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We need your help to reconnect nature and create the Eastern Wildway.

 
Whether you’re located in or out of the Eastern Wildway, it is important to reconnect wild places. John is exploring local and regional actions, but these are things everyone can do:
 
General Activities that will Help the Eastern Wildway:
1. Support your local reserves and parks, by participating in programs to restore, connect, enlarge, and better protect them.
2. Support policies for wildlife bridges and underpasses that enable animals to cross roads safely and move from one protected area to another and that help reduce wildlife- vehicle collisions on highways.
3. Support the efforts of your local conservation heroes and organizations, and donate to the local, regional, and national land trusts that buy and protect natural habitats in your area.
4. Conserve or manage your private lands in a way that maintains critical habitat connections for wildlife.
5. Advocate for the recovery of your area’s keystone species, which include: oysters, beaver, Florida panther/cougar, black bear, and red wolf to name a few.
6. Support community-based agriculture as a vital component of land and wildlife conservation.
7. Vote for candidates who will be strong stewards of our natural environment - see www.lcv.org.
 
State-Specific Actions:
Here are some important state-by-state actions you can take to support the Eastern Wildway:

Florida:
1. Support the Everglades Skyway, 5-1/2 miles of bridges over Tamiami Trail to make room for wildlife and natural water flow. Visit: http://florida.s.ierraclub.org/Everglades_Skyway.asp"http://www.buildtheskyway.com/" href="http://www.buildtheskyway.com/">http://www.buildtheskyway.com/.

2. Support The Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge proposal an unprecedented opportunity to protect and restore large portions of the Everglades ecosystem. 

3. Write a note to Senator Nelson and other Florida senators urging them not to interfere with the EPA's plans to set new standards for both nitrates and phosphorus, excess amounts of which can cause harmful algae blooms.
 
4. Drive safely and observe wildlife-friendly speed zones and lower nighttime speed limits on the Tamiami Trail and Route 29, protecting Florida panthers and other rare species. We’ll actually save money on vehicle collisions and road safety-related expenses too.
 
5. Support Critical Habitat designation for the Florida panther under the Endangered Species Act. Find your Florida Representative, then give them a call or send them a note asking them to push the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate critical habitat for the panther.
 
6. Drive less, and urge your friends and family to do likewise, to reduce roadkill, make roads less of a barrier to wildlife movement, and lower carbon emissions.
 
7. Reach out to the ORV (Off-road Recreational Vehicles)  Community asking them to adopt a wildlife-friendly approach to their sport by sticking to established, well-maintained trails, avoiding blazing new trails through wild, protected areas (such as the remaining roadless areas in Big Cypress Preserve), and making them aware of the long-term damage inflicted on wildlife habitats by reckless use of off-road vehicles. Visit www.southfloridawild.org.
 
6. Help connect panther habitat by supporting local groups working on creating more wildlife bridges, connections and habitat protections. Visit the Florida Forever Program.
 
7. Support organizations like Archbold Biological Station and The Nature Conservancy as they attempt to protect and restore additional scrub habitat along the Lake Wales Ridge.
 
8. Volunteer to help census Florida scrub jays via The Nature Conservancy’s Jay Watch program: contact Cheryl Millett at (863) 635-7506 or cmillett@tnc.org to sign-up.
 
9. Work with your local Audubon Chapter (e.g. Pelican Island Audubon) to encourage your local county commissioners to adopt land use plans consistent with conserving the remaining scrub habitats within your county, and also to enact and enforce laws restricting outdoor cats near scrub jay habitat.
 
Alabama
1. Vote to renew Alabama's Forever Wild Program, on the ballots statewide November 6, 2011!! Visit: http://www.protectforeverwild.org/.
 
2. Urge your state senators and representatives to provide better protections to water quality in Alabama's rivers, protecting them from coal mines, urban development, and other threats. Encourage them to read and enact the Alabama Water Agenda, http://www.alabamawateragenda.com/.
 
3. Support efforts to extend the Florida Trail northward to connect with the Pinhoti Trail, and then on to the Appalachian Trail, creating a vital corridor for outdoor recreation and a new wildlife linkage. http://www.pinhotitrailalliance.org/.
 
4. Support expansion of the Cahaba River National Wildlife Refuge. See websites ofAlabama Rivers Alliance and Cahaba River Society. 
 
5. Help build a vision for a large Longleaf Pine National Park, protecting and restoring extensive longleaf habitat in northern Florida and southern Alabama.
 
Georgia
1. Join the push for a new national park and preserve, centered on the Ocmulgee River corridor near Macon, GA.   See http://www.npca.org/southeast/fieldreport/Southeast_Newsletter_Winter2011.pdf
 
2. Download the new iphone app for tracking marine debris, and use it to report trash you see along the coast: http://www.marinedebris.engr.uga.edu/
 
3. Urge state and federal officials to make the Okefenokee Swamp in southern Georgia and Osceola National Forest in northern Florida an early site for panther reintroduction.
 
South Carolina
1. Work with the Coastal Conservation League to protect the SC Lowcountry from the impacts of sea level rise - fight global warming and promote clean energy!http://coastalconservationleague.org/projects/climate-change-and-south-carolina/
 
2. Support the SC office of TNC in their efforts to protect the ACE Basin and Winyah Bay conservation landscapes:http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/southcarolina/index.htm
 
3. Write your state and Federal representatives and ask them to support expanding Congaree National Park, to offer a better buffer for protecting the water quality in this important reserve: http://www.friendsofcongaree.org/
 
4. Donate to Audubon Society for expansion of their Francis Beidler Swamp Sanctuary 
 
5. Push for additions to ACE Basin National Wildlife Refuge.
 
North Carolina
1. Write your legislators in support of funding for NC's Conservation Trust Funds! Visit:
 
2. Write the President and your U.S. Representatives and U.S. Senators and ask them to support more funding (not less) for the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, specifically so that more $$ is available to purchase key inholdings in our National Forests in North Carolina.
 
3. Write your state Representatives and the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, and ask them to develop policies supporting the natural expansion of red wolves off of the Albemarle Peninsula, and for proactively managing any human-wolf conflicts that may occur.
 
4. Write your state Representatives and the NC Wildlife Resources Commission and urge them to develop a sensible policy for welcoming any eventual dispersing panthers who may arrive in the state, and encouraging them to consider reintroductions of the cats to promote healthy deer populations. Seehttp://www.easterncougar.org.
 
5. Vote for local and statewide candidates in 2011 who will make protecting North Carolina's environment and natural resources a higher priority. Seehttp://www.nclcv.org/.
 
6. Support the work of The Wilderness Society and the Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition at protecting and reconnecting large forested tracts in the NC mountains:
 
7. Encourage the NC Department of Transportation not to route new bypass roads and interstates through Croatan National Forest, the Green Swamp, and other NC natural treasures.
 
8. Encourage NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, the U.S. Department of Defense/Ft. Bragg, the U,S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the NC Department of Transportation to make reconnecting the longleaf habitats in the Sandhills region a top priority, especially for the sake of rare snakes and other less-mobile species. Visit:http://www.ncscp.org/.
 
9. Support the efforts of The Nature Conservancy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Conservation Fund to buy and protect lands connecting the red wolf populations in Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge to suitable habitat along the Roanoke River.
 
Kentucky
1. Support the work of the Kentucky Natural Lands Trust, including their efforts to protect the wildlife habitat corridor at Pine Mountain:http://www.knlt.org/pmwc.html.
 
2. Fight to end forever the practice of mountain top removal coal mining - visitwww.ilovemountains.org and watch the new film "The Last Mountain."
 
3. Write the managers of Daniel Boone National Forest and encourage them to reduce the impacts of off-road vehicles on the trails and ecology of the forest.
 
Ohio
1. Join the Arc of Appalachia www.arcofappalachia.org as a donor and/or volunteer. Get inspired by their amazing conservation successes and undertake similar habitat and human reconnection efforts in your area. 
 
West Virginia
1. Fight to end forever the practice of mountain top removal coal mining - visitwww.ilovemountains.org and watch the new film "The Last Mountain."
 
2. Voice your support for the proposed High Allegheny National Park, which would knit together existing wildlands in and around the Monongahela National Forest. Learn more at http://www.saveblackwater.org/documents/feb2011 page 3.pdf.
 
3. Write your state Representatives and the WV Department of Natural Resources and urge them to develop a sensible policy for welcoming any cougars who may eventually arrive in the state, and encourage them to consider reintroductions of the cats to promote healthy deer populations. See http://www.easterncougar.organd contact: http://www.wvdnr.gov/contact.shtm.
 
4. Convince the U.S. Forest Service to start closing unnecessary roads, phasing out commercial grazing allotments and timber sales, and generally protecting our National Forests for their highest and best uses: as wildlife habitat, watershed protectors, and climate stabilizers.
 
5. Go to www.biologicaldiversity.org to assist the Center for Biological Diversity’s efforts to stop the spread of white-nosed syndrome (a disease that is decimating bat populations) and CBD's many other vital efforts to save and restore endangered species. 
 
6. Help 350.org get strong carbon emission reductions approved, so the spruce forests of West Virginia are not lost to global overheating. 

 

 

 

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