Episode 75: Passing America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe to Rewilding Earth Podcast: Spotify | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | Email | RSS
About
Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance’s Terri Martin, Intermountain West Organizer, Clayton Daughenbaugh, Organizing Director & Midwest Field Organizer, and Rewilding’s Wildlands Coordinator Kim Crumbo discuss the opportunity to make a huge impact in the 30×30 effort by finally passing America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act.
New peer reviewed research shows that America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act also makes a significant contribution to mitigating climate change. Protecting these wild landscapes would keep a significant amount of fossil fuels in the ground, accounting for 5.7 percent of the carbon mitigation needed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Additionally, scientists estimate that the lands proposed for protection currently sequester and store 247 million metric tons of organic carbon in plants and soils. Designating these lands as wilderness would even help preserve flows in the Colorado River (the lifeblood of the arid Southwest) by preventing surface-disturbing activities that cause windborne dust to coat Colorado snowpack, melting it faster and earlier.
All lands proposed for wilderness designation in America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act are owned by the American public and administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The bill is supported by SUWA, Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Wasatch Mountain Club, and more than 200 other national and regional conservation organizations belonging to the Utah Wilderness Coalition.
Topics
- Mitigating climate crisis by protecting lands and keeping fossil fuels in Southern Utah in the ground
- The impact that such a large wilderness bill can have on 30×30 and protecting biodiversity in North America
- What you can do to ensure the passage of America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act
Extra Credit
Director of Digital Outreach (D.O.D.O.) for The Rewilding Institute
Host and Producer of the Rewilding Earth Podcast
Jack started Rewilding work as Executive Director of Sky Island Alliance in the mid-1990’s, organizing the Sky Island Wildlands Network design, ripping up illegal roads on forest service lands, installing wolf acclimatization pens on Ted Turner’s Ladder Ranch & conducting howling surveys to help make way for the final stage of the Lobo reintroduction program in the Southwest.
Through the years, Jack has worked with Dave Foreman and the Rewilding Gang to further Rewilding initiatives and education.