Renewable energy developers operating on public lands pay fees, or royalties, to the U.S. government. This money could fund conservation priorities to offset the impacts of development.
Eastern Utah’s famed Desolation Canyon is well known as many things: rafter’s playground, archeological treasure trove, icon of the Old West. Now this emphatically rugged stretch of the Green River adds conservation history to its lore.
On July 30, after years of negotiation, conservation groups, led by our partner the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, resolved a long-running struggle over natural gas drilling around Desolation Canyon, one of the wildest stretches of river land in the U.S. West.
Proponents of oil development in Alaska have been making promises, and breaking them, for decades. More than thirty years of industrial activity in Alaska have demonstrated that oil production is inherently a dirty business. Despite the industry’s best intentions to minimize impacts, environmental and social effects are accumulating and resulting in lasting harm to ecosystems and indigenous cultures. This report calls attention to the many gaps between promise and reality, casting doubt on the reassurances being made by drilling proponents and their allies.
America’s western public lands harbor a wealth of beauty, wildness, and open space. They protect our clean air and water, provide habitat for wildlife, and offer us places to escape the pressure, noise, and congestion of everyday life. These places are our national birthright and our children’s heritage.
The oil and gas industry and their political allies persistently argue that “the answer” to America’s energy needs is “more drilling” and “more access” to federal lands and waters. However, recent data from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Minerals Management Service (MMS) indicate that, though tens of millions of acres of onshore and offshore federal lands are already leased to oil and gas companies, the vast majority of these lands are not producing oil or gas.
The last seven years have seen an unprecedented rush to lease and approve permits to drill on federal public lands. Despite the massive numbers of acres already under lease and available for drilling and the huge surplus of acres leased and Applications for Permits to Drill approved, industry, the Bush Administration, and BLM continue to insist they need access to millions of additional acres and push for opening more sensitive lands to development, particularly in the Rockies.
Wilderness Society expert, J.P. Leous, educates us about the BP oil spill in the Gulf, new energy sources, global warming and the importance of political action on a grass roots level. Since 1935, The Wilderness Society has led the conservation movement in wilderness protection, writing and passing the landmark Wilderness Act and winning lasting protection for 109 million acres of Wilderness.
In order to combat the ongoing lack of accuracy in the debate over the many uses of our public lands The Wilderness Society’s team of legal, economic, and research experts are launching a series of “bites” of truth about Western economies and public lands—the True Grit.
SALT LAKE CITY - Today, a coalition of conservation organizations announced they have reached an historic agreement with the Bill Barrett Corporation, a Denver-based oil and gas company.
The West Tavaputs agreement ensures that the Desolation Canyon stretch of the Green River will be protected from the sights and sounds of industrial development even during the development and extraction of substantial natural gas reserves that Barrett currently has under lease.
