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Advocacy Success Stories

Big Sur Wilderness and Conservation Act of 2002

VWA volunteers mapped and field-verified all unprotected federal wild lands in the Northern Santa Lucia Mountains. This data was presented to our Congressman who succeeded in passing the 2002 Act which designated over 55,000 acres of new federal wilderness additions to the Ventana and Silver Peak Wilderness Areas.

 For more information about the Act, including maps of the areas added to the Ventana Wilderness, please see the Spring 2003 issue of the Double Cone Register, the VWA's natural history journal.

 

Navy Bombing Campaign

F-18 Hornet Fighter-Jet Bombers over Ventana Wilderness

 The VWA was the lead organization that successfully challenged, and defeated, the US Navy's proposal to create a new practice bombing range on Fort Hunter Liggett, adjacent to the Ventana and Silver Peak Wilderness Areas. The Navy's proposal would have allowed over 3,000 F-18 practice bombing runs each year.

VWA Board Member Tom Hopkins confronted Interior Secretary Gail Norton (see below) during a condor release in Big Sur, California, on April 5, 2001. Even as the birds were taking wing, the Navy was moving ahead with plans to fly 3,000 jet-fighter bombing sorties a year within miles of the release site.

Tom was quoted in an April 6, 2001 San Jose Mercury News story by Paul Rogers:

"If she fails to oppose the Navy's plan, then her presence here is hypocritical." said Tom Hopkins, a spokesman for the Ventana Wilderness Alliance, an environmental group. "The birds she released today would be right in the flight paths of fighter jets."

 

Big Sur Grazing Allotments

The VWA has consistently challenged Forest Service grazing practices on the Big Sur coast in defense of listed species and recreational values. Our efforts resulted in the termination of the Twitchell and Buckeye grazing allotments.

Click here for more information on VWA's grazing reform efforts, and to find out how you can help.

 

Limekiln State Wilderness

This VWA sponsored legislation established the 413 acre Limekiln State Wilderness, the first legislated state wilderness in 30 years. This successful legislation also made important changes to the California Wilderness Act that will foster wilderness protection for other state wild lands.