Bears Ears National Monument, Utah (Mike Painter)
May 1, 2020
Dear CalUWild friends—
I hope you and your families and friends have been able to stay healthy with the coronavirus situation continuing.
There has not been a lot of activity in Congress or elsewhere on public lands issues and no new cosponsors on any bills to thank, so there are no formal ACTION ITEMS this month. There is concern that the administration is continuing its rollbacks of other environmental regulations, so if you wanted to call your congressional representatives to express general opposition, it wouldn’t hurt. (Many staff people are working from home, though, so don’t be surprised if there is no immediate personal answer.) Contact information is on our online California Congressional Information Sheet.
This month’s Update will just consist of some articles that have appeared in the press over the last month.
There continue to be many streaming and other online resources to keep you occupied when you want to take a break from your routine. We listed some in Item 4 of last month’s Update.
Best wishes,
Mike
IN THE PRESS & ELSEWHERE
1. Links to Articles and Other Items of Interest
If a link is broken or otherwise inaccessible, please send me an email, and I’ll fix it or send you a PDF copy. As always, inclusion of an item in this section does not imply agreement with the viewpoint expressed.
Bears Ears National Monument
An article in the San Juan Record: San Juan County won’t participate in Bears Ears travel planning effort
The Administration
An Earth Day op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle by CalUWild Advisory Board member and longtime friend Rob Caughlan: An Earth Day thought for our ‘wartime president’ during coronavirus crisis
An article in The Guardian by Jeremy Miller: Trump seizes on pandemic to speed up opening of public lands to industry
An article in The Hill: Groups threaten suit as Interior repeatedly fills top posts with ‘temporary’ leaders
Public Lands in General
From early in April, an article in The Guardian: ‘Please don’t come’: calls to close US national parks over virus fears. From later in the month: An article in National Parks Traveler: Coping With Coronavirus: Phased Openings Coming To National Parks
From the Washington Post’s Energy 202 blog: Trump’s plan to reopen national parks sparks worry about coronavirus spread
An op-ed in the New York Times: Nowhere Is Remote Anymore
An article in the New York Times: National Parks Balancing Demands for Cell Service, Silence. It’s from the Associated Press, so there’s no telling how long it will remain on the Times website.
An article in the Washington Post: The western U.S. is locked in the grips of the first human-caused megadrought, study finds
Wildlife
Wolf OR-7 seems to have died of old age in Oregon: California’s celebrated gray wolf, OR-7, presumed dead
An article in Nevada Current, mentioning the 30×30 resolution in Congress which proposes to set aside 30% of U.S. land and coastal waters as protected by 2030: Can more conservation, less wildlife trade help prevent the next pandemic?
An op-ed in the New York Times: Now We Know How Quickly Our Trashed Planet Can Heal
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