[MPWG] Fwd: Input Needed! Tell the Forest Service to Protect our National Forests and Open Spaces!

[cafesombra at aol.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: Caitlin Hills, American Lands Alliance <americanlandsalliance at mail.democracyinaction.org>
To: cafesombra at aol.com
Sent: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 4:38 pm
Subject: Input Needed! Tell the Forest Service to Protect our National Forests and Open Spaces!




















































 





 

 

 

 











 

 


To: All Activists
From: Caitlin Hills, American Lands Alliance
Date: July 20, 2007

Input Needed! Tell the Forest Service to Protect our National Forests and Open Spaces!
Comments Needed-Open Spaces in Peril-Deadline July 23, 2007





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Last month, the US Forest Service released the draft version of its Open Space Conservation Strategy to address the daily loss of 6,000 acres (about 250 football fields-worth every hour) of open space and forests due to commercial and residential sprawl. The draft strategy explains the threat our nation’s natural heritage faces from development sprawl, the harmful impacts the loss of these lands has for the nation and its wildlife, and proposes comprehensive solutions to address this problem. Click here to send your comment letter to the Forest Service. 



What’s at Stake

Increasing population and expanding commercial and residential development threaten to undo America's conservation accomplishments. The Forest Service strategy warns that we are losing not only our ability to manage public lands to maintain healthy forests and public recreation, but critical ecosystem services, too, such as wildlife habitat, clean drinking water, natural resources-based jobs, and a sustainable output of forest products. Forest Service research has determined that:

·        34 million acres of open space (the size of Illinois) were lost to development between 1982 and 2001. 

·        64 million acres of open space (the size of Colorado) is projected to be developed by 2020. 

·        10 million acres of forests were lost to development from 1982 to 1997. 

·        26 million more acres of forests is expected to be developed by 2030 (close to the size of Tennessee). 

·        57 percent of US forest lands are privately owned and unprotected from development.

Given these development projections, the need to preserve critical and threatened forest lands and open spaces has never been greater. Conservation of these places through public acquisition or purchase of development rights is the most effective way to protect forest and open spaces that provide clean water and air, habitat for diverse wildlife species, and abundant recreational and economic opportunities. 

Thus far, the Forest Service’s assessment of the situation can be praised. The draft clearly states that in order to protect our open spaces, a network of interconnected open spaces must exist to support ecological diversity. Also, the draft provides twelve concrete ways that the Forest Service plans to enact its strategy. However, proper amounts of funding for the projects put forth in the draft have not yet been part of the strategy. It is imperative that the US Forest Service understands that in order to protect our public lands, appropriate funding must be included in the strategy.

To read the Open Space Conservation Strategy, click here. 


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