Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act Introduced in the U.S. House

On Wednesday, February 11, music legend Carole King joined Representatives Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) to announce the introduction of the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives. If passed, NREPA (HR 980) would protect some of America’s most beautiful and ecologically important public lands and water bodies in the region while creating jobs and saving taxpayers money. Initially crafted in the early 1990s by Alliance for the Wild Rockies and several conservation organizations, this bill differs from traditional state-by-state wilderness bills by offering a variety of designations created to collectively achieve one goal: protection of an entire, functioning ecosystem. These designations are not based on arbitrary political boundaries but on the best scientific research of regional ecological and watershed features. Its provisions establishing Wilderness, Wild and Scenic Rivers, Biological Linkage Corridors, and a Wildland Recovery System grant the groundbreaking antidotes to ongoing land degradation, water and air pollution, global climate change, species extinctions, and economic decline.

Wilderness

NREPA affords pristine roadless areas in the Northern Rockies their highest level of legal protection – designation as wilderness under the 1964 Wilderness Act. These designations fill significant ecological gaps overlooked by earlier, less advanced understandings of conservation biology and complete the visionary work of previous Congresses to preserve our natural heritage of lands belonging to all Americans. Beyond the approximately 50 percent of federal lands in the bioregion that would still be managed for sustainable uses, NREPA establishes about 24 million acres as wilderness in the National Wilderness Preservation System. These lands include three million backcountry acres recommended as wilderness by the National Park Service in Glacier, Grand Teton, and Yellowstone national parks as well as other wildlands managed by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. NREPA accommodates historic uses of these public lands, such as hunting, fishing, and firewood gathering, and does not affect grazing agreements or private landownership. It also explicitly recognizes and fully protects the treaty rights, traditional land uses, and religious practices of Native Americans in all the areas designated by this legislation.

Wild and Scenic Rivers

NREPA classifies over 1,800 miles of waterways within almost sixty river systems as Wild, Scenic, or Recreational, as specified under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968. Mountain headwaters that flow into the Green, Missouri, and Snake rivers, and ultimately into the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Hudson Bay, would be protected from future development and despoliation. Because water quality and supply are crucial issues in the semiarid interior Northwest and Great Plains, the widespread watershed health realized by NREPA would produce several beneficial results. The bill safeguards the ancient migration routes of numerous species of salmon, steelhead, and native trout and thus assists the survival and recovery of endangered fish populations. World-class rafting and boating opportunities would also be maintained, while steady flows of high quality water for downstream use by ranchers and farmers during dry seasons would be enhanced.

Biological Linkage Corridors

The Northern Rockies bioregion is the only place in the lower 48 states where all of the native species present at the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition over two hundred years ago still inhabit virtually unchanged lands. Grizzly bears, wolves, bison, caribou, elk, salmon, and trout still persist in the region. NREPA counters fragmentation of native plant and animal habitats by establishing a system of Biological Linkage Corridors to connect the region’s core wildlands into a functioning ecological whole. These routes would be protected as wilderness or as special management zones where development is limited but not prohibited. The bill not only ensures the continued existence of local species and the lands on which they depend, it also mitigates the effects of global warming. Biological Linkage Corridors allow species to migrate across elevations and latitudes as wildlife and plant populations adapt to changing climate and subsequent environmental conditions, including the spread of invasive species. The intact and restored forest ecosystems protected by NREPA also serve as important carbon sinks and could further the carbon sequestration efforts essential to reducing and offsetting atmospheric carbon emissions in the United States.

Wildland Recovery System

In over one million acres throughout the Northern Rockies bioregion, NREPA establishes a pilot system of Wildland Restoration Areas to recover prioritized lands severely damaged by unwise resource extraction practices. This program would remove excess and unneeded roads, reduce soil erosion, and restore native vegetation, habitat, and water quality to their natural state. Consequently, it would rejuvenate native fisheries and wildlife populations and sustain the economic base of the region: its outstanding quality of life derived from the abundant natural amenities of clean air, resilient watersheds, recreation opportunities, unsurpassed beauty, and aesthetic enjoyment. NREPA would also invest in rural communities formerly dependent on resource extraction by creating more than 2,300 high-paying jobs recovering old roads and clearcuts and improving ecosystem conditions on public lands. Funding for this program would arise from diversion of the taxpayer-supported subsidies that have too long supported below-cost, corporate timber sale and road building programs in sensitive roadless areas. By prohibiting and eliminating these development practices and managing lands as wilderness, corridor, or recovery areas, NREPA would generate net savings of more than $245 million over the first ten years after passage. Based on sound ecological science, sustainable economic development models, and environmental laws, NREPA provides the long-term stability that is vital to continued regional prosperity and realistic economic planning.

The large units of roadless public lands that foster natural processes in the Northern Rockies have kept the bioregion relatively intact and wild. The Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act aims to protect these strongholds of native biodiversity and the accompanying high quality of life that continues to draw concerned citizens to the region. NREPA is visionary, national-interest legislation informed by current conservation biology principles, ecosystem processes, and regional economic trends. Wilderness guide and outfitter Howie Wolke of Montana affirms that:

"This is our last chance to do it right in the lower 48 states. NREPA represents a rapidly fading opportunity to prevent more endangered species listings, more resource extraction-induced watershed disasters, more soil destruction and noise pollution from all terrain vehicles, and more losses of the irreplaceable values that we in the Northern Rockies hold dear. And equally important, it a chance to avoid all of the expensive band-aid mitigation measures plus the controversy and polarization that are inevitable when we fail to properly protect the habitat to begin with."

Learn more about NREPA at: http://www.wildrockiesalliance.org or http://www.friendsoftheclearwater.org. Please contact your Representatives in Congress and insist on their support of this exemplary bill. It is especially critical that all the members of the House understand that thousands of Northern Rockies residents have hoped for and worked toward passage of this legislation for decades. Friends of the Clearwater also encourages you to write to Representatives Maloney and Grijalva thanking them for their stalwart endorsement of NREPA. You can reach all of these congressional members by phone, email, or mail with contact information provided at: http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml.