President Obama Signs Land Conservation Act into Law

Black Swift. Photo: © Bill Schmoker http://schmoker.org/BirdPics

Today, President Obama signed into law a major land conservation package passed by significant majorities in both the House and Senate. The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (H.R. 146) contains over 150 separate bills covering land protection and other related initiatives in almost every state, and will provide significant habitat conservation for many priority bird species including Black Swift, Greater Sage-Grouse, and the Northern Spotted Owl.

The bill designates over two million acres of wilderness in nine states, enlarges fifteen National Parks, creates one new National Monument, ten new National Heritage Areas, three new National Conservation Areas, and four new National Trails, and designates more than 1,000 miles of National Wild and Scenic River. The bill also makes permanent the National Landscape Conservation System, comprising 26 million acres of lands and waters with high conservation and recreation values administered by the Bureau of Land Management. Additionally, more than one million acres of the Wyoming Range, part of the Bridger Teton National Forest that sits south of Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park, are withdrawn from future oil and gas leasing.

Unfortunately, the package includes a controversial section that would allow a new road through Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, an internationally recognized wetland and an American Bird Conservancy-designated Globally Important Bird Area. The refuge is a vital staging area for migrating waterfowl, with almost the entire global population of Emperor Goose passing through it each fall. The road would provide airport access to the remote village of King Cove, and is supported by the Alaska congressional delegation. Environmental groups lobbied unsuccessfully to remove the road project from the bill. Another controversial measure potentially allows 190,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management-managed lands formerly treated as potential wilderness to be subject to multiple uses including off-road vehicles and grazing.

Some of the highlighted provisions include:

California

• Preserve nearly 450,000 acres of wilderness and 73 miles of wild and scenic rivers near Santa Clarita and along the California Nevada border, including the White Mountains.
• Protect some 190,000 acres in Riverside County as wilderness, including parts of Joshua Tree National Park, an American Bird Conservancy-designated Globally Important Bird Area, that will benefit the Le Conte’s Thrasher and Bendire’s Thrasher.
• Protect about 70,000 acres of wilderness, including the new John Krebs Wilderness Area, named for the former congressman and conservationist who fought to protect these lands in the Mineral King Valley.

Colorado

• Protect nearly 250,000 acres of Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park that will benefit the elusive Black Swift.
• Protect 66,000 acres of red rock sandstone canyons, cliffs, streams and waterfalls in western Colorado.

Idaho

• Protect as wilderness 517,000 acres in Idaho’s Owyhee Canyonlands that will benefit the Greater Sage-Grouse and other birds that rely on sagebrush habitat.

Michigan

• Protect 11,739 acres of wilderness at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore which will benefit Tennessee and Golden-winged Warblers as well as many species of shorebirds.

New Mexico

• Protect more than 15,000 acres in San Miguel County as wilderness.

Oregon

• Protect 13,700 acres of old-growth forest in Oregon’s Siskiyou National Forest that will benefit the Northern Spotted Owl.
• Protect more than 128,000 acres of national forest on Mount Hood.
• Protect 23,000 acres in southeastern Oregon’s Soda Mountain region that would benefit the Varied Thrush and Hermit Warbler.
• Protect nearly 31,000 acres of wilderness in the Badlands just east of Bend.
• Protect 8,600 acres of wilderness overlooking the John Day Wild and Scenic River.

Utah

• Protect more than 250,000 acres of wilderness in and near Zion National Park.

Virginia

• Protect 43,000 acres of the Jefferson National Forest, an ABC-designated Globally Important Bird Area, as wilderness, and 12,000 as a national scenic area.

West Virginia

• Protect 37,000 acres in the Monongahela National Forest, also an ABC-designated Globally Important Bird Area, as wilderness.