As if I didn’t already have enough on my plate with 40 Rivers, that other double-secret site, and the Fall semester on the way, I thought I’d add to the fun.
Announcing Ecofly. A site dedicated to Education, Opinion, and Reporting on Environmental/Conservation Issues of Concern to Fly Fishermen.
There are still a few things to tweak, but for the most part, it’s ready to roll.
So go check it out, bookmark it, add it to your RSS reader, link to it from your own site, etc.
Here’s an interesting opinion piece from the New York Times on drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale, particularly, in the Catskills. Something tells me that this is gonna happen, whether we like it or not. But my crystal ball also says that the battle over this issue hasn’t even started to heat up yet.
Personally, I think that those who wish to keep the drilling out of the Catskills need to concede that this is gonna happen, and instead of fighting to stop this from happening completely, they need to focus their efforts on protecting sensitive areas of the Catskills from being exploited. Particularly, making sure that sensitive ecosystems have adequate buffer zones in place to protect them from the both the infrastructure that will be in place to extract the natural gas- such as roads, wells, and pipelines, as well as a little breathing room so that when there are leaks- and mark my words, there will be leaks- there will be time to deal with them accordingly before they do serious damage.
That’s how I feel. How about you?
A recent study, to be published in the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS)” this week , suggests that people are more likely to enroll in conservation programs if their neighbors do.
The research, to be published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) this week, is the first to focus on the phenomenon of social norms in the context of China’s conservation efforts, said scientist Jianguo “Jack” Liu of Michigan State University (MSU).
The study focused on a mammoth government initiative called Grain-to-Green that pays Chinese farmers to convert cropland back to forest.
“Much of the marginal cropland in rural communities has been converted from agriculture to forests through the Grain-to-Green Program, one of the largest ‘payment for ecosystem services’ programs in the world,” said Alan Tessier, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Division of Environmental Biology.
“Results of this study show that a community’s social norms have substantial impacts on the sustainability of these conservation investments.” source
Further proof that if you care about a conservation issue, let everyone you know hear about it. Then, when it becomes cool, you can tell everyone that you cared about it back in the day…
This Saturday, June 13, 2009, Trout Unlimited is sponsoring a national stream and river cleanup day, celebrating 50 years of coldwater conservation.
Volunteers and staff will host stream clean-up projects throughout the country. Prizes will be awarded for most river miles cleaned, weirdest object found in a river or stream, most volunteer participants, among others.
You can click HERE to go to TU’s website and find a cleanup project near you.
Or maybe not…
When I went to the above link and only saw 13 chapters on the list, I was a little surprised. There are 53 TU Chapters in Pennsylvania alone. Yet only two of those chapters are participating in Saturday’s “event.” Sadly though, Pennsylvania is tied for the lead for number of Chapters participating- with Georgia.
Georgia.
My home state of New York has a single chapter from Long Island participating out of the 36 chapters in the state. Michigan, where Trout Unlimited was founded on the banks of the Au Sable River has 22 local chapters. Of those, only one is participating.
Now I understand that many local TU chapters hold annual cleanups on certain days of the year, and might not have had the resources to adjust their schedule. I understand that some might not want to adjust their schedule to accommodate their big, national brother who so often fails to back them up when they need a hand. But what I don’t understand is how out of the hundreds of local chapters across the country, only 13 are participating.
13.
I’ve always been on the side of the local chapter over the TU State or National councils. But I’ve got to think that it’s the local chapter who deserves most of the blame for not being able to organize their members. I’m sure TU National and TU State sent letters with a nice fancy letterhead letting them know this event was going on. After that it’s up to the local chapters to put a cleanup on the schedule. So what if some chapters only got 3 or 4 people to show up. That’s 3 or 4 people who wouldn’t have been there otherwise. Yet while there isn’t an unlittered river or stream out there, only 13 chapters picked up the ball and ran with it- hats off to them!
How great would it have been for, say, 100 chapters to have scheduled cleanups for this weekend? It would have been awesome- the D Day of coldwater conservation.
Oh well. You don’t need to be part of a TU Chapter, or need a special day for an excuse to clean up trash from our lakes and streams. Whenever you hit your favorite trickle, throw a wal mart bag in one of those 50 vest pockets. If you see some trash, pick it up and take it out with you. The fish will thank you for it later.
The Hatches Blog Network