Aldo Leopold & border fence events--SWEC

[molly]

From: Kevin Bixby <sw...@zianet.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 3:07 PM
Subject: [SWEC] from the Southwest Environmental Center
To: sw...@lists.zianet.com


Las Cruces film event to celebrate Aldo Leopold, lobos--Friday, August
28

Please join us as we celebrate both Aldo Leopold, the visionary
conservationist and writer who got his start in New Mexico, and the
Mexican Wolf (Lobo) with a screening of the new film, Lords of Nature,
at the Rio Grande Theatre in Las Cruces on August 28, Friday, at 7 PM.

Lords of Nature, created by Green Fire Productions and narrated by
Peter Coyote, journeys to the heart of predator country: the
Yellowstone plateau, the canyons of Zion, the farm country of northern
Minnesota and the rugged open range of central Idaho- all places now
resettled by the great predators society once banished. Here
scientists discover these top carnivores are revitalizing forces of
nature, a “keystone” species whose presence in sufficient numbers can
dramatically reverse the slow decay of America’s wild places,
especially in the West.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Aldo Leopold’s arrival in the
Southwest. It was in the national forests of New Mexico and Arizona
where the young Leopold experienced an epiphany in his anti-predator
views and came to realize the ecological importance of wolves and
other predators, as famously described in his Thinking Like A Mountain
essay (“fierce green fire”) published in Sand County Almanac.

The film will be followed by a panel discussion looking at the Mexican
wolf issue from a broad range of perspectives. The discussion will be
moderated by Kevin Bixby, Executive Director of SWEC. Panel
participants will include Silver City-based author, Sharman Apt
Russell (whose books include Kill the Cowboy and Standing in the
Light); Dr. Gary Roemer, wildlife biologist in the Department of
Wildlife and Conservation Ecology at New Mexico State University; Dave
Parsons, Carnivore Conservation Biologist with the Albuquerque-based
Rewilding Institute and former head of the Mexican Wolf Recovery
Program for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service with nearly two decades
of involvement in the restoration of Mexican wolves in the Southwest;
and Oscar Simpson, former New Mexico Game Commissioner and sportsman.

Doors open at 6:30 PM. Admission is free. This very special event is
cosponsored by the New Mexico Wildlife Federation (which Aldo Leopold
founded), New Mexico State University’s Department of Wildlife and
Conservation Ecology, and the Southwest Consolidated Sportsmen.

For more information, call (575) 522-5552.


The insanity continues…U.S. Senate votes for MORE border fencing

On July 8, the U.S. Senate passed an amendment to the Homelands
Security Appropriations Act (H.R. 2892) requiring that several hundred
miles of existing vehicle barriers along the U.S. Mexico border be
converted to more restrictive pedestrian fencing by the end of 2010.
This would deal a devastating blow to border wildlife and ecosystems,
since vehicle barriers are navigable by most species of wildlife, but
only very small animals (lizards, etc.) can pass through pedestrian
fencing.

The amendment passed by 54-44 vote (see tally here). New Mexico
Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall were the ONLY senators from
border states to oppose the amendment. (Please take a moment to thank
them.) The House has yet to pass its version of the bill.


Excellent new border fence video and website

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has posted an excellent video about the
potential ecological impacts of the border wall on the wildlife of the
Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas, an area of extraordinary biological
diversity and home to many species of birds found nowhere else in the
United States. As the video points out, the border wall is undermining
years of conservation efforts in the region. The federal government
itself has spent more than $80 million to acquire habitat for
endangered wildlife in recent decades. The web page also has many
links to other resources related to the border fence. Check it out
here.

--
Kevin Bixby, Executive Director
Southwest Environmental Center
275 North Downtown Mall
Las Cruces, NM 88001
(575) 522-5552 (575) 526-7733 fax
www.wildmesquite.org

Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and
power and magic in it.
--Goethe


_______________________________________________
SWEC mailing list
SW...@lists.zianet.com
http://lists.zianet.com/mailman/listinfo/swec