By Colleen Curry
When US Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced
Friday the successful conservation of a threatened species — the
little-known, unglamorous New England cottontail — it was the
culmination of a bipartisan effort on the environment.
The plight
of the rabbit was typical of threatened species in the United States:
Deforestation and development led to the loss of about 80 percent of its
natural habitat over the last 50 years. Maine put the cottontail under
state protections, and the federal government decided in 2008 to
officially consider listing it under the US Endangered Species Act. In
the years since, government officials have worked with private land
owners around New England to restore habitats and reintroduce the
rabbits, according to the Press Herald of Portland, Maine.
The
story of the rabbit's conservation is, according to those on the
religious right and the liberal left, representative of common ground
the political parties have found on environmental issues, which could
lead to greater cooperation in the future, even on seemingly intractable
battles such as climate change.
Following the announcement that
the rabbit species' numbers had rebounded significantly in the past
decade, a coalition of environmental religious groups including
evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, and Jews boasted of their support
of conservation efforts and work in "protecting God's creation" — or, in
the vernacular of the faith-based environmental movement, creation
care.
Cassandra Carmichael, executive director of the National
Religious Partnership for the Environment, said that although the
religious right in this country is often portrayed as anti-environment,
they represent the best chance of convincing Republican leaders to
embrace environmental protections.
"I think in general the religious community cares very much. They might
not refer to it as the environment, that's a word that has political
meaning for some people, but when we talk about caring for creation I
haven't come across a person of faith who said they didn't think we
should care for God's creation," she said. "We look at species
protection and conservation from the Noah's Ark story in the Bible.
That's where we take our cues."
Rob Sisson, the director of ConservAmerica, a conservative environmental
group urging the GOP to reclaim its historical roots as
conservationists, agreed with Carmichael, noting that the religious base
of the party, along with hunters, fishers, and residents of Western
states where debates over public land management resonate strongly, may
very well be the best hope for achieving environmental protections.
Sisson's prediction may already be coming true. On Tuesday, 10 House
Republicans announced they would sign a resolution acknowledging that
human activity contributes to climate change. Congressman Chris Gibson
of New York, who led the formation of the group, told the National Journal the
resolution was a "call for action to study how humans are impacting our
environment and to look for consensus on areas where we can take action
to mitigate the risks and balance our impacts."
The group consisted mainly of Republicans up for reelection in swing states, according to the Journal.
1 comment:
Before MS grounded me I hunted the northeast Texas woods for 50 years. I've watched the cottontail population dwindle for many years, squirrels not at all. Many areas have also seen a reduction in the number of quail. I blame it on the invasion of the fire ants. They forage for anything on the ground.
Just an unscientific opinion.
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