Look West: Public lands and energy news from the Center for Western Priorities


** The many paths to 30x30
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Thursday, February 3, 2022
Big cypress tree a few miles upstream from the McNeill-Peach Creek Unit on the San Bernard River. Believed to be one of the largest bald cypresses in Texas. Photo by Mike Lange.

From Texas to California to Montana, new land protections and partnerships are showing the way to protecting 30 percent of America's lands and waters by 2030. The latest entries in the Center for Western Priorities' Road to 30: Postcards ([link removed]) multimedia series take us to the Frank and Joan Randall Preserve in California ([link removed]) and the San Bernhard National Wildlife Refuge in Texas ([link removed]) .

At San Bernard, an acquisition of nearly 5,000 acres ([link removed]) adds protections to critical habitat for millions of migratory birds that depend on the Columbia Bottomlands, some of the only forested wetlands along the Gulf of Mexico. While the Bottomlands once covered over a thousand square miles of floodplain, today there are just 150 square miles of Columbia Bottomlands forest that are not impacted by agriculture and development.

In California's Tehachapi Mountains, the new preserve ([link removed]) will cover 112 square miles, creating a protected wildlife corridor that links a patchwork of lands to the Sierra Nevada. The 72,000 acre preserve is owned by The Nature Conservancy (TNC), which used a record-setting $50 million gift to pay for most of the project. Creating the preserve has been a 15-year project for TNC.

In Montana, the nonprofit American Prairie is using private conservation to increase access to public lands. The acquisition of the 73 Ranch ([link removed]) along the Musselshell River not only protects 12,000 deeded acres and 20,000 leased acres along the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, it also unlocks access to more than 9,300 acres of land ([link removed]) that were previously inaccessible to the public.

These land protection efforts demonstrate the variety of public and private tools that will be necessary to protect 30x30 ([link removed]) , the ambitious conservation goal set by President Biden based on the recommendation of scientists including the late E.O. Wilson ([link removed]) .
Quick hits


** Former Patagonia CEO on the outdoor industry’s environmentalism: “We’re being too nice”
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Outside ([link removed])


** Rare flower to get protected habitat in path of proposed Nevada lithium mine
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Reuters ([link removed]) | E&E News ([link removed])


** BLM pauses project that damaged dinosaur tracks near Moab
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Deseret News ([link removed]) | KSL ([link removed]) | E&E News ([link removed])


** Specter of orphan oil and gas wells drives debate over state rule update in Colorado
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Denver Post ([link removed])


** Court invalidation of offshore leases rachets up pressure on Interior
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The Hill ([link removed])


** BLM names employee advisory group on HQ move back to DC
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E&E News ([link removed])


** New partnerships find win-win projects with ranchers and conservationists
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The Fence Post ([link removed])


** ‘An environmentalist with a gun’: Inside Steven Rinella’s hunting empire
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New York Times ([link removed])
Quote of the day
” The industry’s business actions, political demands, and charitable giving simply don’t match the urgency and magnitude of the climate crisis. We should be the loudest advocates for protecting 30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030, but we’re not. We have this incredible economic might, we create more jobs than the oil and gas industry, and yet outdoor companies and affiliate groups have been largely mute on the climate crisis and hesitant to push on local, state, and federal governments. The time for backdoor diplomacy is over. We have this giant stick—our economic might—and we act like we’re carrying a toothpick.”
—Former Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario, Outside Business Journal ([link removed])
Picture this


** @nationalparkservice ([link removed])
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More winter is coming…I don’t know. There was a shadow involved or something.

This is one time where social media really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather. Yet here we are. Hey, nice marmot. Dude! Closely related to the groundhog, the Yellow-bellied Marmot, also known as the rock chuck, is a large, stout-bodied ground squirrel. As hibernators, they are a little sleepy to be weather forecasting, but why not?

Image: Marmot hanging out on a rocky at Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. @rockynps ([link removed]) .

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