Redrock Report
February 2010

Here's what is happening this month with the redrock:
1.  Submit your comments to prevent vegetation devastation!
2.  Wilderness Stewardship Days demonstrate faith-based support for protecting Utah's wild lands.
3.  Attend the Western Wilderness Conference this April!
4.  New redrock bill cosponsors include Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA).
5.  SUWA's slideshow goes to Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and New Jersey in March.

Threatened Places: Vegetation Devastation Update

Thank you all for your letters and comments to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in response to SUWA’s Vegetation Devastation alert!  To ensure that everyone has the opportunity to have their voices heard, the BLM has opened a new 15-day comment period on the Upper Kanab Creek Watershed Vegetation Management Environmental Assessment.  Please submit your comments and letters on this proposed project to BLM by February 15th.  In your comments, ask the BLM not to destroy the vegetation on the beautiful landscapes in and around the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument that are proposed for wilderness in America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act.  Let’s stop this vegetation devastation!  Send your comments via email or fax to:

State BLM Director: Selma Sierra
Fax: (801) 539-4013
Email: Selma_Sierra@blm.gov

Color Country District Manager: Todd Christensen
Fax: (435) 865-3058
Email: Todd_Christensen@blm.gov

Faith and the Land: Wilderness Stewardship Days

Young members of Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church and Our Saviour's Lutheran Church

The call for wilderness stewardship was strengthened and expanded as numerous communities of faith held Wilderness Stewardship Days events around Utah this fall and winter.  Each community created a poster featuring personal statements about why wilderness is important spiritually and calling for the care of creation.  In the coming months, these posters will be presented publicly to Utah's elected leaders and displayed at public venues.

Western Wilderness Conference 2010 

From April 8 - 11, Western Wilderness Conference 2010 (see http://www.westernwilderness.org/ for more information) will bring grassroots wilderness advocates together at the University of California in Berkeley, CA. It’s time to launch the next round of western wilderness campaigns – building on the success of the 2009 Omnibus Public Land Management Act.  SUWA's own Clayton Daughenbaugh and Terri Martin will be leading panels at the conference on engaging faith communities and on the Utah wilderness campaign.

Ten years have passed since the last big assembly of wilderness advocates in California, (at the California Wilderness Conference in May 2000) and it’s been even longer since wildlands enthusiasts from throughout the West have gathered together to inspire each other, share experiences, share issues with ur land management agencies, and empower and train a new generation of activists to safeguard the West’s wild places.

The focus of this year's gathering is wildlands preservation in today’s historic time of climate change.  

Pass the word!  Tell your friends and associates!  Check out the website for program and speaker info as well as online registration.  Other questions?  Contact Vicky Hoover at vicky.hoover@sierraclub.org, (415) 977-5527.

*New Cosponsor Spotlight* 

Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA)

The number of cosponsors of America's Red Rock Wilderness Act continue to increase in 2010!  Those recently signing onto to the bill are Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA), Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) and Rep. Al Green (D-TX).  If you live in any of the above districts, please thank your representative!

For a full list of cosponsors, click here.  If your members of Congress are not on the list of cosponsors, please ask them to sign onto the bill by clicking here! 

See a Wild Utah Slideshow this March!

SUWA's multi-media slideshow presentation, Wild Utah: America's Redrock Wilderness, will be on the road in March!

SUWA's Midwest Field Organizer, Clayton Daughenbaugh, will be presenting in Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri this March.  For more information or to schedule a slideshow in the Midwest, email Clayton at clayton@suwa.org. 

SUWA's National Grassroots Organizer, Jackie Feinberg, will be traveling to New Jersey in March.  For more information or to schedule a slideshow along the East Coast, email Jackie at jackie@suwa.org.