TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Environmental advocates are applauding a bipartisan deal announced last Wednesday in the U.S. Senate to permanently reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
It's a 50-year-old program that diverts a small part of the money from oil and gas development and invests it in natural recreation areas.
Jenny Conner Nelms, director of federal government relations for the Nature Conservancy in Florida, says the fund has been worth almost $1 billion to the Sunshine State over the past 50 years.
"In Florida, we've protected places such as Everglades National Park, Canaveral National Seashore, Florida National Scenic Trail, St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge,” she points out. “They're literally all over the map for Florida."
Over the past few years, the fund has also sent $10 million to Florida via the Forest Legacy Program, which protects working forests that support the sustainable timber industry and recreational access to the forests.
Connor Nelms says maintaining Florida's natural beauty is in the state's best interest.
"Outdoor recreation is essential to our economy here in Florida,” she stresses. “It generates over $38 billion per year and then it accounts for close to 330,000 Florida jobs."
The Land and Water Conservation Fund is set to expire Sept. 30 – so backers are now working feverishly to attach it to a bill and put it to a vote in Congress before the deadline.
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The federal Department of the Interior has awarded the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission more than $800,000 for recovery efforts for American martens, Wisconsin's only state endangered mammal - that many people have never heard of.
Martens have been trapped for their fur for various purposes. Jonathan Pauli is a professor of forest and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
He said silvicultural practices and logging within local national forests altered martens' preferred habitats.
"This work is really trying to understand how do we manage habitat in a meaningful way," said Pauli, "on these working landscapes, to increase marten habitat, and connectivity of these different subpopulations, to ensure martens are here for the foreseeable future."
Pauli said the grant money - from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's America The Beautiful Challenge - will bring together a diverse group of folks from the federal, state, tribal, and academic levels over four years. They'll create a forest management proposal - with recommended habitat improvements for marten recovery in Wisconsin.
The project will also include training for future biologists and ecologists.
In the 1930s, martens were considered regionally extinct. A series of regional reintroduction efforts has spanned nearly 60 years.
Pauli said martens play important cultural, economic, and ecological roles - including the ability, as predators, to keep rodent populations at bay that are important carriers of diseases such as Lyme's Disease.
Martens are also good dispersers of seeds for foods such as blueberries, and are culturally significant to the Ojibwe or Chippewa people.
With varying degrees of chestnut brown furs, they have distinct golden throats and are the size of a cat, with semi-retractable claws that help them navigate through forests and snow.
"They actually live and hunt underneath that snowpack," said Pauli, "that they can slink in and out from underneath the snow where they can hunt all the mice that are living underneath the snow - and then pop up out of the snow bank. And they have big feet like snowshoe hares, almost, where they can surf on top of the snow."
Pauli said it's a real treat when you actually get to see one because they are so rare and cryptic.
For the first time in a century, martens were spotted this year on Lake Superior's Madeline Island in northern Wisconsin.
Ecology experts say this gives them hope for a positive recovery trend for the rare mammal.
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The southern Appalachian Mountains, known as the salamander capital of the world, are home to some of the most distinct wildlife in the country but Hurricane Helene's strong winds and flooding have left a trail of destruction across Western North Carolina.
Communities and businesses are working to recover and conservationists are raising concerns about how the storm has affected endangered species.
JJ Apodaca, executive director of the Amphibian and Reptile Conservancy, said one species in particular, the hellbender salamander, has suffered greatly.
"Hellbenders are a large aquatic salamander and several of those have been found dead across the region," Apodaca reported. "You can just imagine that something that's two feet long and doesn't really swim that well can't really escape the devastation."
Apodaca described the damage to habitats such as the Hickory Nut Gorge as catastrophic. He noted entire slopes and hillsides of trees have been wiped out, resulting in a complete loss of habitat for many species. While conservationists are still assessing the long-term effects, he stressed the outlook raises serious concerns for the future of the ecosystems.
Dalton George, national grassroots organizer for the Endangered Species Coalition and mayor pro tem of Boone, emphasized the importance of prioritizing wildlife and environmental health during recovery efforts. He pointed to greener infrastructure as a solution, prioritizing designs allowing wildlife to move freely, protecting clean water and managing stormwater effectively. He said the steps are essential to balancing recovery with long-term sustainability.
"With salamanders, with wildlife, here in the Appalachian Mountains, they need those protections now more than ever as we see the impacts of climate change and the extinction crisis happening globally," George asserted.
George highlighted the importance of the Endangered Species Act as a critical tool for preserving wildlife and their habitats. However, the act has faced repeated attacks in Congress. Conservationists say continued public support and advocacy are key to ensuring it remains a strong safeguard for the region's wildlife and ecosystems.
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Environmental advocates in Maryland are celebrating legislation that expands the definitions of wildlife in the state. The law also requires the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to review once every five years whether any new species need to be added to the state list.
Logan Christian, wildlife and habitat specialist with the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, said the expanding definition of wildlife includes invertebrates important in our food system - and other critical functions in our ecosystem.
"Pollinators are really important for biodiversity," Christian explained. "They're responsible for one out of every three bites of food that we take. Having the ability to think about all species -- where are species at and should they be listed -- it's just really important to have wildlife be defined broadly for that purpose."
He pointed out that a species could also be removed from the list, if conservation efforts succeed in increasing its wildlife populations.
The new law also lets private citizens get involved. Any interested person can submit a petition asking the Secretary of Natural Resources to review whether any species should be listed or removed from the Endangered Species Act. Christian said public input in species conservation can provide valuable help to government agencies trying to monitor hundreds of species.
"It allows for states to kind of add capacity by bringing in the public and non-profits and other keepers of knowledge in the state, who might have their finger on the pulse of what's happening with species better just because of the nature of their work or what they do," he continued.
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources tracks the status of more than 550 species that are threatened, endangered or in need. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service only lists 39 of those species as threatened or endangered.
Maryland House Delegate Julie Palakovich Carr, who sponsored the bill, said it cements many existing practices in the state, such as including invertebrates in the definition of wildlife. She also emphasizes the Endangered Species Acts has worked well for conservation across the country - and in Maryland.
"The Endangered Species Act really has been a huge success - both the state level laws and the federal laws. We have preserved so much biodiversity in our country over the last 50 years because of this law - and we really should regard this as one of the great environmental protections in our country," she said.
The new policies governing endangered species went into effect July first.
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