http://action.sierraclub.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=130441.0FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 14, 2009
Contact: Kristina
Johnson
(415) 977-5619
www.sierraclub.org/resilienthabitat
Sierra Club Cheers Interior Department Global Warming
Strategy
Washington, D.C. - Today, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar
launched the
first-ever department-wide coordinated strategy to address the
impacts of
climate change on the public lands, wildlife, coasts and
ecosystems managed
by his agency.
Statement
of Sierra Club Deputy Executive Director Bruce Hamilton
Secretary Salazar
has shown true leadership by making it a priority for his
agency to address
the impacts of global warming on our treasured public
lands, waters, and
wildlife.
The Sierra Club has been working hard to ensure that federal,
state, and
local land management agencies address global warming. We are
thrilled to
see many of our recommendations reflected in the Interior
Department's
strategy.
We've already begun to see the effects of
global warming on America's land
and wildlife. We're seeing worse wildfires,
wildlife population declines,
and shrinking habitat and food sources for
animals like grizzlies and
bighorn sheep.
As a key manager of our
nation's wildlife, waters, and public lands, the
Interior Department is in a
unique position to protect our wild legacy from
the impacts of global
warming. Coordination between federal and local
agencies and private
landowners will help ensure that America's forests,
ecosystems, and wildlife
survive the worst impacts of climate change.
In order to help our
wildlife and native plants adapt, we need to protect
important habitat from
stressors like unchecked logging, mining, drilling
and industrial
development. We need to protect key wildlife migration
routes and ecosystems,
including on private lands. We need to enhance the
capacity of our forests,
wetlands and soils to store carbon and help fight
global warming.
The
Interior Department will need to work in concert with other federal
agencies,
states, tribes, and private landowners to come up with
cooperative programs
that allow species to move and survive in a
climate-changed world.
The
strategy announced today by Secretary Salazar will go a long way
towards
achieving these goals. We look forward to working with him in the
coming
months to implement the program.
Kristina Johnson
Deputy Press
Secretary
Sierra Club
Office: (415) 977-5619
Cell: (541) 914-9744
85
Second Street - 2nd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105-3459
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