California Wilderness Coalition

Programs: Public lands defenseour current political climate is decidedly unfriendly if not outright hostile to most environmental protections. This includes direct threats to the bedrock laws of wilderness conservation and calwilds work, such as the current administration's thinly-veiled attempt to weaken the antiquities act through secretary ryan zinkes review on national monuments, or the alarming number of legislative attempts to gut bedrock laws like the wilderness act and the national environmental policy act. Calwild is maintaining pressure via our legislative and administrative protection campaigns and through our public lands defense network, which unites conservation groups across the state to be alerted to threats early on. The network also utilizes each group's strengths to share information and defense funding opportunities and disperse tools and communications content to make a serious dent in any attempts to rollback public lands protections. Through these alerts, statewide activist events, and stand by your lands workshops, our efforts are bolstering public input for more sound federal land and water management.

sierra forestscurrent federal law and regulations require the forest service and bureau of land management (blm) to update their plans for public lands. Calwild is currently involved in the planning process for more than 6 million acres of public lands in the eastern, southern, and central sierra nevada and in northwest california. These plans tee up areas and streams for potential legislative protection and also may provide protective management prescriptions for sensitive areas. Currently we are midway through the planning process at various levels for the inyo, sequoia, and sierra national forests, which together hold the potential for 743,000 acres of new or expanded wilderness areas and 870 miles of wild and scenic rivers.

northwest california's mountains and riversnorthwest california's public lands contain significant tracts of roadless forested watersheds that are key to clean drinking water and sustaining wild fish populations. For four years, calwild has worked with the community, elected officials, tribes, timber companies, and others in crafting a multi-faceted public lands proposal to congressman huffman, which was recently introduced to the house of representatives in july 2018 as the northern california wilderness, recreation, and working forests act. Included in the bill are proposals for a 729,000-acre south fork trinity-mad river special restoration area, 317,000 new wilderness acres, and 480 miles of new and expanded wild and scenic rivers, as well as authorization to construct two visitor centers in trinity and del norte counties and plans to establish coordinated, interagency fire management in the region.