To publicize the need for wildland corridors linking grizzly bear habitats,
the Alliance for the Wild Rockies sponsored an unusual walkathon last July.
Starting at Chief Joseph Pass above Montana's Big Hole Valley, a band of
conservationists, including Sierra Club member Jennifer Berenstein and Sierra
Club Board member Betsy Gaines, embarked on the Great Grizzly Hike. The 300-
mile trek along the Continental Divide followed a path a grizzly would likely
travel between the Salmon and Selway rivers ecosystem in central Idaho—an area
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering for grizzly reintroduction —
and Yellowstone National Park.
Throughout the 30-day journey, hikers wended
their way through fields of glacier lilies, whitebark pine, and swarms of
mosquitoes, monitoring forage and habitat conditions. "Without corridors to
connect isolated populations, the bears will eventually go extinct," explains
Gaines. "Our hike underscored the viability of building those bridges."
Atlantic Coast:
AN UNFAIR FAIR
Having distributed Sierra Club materials at Hampton, Virginiaıs annual Bay
Days Festival eight years in a row, York River Group activists were surprised to
hear that theyıd be asked to leave if they circulated petitions opposing a dam on
the Mattaponi River. "Other groups advocated a variety of issues that day," says
volunteer Tyla Matteson. "We had been singled out." It soon came to light that
Bay Days officials manufactured the restriction to appease Newport News
Waterworks. The principal developer of the proposed dam and 1,500-acre reservoir
had threatened to pull its booth from the festival if the Club gathered
signatures.
"The Waterworksı empty pitch for growth and jobs hasnıt worked, so
they resorted to censorship," says Matteson. "Despite their flip-chart
presentations and PR video, they havenıt been able to sell the public on flooding
500 acres of wetlands and disrupting the lives of two Native American tribes." As
for muzzling the Sierra Club, the attempt backfired. "We would have reached
hundreds at our booth, but because the press got wind of things, we reached
thousands."
Great Lakes:
GUNS AND GAMES
The Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937 taxes guns, ammunition, and other
hunting equipment to fund conservation of wildlife and its habitat. According to
the Mackinac Chapter, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Serviceıs disbursement of these
funds has mostly benefited hunters. The chapter discovered that the agency does
not require sufficient environmental review of the projects it finances.
In 1995,
for instance, Fish and Wildlife gave the thumbs-up to clearcut 40,000 acres per
year of Michigan forestlands to give hunters a better bead on their prey, and the
agency continues to maintain destructively high game populations. Now, after a
two-year effort by the chapter to call attention to the much abused statute, Fish
and Wildlife and the state have agreed to comply with the National Environmental
Policy Act by evaluating all wildlife restoration proposals for ecological
consequences.
American Southeast:
OTHER PEOPLE'S GARBAGE
Fourteen years ago, few in Moody, Alabama, suspected that a garbage dump
would befoul their community. "The rumor was that a golf course was under
construction," recalls Aaron Head of the Cahaba Group. Before long Acmar Regional
Landfill, a 50-acre facility on a fault line near one of the state's primary
sources of drinking water, quietly began collecting 1,500 tons of garbage a day,
importing much of it from Connecticut and New York.
For a while, a cozy
relationship between city and state officials and the landfill operators stymied
community action, but as word of the facility's 1992 permit to expand to 750
acres spread throughout the small town, so did an organizing effort that led to a
collaboration with the Sierra Club. A week of Sierra Club Training Academy
workshops sharpened local activists' media and lobbying skills, and access to
Club office equipment helped them keep officials accountable. After years of
work, Moody activists have finally convinced the town council to withdraw its
approval of the expansion. "It's going to take us some time to close Acmar down,"
Head says, "but we're off to a good start."
Pacific Coast:
FISHY DEALS
One hundred and fifty years of logging has helped ruin 95 percent of the
coho salmon's original habitat by leaving coastal streams too shallow, warm, and
muddy for the fish to thrive. But instead of restoring the coho and local fishing
economies, the National Marine Fisheries Service settles for half-measures that
benefit the timber industry. In California, NMFS listed the coho as endangered
but didn't set regulatory guidelines, and refused to list it in Oregon, arguing
that the state's salmon conservation plan is adequate, even though it's largely
voluntary and doesn't protect fragile watersheds. Activists in both states are
fighting for the coho, with the Oregon Chapter suing the feds for strong,
enforceable safeguards for the jeopardized fish.
