 When Reed Noss was giving slide shows introducing the Wildlands Project way back in 1993, he used a doctored (he is, after all, a doctor) photo of a polar bear lounging on a sand dune. The photo was meant to demonstrate the need for a continental system of connected reserves that could maintain its integrity in the face of human-caused change. Today large-scale conservation is well accepted, and Reed’s bear is getting a lot of exposure. Polar bears are in such serious trouble that even the U.S. executive branch is considering action. Climate change has finally arrived in the U.S. popular consciousness, thanks to the tireless work of many and to its increasingly obvious effects.
The specter of climate change also is driving home like nothing else, the need for the Spine of the Continent “Wildway” and its equivalents throughout North America. Given that scientists have found that several, major, past climate shifts have been extremely rapid—on the order of 20 years—it is urgent that obstacles to animal and ecosystem movement be breached and bridged. Elevation gradients offered by mountains will not be enough. As global warming continues to climb the political agenda ladder, the opportunities to get governments and landowners to act will grow.
There is another reason that conservation, focused on the grand scale of entire “wildways,” is so important. It has to do with the ability of the famous to get us lesser mortals back-stage or into good restaurants without waiting in line. Status and fame are facts of life in societies like ours. We need to use this reality to achieve our goals. Here’s what I mean. Yellowstone National Park is famous. Banff, Glacier, Waterton, Zion, and Organ Pipe are well known, if not quite as famous. It’s relatively easy to raise money and garner other support to protect these places from threats and to get traction for improving biodiversity and ecosystem protection. The problem is, the dozens of other places, biologically equal or more important for their wilderness values, are way below the radar. Have you heard of Tijeris Canyon? Powder Rim?
At any one time, the conservation community can only mount so many campaigns. The constituent groups we need to mobilize, and even a sympathetic Congress, can only handle so much information and manage so many bills. So is one giant campaign or initiative the answer? It is at least part of the answer. Wildlands Project partners up and down the Rockies are joining us in mounting such an initiative. It won’t replace regional, state or local organizing— it will complement and in some cases help coordinate those efforts. It won’t replace the need to build media and political connections on those levels. But it will allow us to go to state and federal agencies and legislatures with comprehensive packages that include protection for both the famous and the obscure.
The famous will get us noticed and asked backstage. And as we climb the steps to the stage, everybody climbs with us, locked together. The message is: protect the Spine of the Continent Wildway, all the bears and wolves and elk, and the grand parks. We must keep the whole in tact. It won’t matter if the chain holds between Yellowstone and Glacier, but breaks between the Sky Islands and Cebadillas. It’s still broken.
Will a campaign aimed at protection on this scale invite more resistance? That certainly used to be the wisdom. But climate change has added urgency to the equation. Wildways are needed. And they have the ability to stir the hearts of even the jaded. They inspire and challenge and generate the enormous energy to move conservation forward. — David Johns |
