Save America's Forests and Wild Lands from Anti-Environmental Congress
[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"436","attributes":{"alt":"save america's forests","class":"media-image","height":"189","style":"width: 197px; height: 189px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","width":"197"}}]]The logging, grazing, mining and other extractive industries are mounting an intense attack on our nation's public lands.
The December 2014 lame duck session of Congress saw an ugly brew of anti-conservation initiatives removing legal conservation protection from millions of acres of public lands. But this was just the tip of the oncoming extractive industries iceberg.
With Republican capture of the Senate in the 2014 election, the goal of the ultra right wing to privatize public lands may soon become reality. Representative Peter DeFazio’s legislation to virtually privatize and allow clearcutting on one million acres of federal land in Oregon could pass into law in the new Congress and become a model for the rest of our public lands. This anti-conservation juggernaut must be stopped. The landmark environmental and conservation laws that for a half century gave some protection to our public lands are eroding, and will disappear like the glaciers in Glacier National Park or the polar ice caps unless we, the hardcore grassroots, unite and fight back in a coordinated national campaign.