During the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt, a series of commissions proposed policy reforms for public lands, waterways, and conservation. These efforts laid the groundwork for the National Park System, National Forest System, national monuments and wildlife refuges.
A half-century later, one of the most important chapters in the history of conservation in America began in 1958, when Congress decided that an intensive nationwide study should be made of outdoor recreation. The bipartisan Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission (ORRRC) involved all levels of government and the private sector. The final report of the ORRRC in 1962 led directly to the establishment of the National Wilderness Preservation System and an array of other government programs and policies that we take for granted today.
There have been a number of outdoor commissions since, on a smaller scale. The results of these commissions have been far less influential. Last April the Obama administration started the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative (AGO) “to develop a conservation agenda worthy of the 21st century and to reconnect Americans with our great outdoors.”
AGO is coming to Salt Lake City on Tuesday for a “listening session.” Will they listen? Will they renew the federal commitment to maintaining and improving wilderness, national parks and public lands? Or will they follow a corporatist agenda?
When: Tuesday, August 3rd 10:00 AM- 1:15 PM
Where: Salt Lake City, UT: Radisson Hotel Salt Lake City Downtown, 215 West South Temple, 84101. Map.
Details: Senior leadership from the U.S. Department of the Interior, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies will be present to hear your thoughts and participate in a conversation about America’s Great Outdoors.
Note: The deadline for requesting a speaking slot at this meeting has passed, but everyone is invited to submit ideas on the America’s Great Outdoors website.
UPDATE: The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar will attend Tuesday’s “listening session,” along with Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality; Bob Abbey, director of the Bureau of Land Management; Utah Gov. Gary Herbert; and Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker.
#1 by cav on July 31, 2010 - 6:58 am
http://www.counterpunch.org/weisheit07302010.html
On May 20, 2009 the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining (UDOGM) approved a plan of operations by an Alberta, Canada mining company called Earth Energy Resources (EER) to commence the strip mining of tar sands in the Uinta Basin of the Colorado Plateau.
The plan will blast and chew into the slopes of canyon headwaters at depths of 500 feet. The overburden and waste rock (sand, clay, and rubble) will then be placed back into the empty cavity, and then sprinkled with top soil, mulch, seeds and prayer, with hopes the infamous winds and cloudbursts of this high plateau won’t wash and blow it all away.
If the nation is to adapt to climate change by reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, then strip mining low-grade hydrocarbons in the second driest state in the Union is not an appropriate way of demonstrate one’s leadership skills toward intelligent land-use planning.
#2 by cav on July 31, 2010 - 7:37 am
Lierre Keith, blogging in Mother Earth News:
We could find our beginning point, our once upon a time, in the first written story of this culture, the Epic of Gilgamesh, which chronicled the deforestation of Mesopotamia. The story hasn’t changed in four thousand years — it’s just quickened with the accelerant of fossil fuel. The pattern is basic to civilization, a feedback loop of overshoot, militarization, slavery, and biotic devastation, a loop that has tightened into a noose. That noose is planet-wide, encircling the earth in a siege beyond the wildest dreams of ambitious Caesars of the past. Nothing is safe, not the South Pole, not the strata 30,000 feet below the earth’s surface, not even the moon, which the power-mad had to “punch” last year. Ownership and entitlement have distilled into a sense of control so pure — and so rancid — that life itself is now being ransomed to the demands of the sociopaths at the top of a very steep, very brutal pyramid.
#3 by Richard Warnick on July 31, 2010 - 9:39 am
I’m guessing cav doesn’t think we’re on the eve of a new conservation era.
#4 by cav on July 31, 2010 - 10:07 am
I just hope you all get out there, on the speakers lists, and tell em what you think. That is all.
I’d like to see a new era of conservation, but if Alberta shale stripping is any indication of the future of the Roan Plateau, y’all better start the ‘engagement’. Nothing to lose, eh?
#5 by Larry Bergan on August 1, 2010 - 12:46 am
I have to work on Tuesday. Hope things go well for this important effort; some things are just beyond precious.