Today, President Obama signed into law legislation authorizing the National Park Service to continue to issue permits for commercial packstock use within Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks while the agency completes a stewardship plan for park wilderness.
A federal government shutdown would trigger a wide variety of setbacks for our public lands and natural resources that would worsen over time. Check this fact sheet for details on how federal agencies and the public lands and natural resources they protect will be affected by a shutdown.
The Wilderness Society will continue to update this document as more information comes in.
During the bittersweet days of September light, when a low-angled sun is unwavering in its withdrawal, I always have trouble saying goodbye. How to shutter the season? How to close the summer home with a memory to last through the dark months?
Growing up, I looked with nose pressed against a mythic window of class at those who played in their waterfront compounds at Hayden Lake in Idaho. And when I came of age, I heard about the Hamptons and Cape Cod, Aspen and the San Juan Islands, where the zip code itself was supposed to guarantee happiness.
Yet for all its continuity, Yellowstone has recently witnessed considerable change in its winter season. In West Yellowstone, the park’s most popular winter portal, many more visitors now arrive with skis, snowshoes, cameras and spotting scopes. They increasingly express a desire to learn about Yellowstone and to be a part of its protection. A growing percentage is eager to access the Park’s interior by motorized vehicle, but then to get out under their own power on boardwalks and trails.
Today a coalition of conservation groups representing more than one million Americans will file a formal administrative protest with Utah’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) state office to protect land and resources from a midnight “Fire Sale.” The protest challenges BLM’s decision to auction off 92 parcels of land — covering approximately 100,000 acres — for oil and gas leasing and development, including protected areas that the National Park Service asked BLM to omit from the sale.
Earth Day 2011, this April 22, reminds us that even in this time of unprecedented environmental challenge, every citizen has the power to affect change on a local, national and global level.
Stretching over 64 miles of the Outer Banks of North Carolina from Bodie Island to Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore has a rich history as our nation’s first National Seashore. Once known as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” the Seashore is famous for its tumultuous storms and currents that wreaked havoc on ships.
One of the great voices of conservation has passed away. Stewart Udall, who served in Congress and as Secretary of the Interior under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, died last weekend at the age of 90.
