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Environment Michigan
Calls for Protecting One Million Acres of State Land
Ann Arbor, MI – Michigan’s state-owned
public lands are in danger of reaching an ecological tipping point, according a
new report released today by Environment Michigan Research & Policy. The report – Pure Michigan?
Protecting One Million Acres of Our Natural Heritage – describes key
threats facing public lands, and recommends bold action to immediately protect
one million of the most vulnerable and valuable acres.
“Michigan’s travel and tourism campaign touts
our state as ‘Pure Michigan’,” said Environment Michigan Research & Policy
Director Mike Shriberg. “Unfortunately, we don’t deserve this label
if we continue to allow special interests to degrade our most valuable public
resources – our forests and waterways.”
Immediate threats to our
state-owned public lands include:
- The logging
industry’s attempts to turn state forests into tree farms through legislation
that would require timber sales on nearly all public lands.
- A looming
resurgence of hazardous mining in the U.P., including a proposal for a sulfide
mine in the pristine headwaters of a stream near Lake
Superior.
- Sales of state
parks and other treasured lands to private developers.
- Proposals to
increase oil and gas drilling in the AuSable watershed and Pigeon River
area.
“Given the increasing
intensity and scale of these threats and the few areas of state-owned land that
are off-limits to such damage, we are calling for strong action from the
Governor, the Department of Natural Resources and both gubernatorial
candidates,” said Shriberg.
The report recommends the
following:
- Governor Granholm
should order the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to use its authority
under the Wilderness and Natural Areas Act to designate the most precious 10%
(approximately 450,000 acres) of our state’s land as off limits to development,
beginning with the 45,669 acres of pending requests (Table 2, attached). The Wilderness and Natural Areas Act is the strongest
tool at the Governor’s disposal to protect state land yet no land that has been
protected since part of Saugutuck
Dunes State
Park in 1988.
“It’s outrageous that we have
not protected any wilderness or natural areas in over 18 years,” said
Shriberg. “The DNR should immediately
implement the Wilderness and Natural Areas Act.”
- As part of the
2006 State Forest Management Plan, the DNR should strengthen and finalize its
old-growth and biodiversity protection plan, and use it as management criteria
on 550,000 other acres of state land, bringing the protected total to one
million acres.
- Both
gubernatorial candidates should commit to conserving one million acres of
state-owned land.
- The DNR should
focus on protecting the public interest in the remaining 3.5 million acres of
state-owned land, avoiding management where one sector’s use dominates the
others.
Environment Michigan has talked with over 50,000
Michiganders at their homes since May 1 about the need for protecting one
million acres of public lands, and has found very strong public support. Over 6,000 citizens have told Governor Granholm
that they support these protections.
“We have a choice: Our public
lands can again become ravaged by private industry while the public is left to
deal with the consequences, or our elected and agency officials can begin to put
our natural heritage first by protecting one million acres,” concluded
Shriberg. “Only by taking proactive
steps in the face of industry pressure can our state rightfully stake the claim
to a ‘Pure Michigan’ label.”
Full copies of the report are
available online at www.environmentmichigan.org.
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