Conservation programs up for grabs
Excerpt
Legislative action in the next 18 months will determine whether conservation programs in the U.S. will continue on the innovative courses set in 1985 or whether they will fall victim to countervailing forces. In addition to the need to put together a 1995 farm bill, Congress is still grappling with the Clean Water Act reauthorization, and still avoiding reauthorization of the Endangered Species Act. Is it realistic to think all these issues can be resolved together?
The stage was set in the 1994–95 appropriations actions, which severely cut some previously well-entrenched programs such as PL-566 and zeroed out several others. The message was that the current medley of single issue programs should yield to a more flexible symphony of conservation, with all the parts working in harmony. That is a message which is in tune with approaching problems on an ecosystem basis, with using prevention rather than remediation, and with looking at all the tools available among federal agencies, state and local partners, the private sector, and non-profit organizations in touch with the people.
That sounds good, some say, but is a comprehensive approach too big a job for next year's Congress? And …
Footnotes
Executive Vice President
- Copyright 1994 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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