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Help Stop Vegetation Devastation!
Do you want to see a beautiful landscape turned into this?
Vegetation devastation
in Utah after
one type of “treatment;” photo by Tiffany Bartz
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This is what land in the Grand Staircase-Escalante
National Monument and
proposed wilderness areas could look like if the Bureau of Land Management
(BLM) approves the Upper Kanab Creek Watershed Vegetation Management Project. We need your help to stop this destruction!
In an act of greenwashing, the BLM refers to such devastation
as “vegetation treatments.” In reality, the BLM uses huge equipment that
literally chews up pinyon and juniper trees and, within a few seconds, spits
out the little pieces, resulting in a scarred and barren landscape. Some of these “treatments” will be
accomplished using a machine similar to the one in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bS-ooSLJwA&feature=related.
Upper Kanab Creek is proposed for vegetation treatment;
photo by Ray Bloxham |
Right now, the BLM is in the process of approving vegetation
devastation on over 50,000 acres of land, including the Timber
Mountain area in the western part of
the Monument, and the Upper Kanab Creek area – two pristine areas proposed for
wilderness in America’s
Red Rock Wilderness Act. The BLM proposes to
use a variety of tools, including herbicides, large machines like those
described above, and hand tools to destroy live pinyon and juniper trees, and
sagebrush.
Even though the BLM claims it needs to “rehabilitate”
the vegetation on these lands, it fails to take into account the negative
impacts from soil and vegetation disturbance in the face of long-term drought
and climate change, and the benefits conferred by the ability of pinyon-juniper
ecosystems to capture carbon and offset some of the effects brought about by
climate change.
Please ask the BLM not to destroy these desert landscapes,
especially those proposed for wilderness. Use our action center to send your comments to Selma Sierra, Utah BLM State Director, and Todd Christensen, BLM Color Country District Manager.
Thank
you!
Tiffany Bartz
SUWA Field Attorney
Salt Lake City, UT
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