[MCN] Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act

[Matthew Koehler]

Thanks for the post about NREPA and science Lance.

Here’s something else that popped right out in that Montana Public Radio
story on the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act.

*"The Montana Wilderness Association declined our invitation for a taped
interview." - Montana Public Radio*

That pretty much says it all, doesn't it? I mean, with a staff of 24
people, including a beefy communications/PR team, the Montana Wilderness
Association can't even get on air with Montana Public Radio to let the
people of Montana know their opinions about the Northern Rockies Ecosystem
Protection Act, a bill that would essentially protect the remaining
roadless wildlands in our region and also protect important wildlife
corridors?!?

What’s ironic is that MWA opposes NREPA, but won’t even extend the courtesy
to Montana citizens of being interviewed by Montana Public Radio, you can
go to MWA’s Facebook page and right now they are promoting new research
that reveals key wildlife corridors in the U.S. See: http://bit.ly/1Wrhsg0

MWA claims the wildlife corridors in Montana are “places were working to
protect” but the truth is that MWA has worked together with the timber
industry to try and dramatically increase public lands logging, including
more logging with some of these wildlife corridors on the
Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, Lolo National Forest and Kootenai
National Forest.

Furthermore, if you look at the wildlife corridor map resulting from the
new research (http://bit.ly/1Wrhsg0) you’ll see that the map essentially
goes hand-in-glove with the roadless areas and wildlife corridors that the
Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act would, in fact, protect.

Regarding the timber industry’s Julia Altemus, I’d challenge her to come up
with one shred of science that found or advocates for not protecting the
remaining roadless wildlands in our region or protecting important wildlife
corridors.

The public can get more detailed information about the Northern Rockies
Ecosystem Protection Act (including detailed maps) here:
http://bit.ly/1YuyXeR.

It's also worth pointing out that NREPA has 7 co-sponsors in the U.S.
Senate, while the House version of NREPA, which was re-introduced last
year, currently has 37 co-sponsors.

*TAKE ACTION! Tell Montana’s Congressional Delegation to Support NREPA.*

EMAIL Senator Tester here: https://www.tester.senate.gov/?p=email_senator

EMAIL Senator Daines here: https://www.daines.senate.gov/connect/email-steve

EMAIL Rep Ryan Zinke here: https://zinke.house.gov/contact/email

On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 7:11 AM, Lance Olsen via Missoula-Community-News <
missoula-community-news at bigskynet.org> wrote:

> Montana Public Radio's Edward O'Brien interviewed the spokeswoman for the
> Montana Logging Association, which opposes the Northern Rockies Ecosystem
> Protection Act (NREPA). She said NREPA is based on science that's now 24
> years old -- she specifically referred to the science that points to the
> importance of "connectivity" between areas like the Greater Yellowstone
> Ecosystem and the ecosystem comprised of Glacier National Park and the Bob
> Marshall Wilderness. She also said that science can change
>
> It's true that NREPA did some pioneering toward establishing
> "connectivity" between areas of high regional importance to wildlife, and
> that it was based on the science of the day.
>
> And yes, science can change, and yes again, the scientific record of
> evidence on connectivity between fragments of wild areas has indeed
> changed. One major change is that the scientific consensus on connectivity
> has grown. In the intervening 20+ years, the importance of connectivity has
> been recognized and supported even more strongly than it was when NREPA
> wrote it into formal legislation. Another major change in science is that
> connectivity between natural areas has been found essential to wildlife
> conservation in a time of climate change.
>
> As a matter of fact, it was only this month that 20+ years of consensus on
> connectivity showed up in a global heavyweight of science -- America's own
> National Academies of Science. In this latest report, it also becomes
> apparent that the best hope for establishing connectivity is in the West,
> which of course includes the area covered by NREPA.
>
>  See for yourself how the importance of connectivity was endorsed by
> scientific consensus within days of the MLA spokeswoman's dismissive
> remarks.
>
> PNAS -Early Edition doi: 10.1073/pnas.1602817113
>
> *Achieving climate connectivity in a fragmented landscape*
> Jenny L. McGuire etal
>
> Keywords
> climate connectivity - climate change* -* habitat fragmentation -
> corridors
>
> *Bold emphasis added*
>
> Significance
> Many plants and animals will need to move large distances to track
> preferred climates, but fragmentation and barriers limit their movements.
> We asked to what degree and where species will be able to track suitable
> climates.* We demonstrate that only 41% of US natural land area is
> currently connected enough to allow species to track preferred temperatures
> as the planet warms over the next 100 years*. If corridors allowed
> movement between all natural areas, species living in 65% of natural area
> could track their current climates, allowing them to adjust to 2.7 °C more
> temperature change.  Facilitating movement will be crucial for preventing
> biodiversity losses.
>
> Abstract
> *http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/06/07/1602817113.abstract
> <http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/06/07/1602817113.abstract>*
> *The contiguous United States contains a disconnected patchwork of natural
> lands. This fragmentation by human activities limits species' ability to
> track suitable climates as they rapidly shift*. However, most models that
> project species movement needs have not examined where fragmentation will
> limit those movements. Here, we quantify climate connectivity, the capacity
> of landscape configuration to allow species movement in the face of
> dynamically shifting climate. Using this metric, we assess to what extent
> habitat fragmentation will limit species movements in response to climate
> change. We then evaluate how creating corridors to promote climate
> connectivity could potentially mitigate these restrictions, and we assess
> where strategies to increase connectivity will be most beneficial. By
> analyzing fragmentation patterns across the contiguous United States, we
> demonstrate that only 41% of natural land area retains enough connectivity
> to allow plants and animals to maintain climatic parity as the climate
> warms. In the eastern United States, less than 2% of natural area is
> sufficiently connected. Introducing corridors to facilitate movement
> through human-dominated regions increases the percentage of climatically
> connected natural area to 65%, with the most impactful gains in
> low-elevation regions, particularly in the southeastern United States.
> These climate connectivity analyses allow ecologists and conservation
> practitioners to determine the most effective regions for increasing
> connectivity. More importantly, our findings demonstrate that increasing
> climate* connectivity is critical for allowing species to track rapidly
> changing climates, reconfiguring habitats to promote access to suitable
> climates.*
>
>
> --
>
> ###################   I have the PDF  ##########################
>
> "Scholars and commentators have recently begun to highlight how multiple,
> simultaneous, and interacting global stresses, such as demographic
> pressure, climate change, resource scarcities, and financial instability,
> are increasing global systemic risk (Beddington 2009, OECD 2011, WEF 2012,
> Helbing 2013, Pamlin and Armstrong 2015).
>
> "They often describe the situation that humanity faces now and in coming
> decades as a "perfect storm" of simultaneous crises (Sample 2009, Ahmed
> 2011, Ehrlich and Ehrlich 2013, Morgan 2013). Although evocative, this
> phrase implies that the crises align solely by chance. We argue rather that
> their simultaneity is a manifestation of an underlying causal pattern that
> is becoming more prevalent, and we elaborate a conceptual framework that
> provisionally describes this pattern."
>
> Homer-Dixon, T., B. Walker, R. Biggs, A.-S. Crépin, C. Folke, E. F.
> Lambin, G. D. Peterson, J. Rockström, M. Scheffer, W. Steffen, and M.
> Troell. 2015. Synchronous failure: the emerging causal architecture of
> global crisis. Ecology and Society 20(3): 6.
> http://dx.doi. org/10.5751/ES-07681-200306
>
>
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