<div dir="ltr"><div>Thanks for the post about NREPA and science Lance. <br></div><div><br>Here’s something else that popped right out in that Montana Public Radio story on the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act.</div><div><br></div><div><b>"The Montana Wilderness Association declined our invitation for a taped interview." - Montana Public Radio</b></div><div><br></div><div>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?!?</div><div><br></div><div>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: <a href="http://bit.ly/1Wrhsg0">http://bit.ly/1Wrhsg0</a></div><div><br></div><div>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. </div><div><br></div><div>Furthermore, if you look at the wildlife corridor map resulting from the new research (<a href="http://bit.ly/1Wrhsg0">http://bit.ly/1Wrhsg0</a>) 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.</div><div><br></div><div>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. </div><div><br></div><div>The public can get more detailed information about the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (including detailed maps) here:<a href="http://bit.ly/1YuyXeR">http://bit.ly/1YuyXeR</a>. </div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div><b>TAKE ACTION! Tell Montana’s Congressional Delegation to Support NREPA.</b></div><div><br></div><div>EMAIL Senator Tester here: <a href="https://www.tester.senate.gov/?p=email_senator">https://www.tester.senate.gov/?p=email_senator</a></div><div><br></div><div>EMAIL Senator Daines here: <a href="https://www.daines.senate.gov/connect/email-steve">https://www.daines.senate.gov/connect/email-steve</a></div><div><br></div><div>EMAIL Rep Ryan Zinke here: <a href="https://zinke.house.gov/contact/email">https://zinke.house.gov/contact/email</a></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 7:11 AM, Lance Olsen via Missoula-Community-News <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:missoula-community-news@bigskynet.org" target="_blank">missoula-community-news@bigskynet.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
<div>
<div>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</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>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.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>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.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>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.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div> See for yourself how the importance of connectivity was
endorsed by scientific consensus within days of the MLA spokeswoman's
dismissive remarks.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">PNAS -Early Edition doi:
10.1073/pnas.1602817113</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br>
<b>Achieving climate connectivity in a fragmented
landscape</b></font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Lucida Grande">Jenny L. McGuire etal</font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Lucida Grande"><br>
Keywords</font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Lucida Grande">climate connectivity - climate
change<b> -</b> habitat fragmentation - corridors</font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Lucida Grande"><br>
<b>Bold emphasis added</b></font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Lucida Grande"><br>
Significance</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">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.<b> 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</b>. 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.<b> </b> Facilitating movement will be crucial for
preventing biodiversity losses.</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br>
Abstract</font><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Lucida Grande"><u><a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/06/07/1602817113.abstract" target="_blank">http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/06/07/1602817113.abstract</a></u></font><br>
<font face="Arial"></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><b>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</b>. 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<b>
connectivity is critical for allowing species to track rapidly
changing climates, reconfiguring habitats to promote access to
suitable climates.</b></font></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"> <font size="-1" color="#757575">
</font></font><br>
<font face="Arial" size="-1" color="#757575"></font></div>
<u></u><pre>--
</pre><u></u>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#000000">################### I have the PDF
##########################</font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#000000"><br>
"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).</font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#000000">"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."<br>
<br>
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.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#006D6D"><a href="http://dx.doi" target="_blank">http://dx.doi</a>.
org/10.5751/ES-07681-200306<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="-1" color="#FFFF00"><u></u></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva" size="-1" color="#000000"><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#000000"><br>
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</font><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="-1" color="#000000"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#000000"><br>
</font><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="-1" color="#000000"><br>
</font><font face="Lucida Grande" size="-1" color="#000000"><b><br>
</b><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size="-2" color="#000000"><br>
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</font></div>
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