Sorry to mess up your holiday week with a bit of advocacy on the behalf of Michigan’s natural environment, but yesterday via Michigan Radio I learned of the very disturbing Senate Bill 78 that’s headed to Governor Snyder for signature or veto. The bill would forbid DNR from preserving biodiversity in forests and parks:
More than 130 scientists and the state’s environmental groups are calling on Gov. Rick Snyder to veto a bill they call anti-science. The bill would forbid the Michigan Department of Natural Resources from protecting native wildlife and plants on the pure merits of protecting nature.
- The bill would prohibit the Department of Natural Resources from managing state lands for biodiversity.
- It would prohibit the agency from managing forests for restoration.
- It would end work to eliminate invasive species.
- It would strike from the law the finding that most losses of biological diversity are the result of human activity.
Read on for more, and here’s the text of Senate Bill 78. If you’re so inclined, feel free to tell Gov. Rick Snyder what you think. I know that messages to our elected officials really do make a difference.
View Anna Lysa’s photo from July of 2012 at Ludington State Park bigger and see more in her Michigan slideshow.
PS: As I read it, piping plover would not be impacted by this as the species with just 8,000 adults is federally protected. I just picked them because they’re a recognizable species that has benefitted from extensive preservation efforts, some of them in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan.
Here’s the piping plover and more of Michigan’s endangered plants and animals on Michigan in Pictures.
Michigan in Pictures 