Sunday, May 11, 2008
California's Huge Step to Preserve its Wildlife
The owners of a large stretch of land have reached a deal with a group of environmentalists to set aside the largest parcel of land for conservation in California's history. After many legal battles, the Sierra Club has finally come to the agreement that they would not challenge proposed development on the Tejon Ranch, which is a huge piece of land north of Los Angeles, in exchange for almost 240,000 acres to be preserved. This area is 375 square miles or desert, woodlands and grasslands. It is eight times the size of San Francisco and almost the size of Los Angeles. This land sits atop the Tehachapi Mountains and is home to many very diverse wildlife and plants. After nearly two years of negotiations, it is finally agreed that almost 90 percent of the ranch will be protected. Do you think this is a promising option for protecting our wildlife? Could it illustrate a stronger push in the future to protect the environment? How significant is this preservation?
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8 comments:
This was a very good win for the Sierra Club and the environment all together. Some might question why the Sierra Club did not continue to challenge the proposed development so that they might be able to allow all of the land to be safe from development. But I say that it would have been hard for the Sierra Club to stop development, so setting aside any amount of land is a very good thing. This very well could illustrate a stronger push for future protection of the environment because the Sierra Club beat out big business for the land. 90% of land being preserved that is 8 times the size of San Francisco is a big deal. It saves all kinds of species and helps lower pollution because there won't be development on that land. GO SIERRA CLUB!
I agree with Paul that this is a major win for environmentalists, hopefully it will set an example for other states to preserve their land.
Yea, it's nice to see the Sierra Club win for once. But it'll be too idealistic to think such an incident will inspire stubborn businesses to save the environment. There are probably still lots of people that don't care much, if at all, about the environment. So I think this wasn't exactly a stronger push, just a bigger victory than usual. And just wondering, what was going to be developed on the land?
Finally some recognizable actions by the Sierra Club. The win is good, but was this news spread out to the public? I could imagine that news like this wouldn't make the headlines as many do not care much for the environmentalist cause. As for the push, this will help, but to a certain extent this will only go so far as to help further protections. All cases are indevidual matters, and highly negotions depend highly on the side of the landowner.
Yay for the new preserve! Now if we could only do something about emissions...
This preservation of the wildlife is fantastic. How can anyone really disagree when this huge piece of the natural environment will be saved. This preservation also could spark other deals that may lead to more wildlife land being protected. This definitely provides a strong push into the future.
hmmm...while I think that this is a great thing, I don't see the great significance that others see in it. Yes, it saves a bit of land, but I don't see this as a turning point. Companies were still trying to get land, and did get some. I think it illustrates how companies are still going after getting more land, and we are running out of time to protect the land we have left. I don't see people running out into the street parading around this event - I just don't think it's that big of a deal.
While I don't think this is a huge win, I think that there might be more land saved because of this. Others will be able to see how much land can be saved, and if everyone tries to save a bit more, that would be a lot of land.
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