Editor’s note: We resume with the Jim Hines Chronicles, which reflect the emails by our premier lobbyist on the joy and sorrows of environmental activism. This covers the last two months (Dec-Jan). Jim is vice-chair of our Chapter and Ventura Network. He is a conservation leader who belongs to many wildlife groups and is active with the Ventura Land Trust’s Advisory Council. He is available as a speaker.
By Jim Hines
Nov 27: For the new year, we are renewed, recharged and ready to go on with our newest campaigns to protect all that is wild!
Examples include tackling the squid fishery offshore of Channel Islands National Park and lobbying Congress to pass wilderness land designations for the islands.
We are suing the state of California over management of the Ballona Wetlands Wildlife Preserve and filing appeals of Bureau of Land Management Plans in several western states for failing to protect precious natural resources.
Too, we are asking the new leadership in Congress not to cut funding for national parks, marine sanctuaries, forest and wildlife refuges.
Nov 14: I want to truly thank each of you this Harvest season, a season of thanks for all your efforts and support. It has been a challenging year so far. We danced with wolves, engaged our adversaries, protected national public lands and challenged those who opposed our work to save Mother Earth and her wild creatures.
Our successes could not have been done without your passion, emotional strength and commitment.
Nov 7: Paid killers were hired by the Idaho Board of Wildlife to hunt down and shoot wolves from helicopters in the state. I will now join with several other wolf advocates to file an official complaint and file an appeal to the Governor.
Idaho is one of four states (Alaska, Wyoming and Montana) which were granted an exemption by the federal court in my case against the Biden Administration to relist wolves as protected under the federal endangered species act.
However, on Nov. 3 I wrote that the Biden Administration finally agreed to follow a court order and officially relisted wolves as endangered, and placed wolves under federal protections in 45 states.
We now must work hard to make sure to add the remaining five states to the protection list.
Nov 7: Forest carbon capture has been approved for national forest lands across the western U.S. This is a new proposal by the Biden Administration as part of the it's efforts to tackle climate change and could be used in our Los Padres National Forest.
I am still learning about carbon capture storage and its impact upon the land environment.
Nov 2: Where have all the environmentalists gone in Ventura County?
I spoke to Moms for Liberty Ventura County Chapter, and I observed that there were more people there than I have ever seen at any local environmental meeting. The same is true when I have attended Make America Great Again (MAGA) events.
Over 400 people signed up from Ventura county to drive two hours to Bakersfield to protest the protection of wolves in Giant Sequoia National Monument while only 40 people drove across Ventura county to speak against oil drilling regulations..
There is something terribly wrong with this picture when more Ventura County people want to protect wolves in Tulare County than to stop oil wells in Ventura county.
We need a bold plan.
We worked hard to save 1200 acres on the south coast of Ventura County and at the same time we lost 20,000 acres of valuable farmland and open space to land development. The single city exception is the environmentally friendly city of Ojai.
Citizens of Ventura County are increasingly voting to elect anti-environmental people to office.
Oct: 31: Protections are dead in DC. In my lobbying work, I have met on several occasions with Rep. Mike Johnson's (R-LA, now House speaker) staff. I can tell you firsthand Speaker Johnson is NO friend of the environment, national public lands, wildlife and denies climate change.
I called one staffer I know last Friday, and she told me there will be no national public lands bills advanced if Johnson is speaker. So, for those of us working on advancing local public lands such as the Central Coast Heritage Protection Act, Rim of the Valley Corridor Protection Act and Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, it will be more difficult to accomplish. He is also likely to allow major funding cuts (like 40%) to the national park service budget.
Oct 27: Marine mammal activists from my Sierra Club California Wildlife Committee have been able to get the CA Dept of Fish and Game to delay the opening of the commercial crab fishery season due to the high rate of whale entanglements in crab fishing gear. The delay will last one month allowing further study on whale movements.
Oct 20: It’s been a very busy and exhausting week for all of you in your great work to protect all that is wild. But the weekend has now arrived and it's Autumn, the season of pumpkins, apple cider, persimmons, colorful Fall foliage and cool nights.
So let's all get out in our gardens and enjoy her beauty and plant all that says Autumn, such as fall bulbs for colorful Ranunculus, fragrant hyacinths, delightful daffodils, crocus, tulips, freesias, sparaxis and Dutch iris.
In the flower beds go colorful Iceland poppies, stately snapdragons, fragrant stock, bright calendula, primroses, cyclamen and sweet peas. For vegetable gardeners, cool season veggies go in now such as cabbage, lettuce, kale, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts and edible peas.
If you have room, plant several trees such as Liquidamber or Raywood Ash whose fall colors will dazzle your eyes each Autumn.
Oct 19: Mountain Lions Forever Team has good news to report: CA Dept of Fish and Wildlife staff said that tens of thousands of acres of open space and wildlands in southern California will soon be recommended for state protections as critical habitat for endangered mountain lions.
We still have a way to go once state plans are released to the public. It requires public hearings before final adoption.
Oct 17: Down the rabbit hole we go, deep into a dark abyss. No this is not some fairytale but the reality of what many of us face as environmental activists. We are true Warriors of the Rainbow but we are not always welcomed as champions of Mother Earth.
Our planet is filled with greed, by people and companies who make billions of dollars by destroying the planet, for money to them is far more important than a future of clean air and water, national parks, protected wildlife and renewable energy.
We lobby, we meet, we engage with the adversaries of Mother Earth and we are ridiculed, spoken to in negative terms, disrespected and called un-American, among other things. At a public meeting to protect Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah, a land which is sacred to ancient peoples, you’ll see people opposed sitting next to us waving confederate flags and wearing pistols.
So now you know why I always talk about the importance of spending quiet time outdoors or in my cottage garden surrounded by the beauty of blooming flowers. The beauty of life heals us and recharges the strength within us to carry on.
Oct 10: Several members of my Sierra Club California Wildlife Committee are meeting with Gov. Newsom to ask him to put a stop to state policies which encourage kids to "safely kill wildlife.” There is no minimum age in California to get a state issued hunting license. You can't legally drive a car until you are 18, but you can kill wildlife at 5 years old.
Oct 9: Well, well, well guess who I received a speaking invitation from today? None other than the person who calls himself "Donald Trump's Pastor" -- Rob McCoy of Godspeak Calvary Church in Thousand Oaks. I have received some interesting speaking invitations this year, but I think this tops them all.
I have been invited to speak not on my work to Protect Wildlife and Wild Places but on my philosophy of positive living.
At first, I thought the invite was a joke by one of my friends, so I called the church and learned the invite was real; I said I need to think about it.
Well, maybe he and his audience do need some positive thinking philosophy. If so I am happy to supply it.
Oct 4: Our Mountain Lions FOREVER Team has been busy across the state this week. It includes meeting with Caltrans staff regarding our "Safe Passages for Lions" endeavor across the state. Locally we are working on safe lion crossing protection under the 101 freeway in the Gaviota Coast region, two over crossing projects on the 101 freeway in Ventura County and improving an existing safe crossing project under Highway 118 in Ventura County.
~ Edited by John Hankins