut across the White Mountains Wilderness Study Area and invite motorized vehicles into other fragile lands of the White Mountains. The road also would lead to illegal off-road vehicle activity, resulting in habitat damage and conflicts with hikers, equestrians, hunters, anglers and other visitors.

The BLM is accepting comments on its road proposal through November 29th.

NOTE: If you use the NRDC’s sample letter, be sure to replace “hunters” and “anglers” in this sentence

In addition, building a road through Furnace Creek would lead to unauthorized off-road vehicle use throughout these wilderness lands, resulting in more habitat damage and conflicts with hikers, equestrians, hunters, anglers and other visitors.

with more animal-friendly groups, such as “birdwatchers”, “nature lovers”, etc.

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Tagged: environment environmentalist environmentalism action+alerts nrdc natural+resources+defense+council california white+mountains

Via the Natural Resources Defense Council:

Save America’s Redrock Wilderness

America may have voted in a new Congress, but the Bush administration shows no signs of slowing its assault on our western wildlands.

The Bureau of Land Management is poised to approve a plan to drill 24 new gas wells — and construct a maze of roads and pipelines — in the spectacular White River wilderness in northeastern Utah. We need your urgent action to help block this attack: the deadline for public comments on the plan is *this Monday, November 20th.*

Go to www.savebiogems.org/redrock/takeaction and tell the BLM to hold off on approving this proposal until it has studied its full potential impacts on the White River wilderness and adjacent wildlands.

If drilled, these would be some of the first wells on lands that the BLM itself has concluded were worthy of strict wilderness protections.

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Tagged: environment environmentalist environmentalism action+alerts nrdc natural+resources+defense+council oil drilling blm

Via the Natural Resources Defense Council:

Urge wildlife officials to protect the California condor

The California condor, the symbol of the Golden State, is North America’s largest bird. This iconic species is also one of the most endangered animals on earth. Today there are 138 condors in the wild, 61 of which fly free in California.

One of the leading causes of condor deaths is lead poisoning, which occurs when these birds accidentally ingest lead bullet fragments found in their prey. Lead poisoning has caused nine confirmed condor deaths since 1992 and has been implicated in the death or disappearance of at least 15 more condors. Other birds, such as golden and bald eagles, are also susceptible to lead contamination from ingesting lead fragments in ammunition.

The California Department of Fish and Game is considering changing its hunting regulations to ban lead ammunition in counties with condor populations. Such a ban would help protect these birds and others from lead contamination and bring them back from the brink of extinction.

Send a message urging to the California Fish and Game Commission to adopt regulations that would ban the use of lead ammunition in counties where condors live.

Via the Natural Resources Defense Council:

Speak out to make the Channel Islands a true marine sanctuary

After years of delay, state protections for the Channel Islands’ whales, dolphins and other marine life are about to be expanded into federal waters. Urge officials to adopt the strongest possible protections for the islands’ ocean wildlife.

Click here to learn more about the issue, or here to take action.

Please take a moment to take action on the following alerts from the Natural Resources Defense Council:

Speak out to protect endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep

The Fish and Wildlife Service has delayed completion of a recovery plan for endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep for years. Urge the agency to develop a strong plan to protect this iconic species from extinction.

Californians: Urge Gov. Schwarzenegger to sign important environmental bills

The California legislature recently sent hundreds of bills to Governor Schwarzenegger for his signature, including several that would benefit the state’s environment. Urge the governor to sign these important environmental bills.

Via the Natural Resources Defense Council:

Tell the Bush administration not to drill Alaska’s Western Arctic Reserve

Nestled in the northeastern corner of Alaska’s Western Arctic Reserve, the sensitive wetlands surrounding Lake Teshekpuk provide a pristine nesting area for tens of thousands of migratory birds, and calving grounds for the 46,000- member Teshekpuk Lake caribou herd. But the Bush administration has announced plans to sell oil and gas leases in this long-protected wildlife habitat as early as next month.

The oil and gas industries have already made inroads into the Western Arctic Reserve, with 10 percent of this largely pristine wildlife breeding ground previously open to leasing. But now the Bush administration wants to strip the area of federal protections, and turn over more than half of the reserve to leasing by oil companies. If the lease sales proceed, oil giants such as ConocoPhillips could destroy this Arctic sanctuary with gravel mines, roads, drill pads, pipelines and processing facilities.

Tell the Bush administration to cancel the September oil and gas lease sale for the Teshekpuk Lake region of the Western Arctic Reserve.

Via the Natural Resources Defense Council:

The U.S. Forest Service has issued a draft forest plan that fails to provide needed protections for crucial grizzly bear habitat in the Cabinet-Yaak wildlands of northwestern Montana.

We need your immediate action to fight this plan, which jeopardizes the future of North America’s most endangered grizzly population.

Please go to www.savebiogems.org/bears/takeaction.asp and urge the Forest Service to help save the 20 or so grizzlies that survive in the Cabinet-Yaak wildlands, part of our Yellowstone/Greater Rockies BioGem, by protecting key habitat areas. Ask the agency to recommend wilderness protection for the remaining roadless lands in the forest.

Some of the new action alerts from the Natural Resources Defense Council include the following:

Demand that the EPA control pollution from factory farms

Waste runoff from factory farms, which produce 500 million tons of manure each year, reduces water quality, threatens aquatic life and causes many illnesses in humans. Urge the EPA to better regulate and limit pollution from factory farms.

Speak out to bring clean, affordable wind energy to Long Island

The Long Island Offshore Wind Project would produce pollution-free energy and reduce the area’s dependence on oil and natural gas. Urge officials to conduct a thorough environmental review of the project and make offshore wind energy a reality on Long Island.

Tell Congress to get serious about stopping global warming

Support is growing for legislation to combat global warming, and new bills have emerged in both the House and Senate that would reduce heat-trapping pollution. Urge your senators and representative to support these important bills.

Speak out for California’s health and environment

Californians: Urge your legislators to curb global warming pollution, show your support for important health and environment bills and tell the Fish and Game Commission to select the best possible implementation plan for the California Marine Life Protection Act.

Tell the EPA to protect beachgoers from pollution and disease

Beachwater pollution causes millions of Americans to get sick every year, yet the EPA has delayed implementing new standards for testing beachwater quality. Urge the EPA to speed up its work on these important public health standards.

Click on the links to take action, or see a full list of current alerts at their Earth Action Center.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Frances Beinecke, NRDC BioGems – biogemsdefenders [at] savebiogems.org
Date: Jul 17, 2006 4:50 PM
Subject: Help save Greater Yellowstone’s unspoiled forests and streams!

Dear NRDC BioGems Defender,

The U.S. Forest Service has proposed a shamefully weak cleanup plan for a mine in southeast Idaho that is poisoning local streams and wildlife with toxic selenium. And to make matters worse, the agency is weighing a proposal to expand these polluting mining operations!

Please go to www.savebiogems.org/yellowstone/takeaction.asp right away and tell the Forest Service to develop an effective cleanup plan for the Smoky Canyon Mine, which is putting the fragile natural treasures of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem at risk. Your immediate action is crucial — the agency is accepting comments only until next Monday, July 24th.

The vast wildlands of southeastern Idaho, including the Caribou-Targhee National Forest, comprise some of the most biologically rich areas in Greater Yellowstone. Wolves, moose, elk, lynx, mule deer, native cutthroat trout and other wildlife depend on the area’s abundant streams. Countless outdoor enthusiasts are drawn to the region’s clean air and water, sense of tranquility and blue-ribbon trout fishing.

Yet for years, the Forest Service has allowed the JR Simplot Company’s Smoky Canyon Mine to poison the area’s streams with toxic selenium — a naturally occurring element that is released when phosphate ore is mined for fertilizer. The area is now so contaminated that the mine is operating under a Superfund cleanup order.

The Forest Service has said it intends to begin cleanup efforts, but its current plan addresses only one of five sources of selenium contamination at the mine. Plus, the agency is now considering a proposal by Simplot to expand its mining operations.

Please go to www.savebiogems.org/yellowstone/takeaction.asp and tell the Forest Service to replace its current cleanup proposal with a plan that will stop selenium contamination in these wildlands.

Thank you for helping to protect Greater Yellowstone’s pristine wildlife habitat.

Sincerely,

Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council

To update your information, including your email or mailing address, log in to your Action Log at www.savebiogems.org/actionlog/ and click “Update your info.”

Below is the TOC for NRDC’s Earth Action, 7/12/06.

Just click on the links to take action or learn more.

NRDC’s EARTH ACTION:
The Bulletin for Environmental Activists

July 12, 2006

In This Issue:

–Action Alerts–

1. Tell the EPA not to allow more industrial pollution along southern California’s coast

–Updates on Previous Alerts–

1. Cape Wind energy project

2. Offshore drilling

Below is the TOC for NRDC’s California Activist Network Action Alert newsletter, 7/5/06. Links to each of these actions (and more!) can be found here: www.nrdc.org/action/

Natural Resources Defense Council’s

CALIFORNIA ACTIVIST NETWORK ACTION ALERT

NRDC’s California Activist Network was formed to mobilize and provide action tools to Californians and others concerned with protecting the state’s extraordinary wealth of natural treasures and the health of its citizens.

July 5, 2006

In This Issue:

–Action Alerts–

1. Urge your assemblymember to reduce global warming pollution from power plants

2. Don’t let the San Joaquin Delta become the next levee failure disaster

3. Tell the EPA not to allow more industrial pollution along southern California’s coast

–Updates on Previous Alerts–

1. State environmental legislation

2. Los Angeles community gardens

The NRDC would like you to “Tell the Bush administration to protect polar bears under the Endangered Species Act.”

Perfectly at home in one of the world’s most forbidding environments, polar bears spend their summers roaming the Arctic on large chunks of floating ice. They drift for hundreds of miles, finding mates, hunting for seals and fattening themselves up for the winter. Without these thick rafts of sea ice, the world’s largest bear could not survive. Yet at this moment, the polar bear’s Arctic habitat is literally melting away beneath it due to global warming.

Over the past three decades, more than a million square miles of sea ice — an area the size of Norway, Denmark and Sweden combined — has disappeared. Scientists predict that, if the current rate of global warming continues, most, if not all, of the bears’ summer sea ice will be gone by 2100. As a result, the world’s polar bears could face global extinction by the end of this century. [...]

To ensure a future for the polar bear, NRDC joined other groups last year in a lawsuit to compel the Bush administration to protect the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. In response, the administration has agreed to open a formal review process, and is now considering whether to propose federal protections for the bear. Once these crucial safeguards are in place, the administration will be required by law to ensure that any new policy or action does not jeopardize the survival of polar bears or harm their critical habitat.

BioGems Defenders are urging the Bush administration to propose federal protections for the polar bear and are working to safeguard key polar bear habitat in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Western Arctic Reserve.

Click here to take action, or go to the NRDC web site to learn more.

The following is an excerpt from NRDC’s Earth Action.

To take action, click here.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Earth Action – earthaction [at] nrdcaction [dot] org
Date: Jun 8, 2006 11:40 AM
Subject: Special alert: Tell your representative to act now to stop global warming

==============================

NRDC’s EARTH ACTION:
The Bulletin for Environmental Activists

June 8, 2006

==============================

Special alert:
Tell your representative to act now to stop global warming

Take action now at www.nrdcaction.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=53587

==============================

Last year Representative Gilchrest (R-MD) and Representative Olver (D-MA) introduced the bipartisan “Climate Stewardship Act” to reduce global warming pollution. The bill would require the biggest polluting industries in the United States to cut carbon dioxide and five other global warming pollutants released by power plants, refineries and other industries. Patterned after the Clean Air Act’s successful acid rain program, the bill would use a market-based approach, with emissions caps and emissions trading, to cut global warming pollution at the lowest possible cost.

Global warming pollution from power plants, heavy industry and the burning of transportation fuels is raising the earth’s temperature and increasing the risks of rising sea levels, stronger hurricanes, more droughts and wildfire and the spread of infectious diseases. We can avoid the worst of these effects if we significantly reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollutants within 10 years.

Existing technologies such as wind and solar power, hybrid cars and fuels from crops are available for widespread use if we enact clean energy policies such as the Climate Stewardship Act. The Bush administration, however, continues to advocate a voluntary approach to global warming that will not stop — or even slow — the steady increase in global warming pollution.

[...]

For more information about NRDC or how to become a member of NRDC, please
contact us at:

Natural Resources Defense Council
40 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011
212-727-4511 (voice) / 212-727-1773 (fax)
Email: nrdcaction [at] nrdc [dot] org

www.nrdc.org

Also visit:
BioGems — Saving Endangered Wild Places
A project of the Natural Resources Defense Council

www.savebiogems.org

[end excerpt]