If you caught the Oscars on Sunday, you might have seen the following American Express commercial featuring Patagonia founder, Yvon Chouinard, for their members project with Takepart.com.
Had you gone to Takepart.com that evening, you would have seen Nevada Wilderness Project director John Wallin on the home page. While the home page has since changed, you can still find John’s interview with Wendy Cohen for “Media That Inspires,” an ongoing conversation that asks people who make a difference what books, films and other media have inspired them. Click here to read about what inspires John Wallin.
Hello Wild Nevada! My name is Tammy Krikorian and I’m a graduate student at the University of Nevada, Reno. I have just begun an internship with the Nevada Wilderness Project to do some social media and multimedia over the next few months. As my duties will include blogging, I thought I’d take the opportunity today to introduce myself.
As I had a planned trip to Las Vegas last weekend with friends, I offered to shoot some video while I was in the area. NWP sent me out to Red Rock Canyon, where I’d never been and I thought it was absolutely gorgeous - such a contrast from the rest of the weekend spent on the Strip. I spent nearly two hours driving the loop and shooting video and hope to go again and hike some of the trails.
I’m looking forward to working with NWP and learning more about all of the incredible wilderness areas and wildlife that we have here in Nevada.
Are you interested in Native American rock art? Petroglyphs? Archaeology? Curious about the early inhabitants of Gold Butte, Nevada? You’re invited to learn about these topics, and more, with one of the nation’s foremost archaeologists and Gold Butte researchers, Amy Gilreath.
When: Wednesday, February 17, 7 pm. (doors open at 6)
Where: Mesquite Community Theater, 150 North Yucca Street, Mesquite, NV
Hosted by the Friends of Gold Butte, this talk brings Amy Gilreath back to the area (her last presentation was standing-room only) to share some of her expertise and photographs of one of the West’s most remarkable areas. Friends of Gold Butte and the Nevada Wilderness Project are working to see Gold Butte protected as a National Conservation Area and Wilderness–legal designations that will bring this area better management, greater law enforcement and new educational stewardship. The area is rich with pre-historic rock art, petroglyphs and other evidence of early habitation by Native Americans. Click here to find out more about Gold Butte.
Amy Gilreath is an active professional archaeologist, an owner of Far Western Anthropological Research Group in Las Vegas, and a wonderful speaker. Her work around the West has resulted in a number of outstanding technical reports and publications recognized by both environmental professionals and academic scholars as being at the forefront of American archaeology. She has just completed a two-year-long study of Gold Butte - and is ready to share her findings.
Questions? e-mail Friends of Gold Butte President, Nancy Hall: friendsofgoldbutte@gmail.com
A few weeks ago, some of us from the Nevada Wilderness Project went chukkar hunting. Chukkar: 12; NWP: 0. It was an awesome day. We hiked ourselves silly, saw tracks, birds, and Annabelle–the wonder dog–work her magic. Then we ate turkey sandwiches and drank some kind of schnapp-y, brandy thing. Unbeatable day.
A few weeks ago, an NWP staff member participated in a conference call with the No Child Left Inside (NCLI) Coalition—a group that is reaching out to 1,500 organizations like NWP to garner support for funding environmental education.She was enthusiastic about what she heard and last week, we added a new “Take Action” page to our website www.wildnevada.org. Here’s what’s happening:
The U.S. Department of Education is working on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, or No Child Left Behind), and we need to help make sure the bill includes provisions for environmental and outdoor education (pre-K thru grade 12), as outlined in the No Child Left Inside Act. In other words, we need to make sure there is an environmental education component in the Act.
The No Child Left Inside (NCLI) Coalition has reached out to organizations around the country, NWP among them, to help mobilize people and ask them to write the Department of Education (DOE) with this message: include provisions for No Child Left Inside (environmental education) in the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We have a link and sample letter on our website for you to take action on this issue.
Environmental education for kids is a no-brainer. Ask anyone under the age of 20. Faced with global climate change, habitat conservation challenges in the their own backyards, and unprecedented opportunities arising with renewable energy development, coming generations need all the environmental education we can possibly give them. Plus, organizations such as ours—and many others—need their creativity and unmatched technological skills to forge ahead and re-shape the conservation community.
Our Take Action page—and your follow-through—is step one. Step two will take shape in 2010, as we introduce our new Adopt-a-Wildlife Corridor program into two Reno schools. There are no better advocates for wildlife habitat and linkages than 5th graders-turned-citizen scientists, armed with pencils, data sheets, Google Earth, and unfettered passion. Stay tuned. We’ll post more as the program unfolds.
Our Wildlife Linkages Program has a citizen scientist component where we put volunteers on the ground to monitor key wildlife linkages in Nevada. Currently, we are keeping an eye on activities near the Desert Refuge in southern Nevada. This area is one of our key linkages that we have identified for Nevada because of the important movements of wildlife between the Desert Refuge and the Delamar, Meadow Valley and Arrow Canyon Wilderness areas directly to the east. Historically, this was an important region for desert bighorn sheep where they would move from the east ranges in the spring and into the high Sheep Range to gain access to water and good food resources in the hot summer months. Female sheep also used the area for lambing as there is a lot of cover and rugged terrain to escape predators. In the fall, bighorn sheep moved back east to the lower elevation ranges where it was not as cold and snow was not an issue.
The Nevada Wilderness Project is proud to be hosting the Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival this fall in Reno and, for the first time, bringing this festival to Las Vegas audiences for two screenings. Here’s the nitty-gritty:
In Reno: Wednesday, November 4, 2009, 7 pm
Joe Crowley Student Union Theater
University of Nevada-Reno
admission: $10 in advance, $12 at the door, $8 with UNR student id
(co-hosted by UNR’s Environmental Action Team)
In Las Vegas (two showings, co-hosted by the Nevada Conservation League): Thursday, October 22, 2009, 7 pm
Clark County Library
1401 E. Flamingo Road
Las Vegas, NV 89119
702-507-3400
admission: free
Wednesday, November 11, 7pm
The Springs Preserve
333 S. Valley View Blvd.
Las Vegas, NV 89193
admission: $10 in advance, $12 at the door
This one-night festival is comprised of independent films that are inspiring, positive stories about people around the world making a difference for conservation, green energy and their local communities. Movies include “Division Street,” which follows filmmaker Eric Bendick as he tours North America, dodging Yellowstone’s grizzlies and Miami’s taxicabs, in search of new sustainable road projects and wildlife corridors for the 21st Century. “Fridays at the Farm” features lush time-lapse and macro photography to explore life–in all its forms–on an organic farm. Cannes Film Festival’s online competition winner “Historia de un Letrero” explores an unusual and life-altering encounter between two strangers. We’ll be showing seven films in all.
Nationally sponsored by Patagonia, Tom’s of Maine, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., Osprey and Clif Bar, the evenings will also include music, raffles, product giveaways and membership drives. We’re also getting help from Silver Sage Center for Family Medicine, Whole Foods and Sundance Bookstore in Reno. Our sponsor in Las Vegas is NV Energy.
There’s more info here. We’ll be posting additional updates as the dates draw near, so check back.
Helping a friend move. Cutting brush for your elderly neighbor. Picking up trash along an “adopt-a-spot.” Few things feel better than physically laboring for a great cause. Here’s an opportunity to labor for one of Nevada’s most spectacular natural treasures: Gold Butte. Sometimes called “Nevada’s piece of the Grand Canyon puzzle,” this Joshua tree and petroglyph-rich area is located northeast of Las Vegas and south of Mesquite. And it’s due for some volunteer labor-of-love.
This Saturday, September 26, volunteers are invited to Gold Butte to help with two projects:
Build a split rail fence to define a parking area for the “Falling Man” area
Establish creosote, Morman tea and cacti plants along a trail
Friends of Gold Butte, staff from the BLM, and the Nevada Wilderness Project have put this volunteer project together, in part, to honor National Public Lands Day. This celebration began in 1994 with three federal agencies and 700 volunteers. Last year 120,000 volunteers worked in over 1,800 locations and in every state. Now, 8 federal agencies and many state and local lands participate in this annual day of caring for shared lands, including Nevada - which has more public land than any other state except for Alaska. National Public Lands Day keeps the promise of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the “tree army” that worked from 1933-42, to preserve and protect America’s natural heritage.
The Gold Butte event is limited to 50 volunteers, so please sign up soon. Just send an e-mail to Friends of Gold Butte volunteer Roy Miller (mesquiter@gmail.com). Include how many people you’ll be bringing and which project you would like to work on (fence or plants). There are opportunities for people of all ages and abilities. You can also call Nancy Hall, NWP’s Gold Butte Organizer, with questions: 702-346-3723.
Car-pooling: To reduce our impact on the area, we have arranged meet-up places and contacts for car-pooling.
Mesquite - phone Betsy 702-345-3006
Moapa Valley - phone Par 702-215-9119
Las Vegas - phone Terri 702-459-7613
St. George - phone Milton 435-632-8082
Can’t Make It? - You can still help by buying plants or part of the fence for this project. Friends of Gold Butte is buying creosote and Mormon tea seedlings from the Division of Forestry for $3/plant. Your donation to help buy a few seedlings or a fence post will give this project a great boost! please send a check to:
Friends of Gold Butte
P.O. Box 3664
Mesquite, NV 89024
Here’s some info about a movie showing in Reno, NV we think you’ll like (and part of the ticket price benefits NWP): The Absinthe Film crew is coming to Reno-Sparks to John Ascuaga’s Nugget - Celebrity Showroom - to premiere their new 16mm HD snowboard film, “Neverland.” Featured riders Dan Brisse and DCP will be there in person.
Friday, September 18th, 2009
doors at 7:30 pm
movie at 8 pm
John Ascuaga’s Nugget, Celebrity Showroom
1100 Nugget Avenue
Sparks, NV 89431
ph: 800-648-1177
Neverland is part of their “Sphere of Influence” tour, which was established to help promote environmental responsibility, sustainability and global warming awareness. Absinthe Films also takes pride in donating to a local non-profit in each tour city that they visit… and that’s us. Tickets are $12, and they’ll donate $1 from every ticket sold to the Nevada Wilderness Project (plus $1 to national organization Protect Our Winters.)
Tickets are available here online, or in Reno and Sparks at these shops:
Out of Bounds Board Shop
235 E. Plumb Lane
Reno, NV 89502
ph: 775-323-7669
Eternal Boardshop
300 Los Altos Parkway, unit 105
Sparks, NV 89502
ph: 775-626-9991
Tickets will also sold at the door (if not sold out). Thanks, and hope to see you there.
Am I hosed or are you gonna get your s$%t together?
Ug. That’s a mouthful. One of the great challenges in working on conservation is the blizzard of acronyms we deal with. However, the SPEIS–the acronym for the headline above–is probably as simple as its going to get when it comes to siting utility-scale solar projects on public lands.
Our nation’s addiction to fossil fuels has long delayed a transition in the US to a sane energy policy that develops a vibrant, sustainable, and non-polluting renewable energy industry domestically. We understand that the solution is a multifaceted as the sources of climate change. We know that changes across the board—in energy development, planning, distribution, generation, deforestation, and our consumption habits—are necessary to win this fight against climate change. But we also know that a nation that prides itself on innovation and solutions cannot continue to rely on this as the foundation of our energy policy.
At the Nevada Wilderness Project, we understand that action is required on a utility scale to prevent the worst of climate change effects from locking in in the next 10 years or so. While solutions like energy efficiency and rooftop solar are keys to the puzzle, public lands in the US are going to play a central role in the next few years in rolling back the ugly trends of global warming. We believe that its our responsibility to make sure that utility scale power plants on public lands don’t solve one problem—climate change—while creating another: a loss of biodiversity from the footprint of siting and transmission development.
Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) has long been the key advocate for Nevada to be one of America’s renewables leaders. This is no small task, for there are massive challenges associated with the transition, challenges that our society has for too long deferred tackling: an antiquated transmission grid, life cycle subsidies and warped tax incentives for fossil fuels that have made renewables cost prohibitive, American’s consumption patterns, and the simple lack of political will. Nevadans are lucky to have someone with his vision, legislative acumen, and commitment developing a thriving renewables industry.
Recently, Senator Reid joined with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to announce a “fast tracking” initiative for solar development on Western public lands. This plan directs federal agencies to accelerate environmental review of 24 areas chosen from six states in the southwest. Seven areas in Nevada are included for expedited review.
We generally felt like the areas chosen in Nevada were appropriate for solar development, and we’ve included some specific recommendations that you can read about here. In particular, we look to work with the administration, Congress, and industry to come up with renewable energy projects that are smart from the start. We think that any new project on public lands will afford opportunities for mitigation, and that in many cases, wildlife habitat can be left in better shape in the wake of development than before development.
The Nevada Wilderness Project is proud to be hosting the 
