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All through 2023 Audubon continued its wealthy custom of advocating for and securing the house, clear air, and clear water that birds and folks must reside and thrive. Learn on to study extra about Audubon’s most necessary advocacy and coverage work throughout the hemisphere this 12 months!
Advocated for strong federal investment in projects that benefit birds and people
Through the present federal legislative classes, Audubon urged for elevated funding for federal businesses and applications that may cut back carbon emissions, preserve lands and waters, and get well chook populations. Main items of laws affected embrace the Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation and the Inflation Reduction Act. Particular actions supported by Audubon for funding embrace local weather good superior soil well being, wildlife habitat planting, wetland restoration, forest songbird habitat upkeep, forest stand enchancment to rehabilitate degraded hardwood stands, forest stand to extend on-site carbon storage, and sagebrush habitat restoration.
Secured a new native plants policy and conservation funding in North Carolina legislature
This 12 months Audubon partnered with the North Carolina Division of Cultural and Pure Assets on a brand new coverage requiring using native vegetation in any respect state parks and historic websites. To additional solidify this coverage into regulation, Audubon labored with Senator Invoice Rabon to champion laws requiring using native vegetation at state parks, historic websites, and roadways. Audubon members spoke up for this coverage at Advocacy Day and have rallied assist from landscapers, nurseries, and backyard shops throughout the state. The coverage builds on different latest native vegetation laws supported by Audubon. The price range additionally contains $30 million in 2024 and $28 million in 2025 for the Land and Water Fund, and the identical quantities for the Parks and Recreation Belief Fund. This represents a $4-6 million enhance in annual funding.
Audubon partnered with the Cocopah Tribe to safe $5.5 million in private and non-private funds to embark on restoration of a major space within the Colorado River Delta on their reservation in southern Arizona. The end result will likely be improved habitat for birds and different wildlife and entry for the Tribe to culturally important native vegetation which have been arduous to search out in latest a long time attributable to degraded river situations. The funds will permit the Tribe to remodel greater than 400 acres within the Colorado River floodplain by eradicating invasive, non-native vegetation, planting native bushes, shrubs and grasses, and utilizing their water rights to maintain the restored space within the absence of Colorado River flows. The funding may even assist growth of a Cocopah Tribal youth corps to have interaction younger folks within the mission and rebuild connections to the Colorado River.
Ensured that critical areas in the Alaskan Arctic are off-limits for oil and gas development
In September, the Biden administration introduced a collection of constructive actions that may strengthen conservation protections and assist deal with local weather change in America’s Arctic. The Division of the Inside (DOI) launched a much-needed environmental affect assertion to formally acknowledge the conservation wants and Indigenous values related to the Arctic Refuge. The DOI additionally issued a brand new conservation rule that may additional defend, and presumably broaden, the Western Arctic’s designated Particular Areas. Audubon’s Alaska Interim Government Director David Krause and the Audubon public lands workforce labored tirelessly to coach and transient officers from the Biden administration concerning the threats to birds within the Arctic and to induce protections for precedence habitats—together with invaluable areas just like the Teshekpuk Lake Particular Space—and sacred lands by means of these coverage mechanisms.
Helped secure $41 million for water savings across Arizona
The Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona (WIFA) awarded $41 million to candidates throughout the state to realize long-term water conservation. The full projected water financial savings from these actions is 860,000 acre-feet to 1.3-million-acre toes (one acre foot is 325,851 gallons). Tasks awarded funding embrace superior metering infrastructure efforts, turf/grass removing tasks, and agricultural system upgrades. This funding, which Audubon Southwest advocated for, got here from the 2022 Arizona legislature’s funding of $200 million for water conservation efforts to avoid wasting water and enhance water reliability—a a lot wanted enhance for one of many driest states within the nation. WIFA has since established an formidable goal to avoid wasting greater than 1.6 trillion gallons of water by means of this program.
Audubon continues to work with every of its Indigenous companions as their land and marine conservation efforts progress by means of the complexities of creating Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) and Marine Conservation Areas. This 12 months Audubon participated in conferences inside six communities throughout Northern Ontario facilitated by the Mushkegowuk Council. Audubon’s scientific information about birds of particular significance to the world is anticipated to be included into IPCA proposal(s) for the area and to assist an enormous proposed Hudson-James Bay Nationwide Marine Conservation Space.
Released the Birds and Transmission report
In August, Audubon launched the report Birds and Transmission: Constructing the Grid Birds Want, which requires quickly increasing electrical transmission to fulfill local weather objectives whereas additionally defending wildlife habitat. Within the report, Audubon shares science-based options for minimizing dangers to birds and descriptions how collaborative planning efforts can responsibly improve the grid.
Helped launch, with strong bipartisan support, a new conservation fund in New Mexico
After years of adverse negotiations, New Mexico created the Land of Enchantment Legacy Fund in the course of the 2023 legislative session. Audubon started working with a coalition 4 years in the past, which included teams representing conservation, agriculture, state businesses, outside recreation, and trade, to make the fund a actuality. The legislature appropriated $100 million to the fund, with $50 million slated to be spent over the subsequent 4 years, and $50 million put right into a everlasting fund to generate curiosity. The legislature made a dedication to place an extra $75 million into it throughout every of the subsequent three legislative classes.
Defeated bills in the Texas legislature that would have doomed the Golden-cheeked Warbler
Quick, persistent advocacy by Travis Audubon Society, Bexar Audubon Society, Audubon Texas, and the Metropolis of Cedar Hill, stopped a set of payments that may have eradicated the flexibility of native governments to control the removing of Ashe juniper bushes. Ashe junipers are required for the nesting success of the federally endangered Golden-checked Warbler. Because it stands, landowners should get permits to take away any Ashe juniper on their property.
Advocated successfully for 30×30 land and biodiversity conservation in Vermont
On June 12, the Vermont Normal Meeting handed the Group Resilience and Biodiversity Safety Act in response to the rising recognition that Vermont, like the remainder of the globe, is going through a catastrophic lack of biodiversity. Within the laws, the Vermont Normal Meeting set formidable objectives to preserve 30 % of Vermont’s complete land by 2030, and 50 % by 2050. Audubon Vermont and native chapters advocated strongly for the inclusion of methods and incentives to make sure the energetic participation of personal landowners in stewarding the land, as greater than three-quarters of the land in Vermont is privately owned.
Launched an ambitious plan to build a constituency for birds in Colombia
Colombia, the nation of birds: The Nationwide Technique for the Conservation of Birds (ENCA2030) launched in June in Bogotá, Colombia. Greater than 2,000 organizations helped design ENCA2030, which lays out methods to have interaction growth plans on the nationwide and native stage.
Engaged communities around the Louisiana Coastal Grasp Plan
Over late 2022, the Mississippi River Delta Coalition teamed up with the Louisiana Coastal Safety and Restoration Authority to host occasions known as “Group Conversations across the 2023 Coastal Grasp Plan” in numerous elements of coastal Louisiana. Greater than 500 folks from communities like St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Lacombe, New Orleans, Gonzales, Abbeville, Larose, Lake Charles, and Gretna took half. These occasions included each small and enormous group discussions, the place folks may share worries, study concerning the plan’s advantages, and join with others. Audubon was the important thing organizer of two of the conferences at Xavier College in New Orleans and in Gonzales, Louisiana. The Xavier assembly was co-hosted with Xavier College and the XULA Geaux Inexperienced student-based Audubon campus chapter.
Helped Advance the Strengthening Coastal Communities Act 2023
Because of advocacy from Audubon’s Coasts workforce, the Senate Committee on Setting and Public Works voted to advance the Strengthening Coastal Communities Act of 2023, a invoice launched by Sens. Tom Carper (D-DE) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). This bipartisan laws will replace and modernize the Coastal Barrier Assets Act, a regulation that for greater than 40 years has protected undeveloped seashores, wetlands, and different coastal areas whereas saving taxpayers billions of {dollars}.
Engaged legislators on the importance of ocean protections at the Save the Seabirds Fly-In
Greater than 20 campus chapter members from round nation convened in Washington, D.C. for the 2023 Save the Seabirds fly-in, to encourage their legislators to guard seabirds and folks from the results of local weather change.
Audubon’s Coasts, Authorities Affairs, and Campus program groups helped manage the fly-in, with featured members from many Audubon chapters together with Portland Audubon and campus chapters at College of California-San Diego, College of California-Berkeley, Stetson College, Xavier College of Louisiana, College of North Carolina at Greensboro, College of Nebraska at Omaha, Union School, Stony Brook College, Skidmore School, College of South Carolina, College of Vermont, College of Wisconsin-Inexperienced Bay, and Claflin College.
Joined key committees and advisory groups
Audubon’s Chief Conservation Officer Marshall Johnson was appointed to the North American Wetlands Conservation Council and Neotropical Migratory Chicken Conservation Act Advisory Group.
Secured funding and protections for birds in the face of budget cuts in California
Audubon was pivotal in defending important funding to entities such because the Wildlife Conservation Board and Division of Fish and Wildlife within the face of state price range cuts. Audubon additionally helped craft a compromise to Governor Newsom’s proposal to repeal the Absolutely Protected Species statues, which defend species corresponding to Sandhill Cranes and Golden Eagles. The brand new guidelines will present for a allow to take Absolutely Protected Species offered mitigation measures present a internet conservation profit for the affected species.
Helped pass critical water legislation in Colorado
Audubon Rockies and native chapters helped cross SB23-270, Tasks To Restore Pure Stream Techniques, in Colorado. To assist its passage, Audubon Rockies served as a technical advisor and hosted a number of webinars concerning the topic with the Colorado Division of Pure Assets. 1,266 Audubon advocates despatched messages to their state legislators in assist of the invoice. After its passage, Audubon facilitated a coaching collection to tell water managers, authorities company employees, watershed teams, restoration practitioners, lecturers, and others on find out how to transfer stream restoration tasks ahead beneath the brand new regulation.
Leased and released water in the Rio Grande in New Mexico
Regardless of plentiful spring flows, the Rio Grande is drying in Albuquerque, the results of scorching temperatures, a really dry monsoon, and restricted water storage in upstream reservoirs. Audubon Southwest introduced 580 acre-feet (189,000,000 gallons) of water leased from native municipalities again to the Rio Grande to assist the federally endangered Rio Grande Silvery Minnow, many chook species, and neighboring communities that depend on the river.
Advocated for a Tribal-led nationwide marine sanctuary in California
The Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration proposed to designate the Chumash Heritage Nationwide Marine Sanctuary, situated between the Monterey Bay and Channel Islands nationwide marine sanctuaries, which is able to defend 1000’s of sq. miles of ocean off California’s Central Coast. The Northern Chumash Tribal Council has been working for 40 years to ascertain this sanctuary, dwelling to the Chumash Peoples each traditionally and presently. The underwater portion of the proposed sanctuary contains necessary sacred websites of the Chumash Peoples. Seabirds like Sooty Shearwaters collect within the 1000’s on this space, and Morro Bay, an Vital Chicken Space, hosts as much as 20,000 shorebirds in its mudflats each winter. Sixty % of the California Brown Pelican inhabitants is discovered inside the proposed sanctuary. Nearly 19,000 Audubon members and supporters submitted feedback in assist of multinational of the sanctuary.
Advocated for better public land management
Audubon Rockies elevated the collective voice of 194 chapters in 41 states in a supportive letter to the Bureau of Land Administration’s effort to enhance how our nation’s public lands are managed by placing conservation on equal footing with different land makes use of, by way of their proposed Public Lands Rule.
Secured funding for wetlands in Indiana and Michigan
Audubon Nice Lakes coverage employees gathered members and coalition companions on the Indiana and Michigan statehouses to fulfill with their representatives to advocate for wetlands protections, options to local weather change, and conservation of necessary pure areas. In Indiana, this advocacy helped ensure that the final budget included an funding of $10 million within the President Benjamin Harrison Conservation Belief Fund to preserve necessary pure areas throughout Indiana, and $30 million to broaden state path.
In Michigan, this advocacy helped safe an appropriation of $10 million {dollars} of the state’s American Rescue Plan Act funds to the Michigan Division of Pure Assets to speed up wetland conservation work. This important funding in wetlands restoration will decrease phosphorous coming into Lake Erie to scale back dangerous algal blooms whereas providing flood discount, elevated groundwater infiltration, fish and wildlife habitat creation, and improved high quality of life for communities.
This 12 months, Audubon North Carolina members rallied to assist an extended closure window for coastal sanctuaries, a coverage the North Carolina Wildlife Assets Fee authorized after 900 Audubon members despatched letters in assist of it. The closure window is now March 1 to September 15 and permits state sanctuaries to supply a protected place for 40 % of North Carolina’s coastal nesting waterbirds to boost and fledge chicks. Audubon North Carolina shorebird screens noticed optimistic outcomes of the brand new closure window.
Kane Realty Company, one of many greatest actual property firms in Raleigh, joined Wake Audubon chapter’s Lights Out Wake initiative. As a part of this system, the developer will flip off pointless constructing lights at its industrial buildings throughout migration season and is asking its tenants to do the identical. Raleigh was the primary metropolis in North Carolina to hitch Lights Out, with different municipalities like Matthews, Greensboro, Asheville, Cary, and Chapel Hill constructing on that momentum.
Supported biodiversity protection under Washington State’s clean energy transition
Audubon Washington celebrated a major milestone within the state’s transition to a clear power future with the discharge of a new report that gives steering on the place utility-scale photo voltaic might be developed on the Columbia Plateau whereas additionally defending sagebrush birds and their habitat. By way of its collaboration with American Farmland Belief and its devoted community of members and supporters, Audubon Washington secured bipartisan assist for the funding for this revolutionary clear power siting useful resource. Moreover, Audubon Washington collaborated with chapter leaders to convey science and native information on chook incidence and habitat must the desk, guaranteeing that datasets just like the Sagebrush Songbird Survey songbird information are used to make higher siting choices that decrease conflicts and garner assist.
Co-launched campaign to declare Chuckwalla National Monument and expand Joshua Tree National Park
Audubon California, California Desert Safety Council, Consultant Raúl Ruiz (D-California) and Indigenous representatives formally launched a marketing campaign to declare Chuckwalla Nationwide Monument and the growth of Joshua Tree Nationwide Park. This work will defend virtually 700K acres of delicate desert habitat for birds and different wildlife, in addition to sacred areas and historic websites.
Uplifted the next generation’s voices for climate in Florida
Audubon Florida is empowering the subsequent technology’s voice in advocating for birds and the locations they want. Our revolutionary “Write for Local weather” program was designed to work with college students to jot down op-eds and Letters to the Editor (LTEs) to affect points of their native communities. Write for Local weather offers college students the instruments they should advocate for essential local weather subjects, together with pure local weather options, conservation, and renewable power. This system spans three to 4 months: a typical semester. Upon program launch, college students obtain assets and a short coaching on the worth of op-eds and LTEs within the present media atmosphere. Eight scholar op-eds have been revealed in 2023.
Advocated for additional protections for the Wilson’s Plover in Florida
Audubon Florida has formally petitioned the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Fee to record the Wilson’s Plover as a state-designated Threatened species beneath Florida’s Imperiled Species Rule. If extra protecting motion will not be taken, this coastal chook species, with an estimated inhabitants of fewer than 1,000 birds within the state, may disappear from Florida’s shorelines endlessly.
Advocated for increased funding for wetlands work with Oneida Nation in Wisconsin
On account of Audubon Nice Lakes’ advocacy work, Wisconsin governor Tony Evers signed the most-recent state price range into regulation that included $350,000 over the subsequent two years to fund an Audubon-led chook monitoring mission. The mission with Northeastern Wisconsin Audubon and the College of Wisconsin-Inexperienced Bay Cofrin Middle for Biodiversity (UWGB) evaluates the success of Oneida Nation’s latest restoration of grasslands, marshes, and forests. Over a few years, the Oneida Nation has restored 3,000 acres of the reservation’s wetlands, grasslands, prairies, and forests—addressing water air pollution and invasive plant species. This information from the chook monitoring mission will likely be used to tell future conservation work on their lands, in addition to important knowledge-sharing for conservation throughout the area.
Engaged landowners on the importance of conservation easements in Nebraska
In September, the Crane Belief in partnership with Audubon Nebraska, Geese Limitless, The Nature Conservancy, and Nebraska Land Belief, hosted a tour to debate conservation easements, personal land rights, and the significance of conserving agricultural land massive sufficient to stay viable as working farms and ranches within the fingers of native households. In Nebraska, conservation and agricultural land easements are a voluntary, free-market, incentive-based method to guard privately-owned land for particular makes use of, corresponding to habitat restoration or agricultural manufacturing. Habitat restoration might be pricey but is necessary for a lot of landowners, so the mixture of a conservation and agricultural land easement and habitat restoration helps personal landowners obtain their objectives they’d be unable to afford with out monetary compensation.
Secured necessary funding and coverage wins in Washington State
Audubon Washington and its 50,000 members efficiently advocated for 3 pivotal conservation and local weather payments, in addition to a powerful chook conservation price range. The Shoreline Evaluation Program invoice (SB 5104) represents a vital step in direction of safeguarding and restoring the habitats of marine birds, salmon, and orcas. The clear power siting invoice (HB 1216) strikes a steadiness between preserving Washington’s pure and cultural heritage whereas advancing the mandatory growth of fresh power assets. And HB 1181, the Local weather and Development Administration invoice, marks a vital step in direction of native local weather change planning and motion. This new coverage mandates that native governments develop complete plans to handle the challenges of a altering local weather. Lastly, the investments in Audubon Washington’s “Chicken Finances” totaled over $270M and replicate the dedication of the Washington state legislature to guard habitat in a altering local weather.
Engaged lawmakers on the significance of defending the Higher Mississippi River
Audubon and the Nationwide Caucus of Environmental Legislators took a cohort of Minnesota and Wisconsin legislators and employees on a ship tour to study important habitat and floodplain forest loss alongside the Higher Mississippi River. In all, 9 lawmakers and two congressional employees got here alongside for the trip. Audubon works carefully with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the Higher Mississippi River Nationwide Fish & Wildlife Refuge on reforestation tasks. Over the previous eight years, Audubon planted greater than 100,000 bushes and improved greater than 2,200 acres of bottomland forest by means of this collaboration.
Weighed in on necessary Colorado River administration choices
The moist winter of 2022-2023 adopted greater than twenty years of drought within the Colorado River Basin. The snowmelt boosted system reservoirs by about 10 %, a particularly lucky flip of occasions. However the actuality stays that system reservoirs are greater than half empty. Within the Colorado River Basin there’ll at all times be moist years and dry years, however local weather change means the general pattern is hotter, drier, with much less water availability.
Within the midst of this variability, Audubon weighed in on new guidelines for sharing the Colorado River, working simultaneously on a short-term fix and a long-term reset adaptive to climate change.
Learn extra about Audubon’s important 2023 Colorado River Basin work right here:
How to Save the Colorado River? Use Less Water.
Living on a Smaller Colorado River Water Supply
Sponsored Local weather Week NYC and engaged tens of 1000’s of individuals
Audubon was a sponsor of Local weather Week NYC 2023! Hosted yearly by Local weather Group in partnership with the United Nations Normal Meeting and the Metropolis of New York, Local weather Week NYC is a world platform for all voices working to guard the planet and its folks. From September 17-24, 2023, world leaders and changemakers will come collectively to showcase formidable local weather motion and focus on find out how to do extra.
Audubon hosted or participated in lots of occasions throughout Local weather Week.
Audubon President and CEO Dr. Elizabeth Grey was featured as a part of a panel dialogue “Speaking Local weather Change” on September 18.
Dr. Grey led the launching of the Americas Flyways Initiative (AFI), an Audubon Americas partnership with the Latin American Growth Financial institution (CAF) and BirdLife, with an occasion “Discovering the Americas Flyways Initiative” on September 20. The Americas Flyways Initiative will promote the safety, conservation, and restoration of Key Biodiversity Areas by integrating and scaling up Nature-Primarily based Options (NBS). It’ll additionally put money into pure local weather options targeted on restoring, conserving, and defending ecosystems, coastal administration to foster local weather resilience, and selling sustainable agriculture.
Chief Conservation Officer Marshall Johnson was a panelist for “Transfer Quick With out Breaking Issues: The Alternatives of Ramping Up Renewables in a Sustainable Manner,” hosted by WWF on September 19.
ICYMI
A couple of massive tales emerged late final 12 months after the 2022 yearly roundup was revealed.
Congress handed an Audubon-backed bill to assess and monitor saltwater lake ecosystems within the West.
Audubon celebrated a number of legislative wins in the Delaware Watershed region in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, together with a invoice to restrict horseshoe crab harvests and a bond act in New York that raises $4.2 billion to mitigate the results of local weather change.
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