NY Times Sings NREPA’s Praises

Efforts to protect remaining roadless wildlands and restore logged over public lands in the northern Rockies got a boost today when the New York Times penned an editorial strongly in favor of the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act.

Wilderness Defender Carole King & NREPA Featured at Huff Post

The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.

Edward Abbey (1927 – 1989)

Yesterday, the Huffington Post featured Todd Wilkinson’s look at Carole King’s sixteen year effort to protect Wilderness in the northern Rockies. The four-time Grammy Award winner has been a stalwart in the Wilderness movement every since 1993, when King was captivated by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies’ vision for Wilderness protection based on science and the needs of wildlife, not politics.  Much of King’s activism has centered around her remarkable efforts to see the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA) passed by Congress and signed into law.

We’ve written about NREPA before. In a nutshell, NREPA:

• Designates as Wilderness 24 million acres of roadlless wildlands in the Northern Rockies;

• Connects natural, biological corridors, ensuring the continued existence of native plants and animals and mitigating the effects of climate change;

• Restores habitat that has been severely damaged from tens of thousands of logging roads that were built, and creates more than 2,300 restoration jobs in rural communities leading to a more sustainable economic base in the region;

• Keeps water available for ranchers and farmers downstream until it is most needed; and

• Eliminates subsidized development in the designated of 24 million acres of new wilderness areas, saving taxpayers $245 million over a 10-year period.

If you want more information about NREPA, including the full text of the bill and also a link to some really nifty maps broken down by National Forests, click here.

Do yourself a favor. Read the excellent feature on Carole King’s Wilderness activism, get inspired and then take a page from Carol’s book and get active!! You’re Congressional representative is waiting to hear from you!