Protect

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A Busy Year Protecting, Promoting, and Enhancing North Carolina National Wildlife Refuges

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A Busy Year Protecting, Promoting, and Enhancing North Carolina National Wildlife Refuges

2021 has been a busy and productive year in and around North Carolina’s national wildlife refuges. We made great progress in raising awareness of NC NWRs with Catawba College and the surrounding community of Salisbury, NC by presenting a slide show about the 11 national wildlife refuges in North Carolina with a follow up virtual meeting with the faculty of the Catawba College Center for the Environment faculty. The faculty is receptive to the opportunity of providing college interns for science-based project work on NC NWRs.

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House Passes Build Back Better : Includes Repeal Of Oil & Gas Program In Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

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House Passes Build Back Better : Includes Repeal Of Oil & Gas Program In Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

The House passed their historic Build Back Better bill, which includes billions of dollars to fund climate change solutions, including additional conservation on the ground, the creation of a Climate Conservation Corps, and, most importantly for the National Wildlife Refuge System, the repeal of the oil and gas leasing program in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

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House Bill Proposes Repeal of Oil and Gas Program in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

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House Bill Proposes Repeal of Oil and Gas Program in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

The National Wildlife Refuge Association strongly supports the language released yesterday by the House of Representatives in their Build Back Better reconciliation bill that repeals the disastrous oil and gas development program on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This bill also buys back the leases that were improperly sold in January to ensure they will be canceled. The language included in the bill would repeal the creation of the oil and gas program included in the 2017 Tax Act, repeal the addition of an oil and gas program as a “purpose of the refuge”, and buy back the leases sold in the last minute sale before the change of administrations.

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Protections Restored To The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument

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Protections Restored To The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument

President Joe Biden will sign a Proclamation restoring protections to the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, the first marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean. This monument, administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the National Wildlife Refuge System, protects unique geological features and habitats for whales, puffins, turtles, and deep-sea corals.

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Ecosystems Shifting In The Face Of Climate Change

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Ecosystems Shifting In The Face Of Climate Change

Some signs of climate change are subtle, such as shifting precipitation patterns or altered migration patterns, but some signs are dramatic, with monster storms hammering coastal communities and droughts and wildfires out west. While we know climates are shifting and changing, these signs are becoming more and more obvious as the years pass and the damage compounds.

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Protections of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act Restored To Benefit Birds

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Protections of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act Restored To Benefit Birds

The Biden Administration formally announced the revocation of the rule finalized on January 7, 2021 that severely limited the scope of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) and exempted industry from punishment for causing deaths or harm to migratory birds. Begun as a treaty with Canada in 1916 and since codified into law, the MBTA originally protected migratory bird species from the feather trade.

A Generation Of Seabirds Was Wiped Out By A Drone In Southern California. Scientists Fear Endangered Birds Could Be Next

A Generation Of Seabirds Was Wiped Out By A Drone In Southern California. Scientists Fear Endangered Birds Could Be Next

A few miles from the border of Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge, which is home to several species of critically endangered birds, an unauthorized drone crashed into another part of the coastal marsh and provoked thousands of nesting Elegant terns to abandon more than 1,000 eggs, none of which are viable.

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Oil Lease Sales Halted For Now In Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

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Oil Lease Sales Halted For Now In Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

The Biden Administration announced the suspension of oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Trump Administration finalized these leases on January 19, 2021, the day before inauguration. The National Wildlife Refuge Association is thrilled with this decision: the Arctic Refuge is one of the largest tracts of untouched wilderness and most ecologically diverse areas in the United States and should not be destroyed in exchange for the pittance received from the January lease sale.

Proposed Baltimore-D.C. maglev bad for region’s natural resources

The proposed Super-Conducting Magnetic Levitation railway is a very bad idea for all of our natural resources. Instead of handing over the last remaining federally conserved land between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore to a private corporation, we should be focusing on restoring and building on our natural areas, which provide wildlife habitat, clean water and lands for hiking, hunting and wildlife watching.