Please take Action Now to Protect Alabama's Forever Wild Program
The Forever Wild Program was established in 1992, by constitutional amendment, to provide for the purchase of public recreational lands. Since its inception, the program has purchased lands for general recreation, nature preserves, and additions to Wildlife Management Areas and state parks.
Forever Wild expires in 2012. The state legislature needs to protect and reauthorize this amendment without any changes. Grassroots communication is vital to insuring that our representatives act to protect and reauthorize Forever Wild.
You can help in two ways.
First by contacting your local representative and senator and continuing to seek their support to "Protect and Reauthorize Forever Wild Funding as is" and ask them to ensure that any proposed legislation accomplishes this goal. Any legislation that would divert Forever Wild funding is not acceptable and should not be supported. It is important to call your elected officials at both their Montgomery and district offices.
Second by contacting your local newspaper and submitting a personal letter to the editor in support of the effort to "Protect and Reauthorize Forefver Wild Funding".
Click here for info on how to find your newspaper and elected officials.
Please make the protection and renewal of Forever Wild part of your daily conversations. Right now only 25% of the people in Alabama know what Forever Wild is. Only you can help increase the percentage of people who know what Forever Wild is.
Important points to remember:
- Forever Wild has been the most successful and popular legislation passed by the Alabama legislature in more than 25 years.
- No scandal or hint of impropriety has been associated with this program.
- We owe it to our children and grandchildren to save Alabama's natural areas, water, and wildlife, so that future generations can enjoy them the same way we do.
- In the last 17 years, Forever Wild has protected almost 205,000 acres of pristine and important land in terms of protecting our ecological diversity, wildlife habitats, coastal areas, forests, and wetlands across the state, in addition to ensuring that we have clean drinking water, all without a single dollar of taxpayer money.
- Forever Wild provides additional opportunities to attract tourists and visitors to our state - from the beauty of our beaches to the many natural areas stretched out across Alabama. Preserving these areas will help to continue to boost Alabama's economy.
- While much work has been done in terms of providing resources to preserve these lands, Alabama ranks the lowest among its southeastern neighbors in terms of protected public lands.
- The program is funded by the Alabama Trust Fund, which in turn gets its money from the state's oil and gas leases. Forever Wild receives 10 percent of the interest earned by the trust fund.
- Various factions are eyeing the Alabama Trust Fund and Forever Wild's funding. The $3 billion trust fund has already been used to fill holes in the state's education budget, and some are looking to the fund to finance road building.
National Audubon's Mississippi River Initiative
Some Birmingham Audubon Society members recently visited Tara Wildlife Preserve near Vicksburg, Mississippi. National Audubon's Mississippi River Initiative was one of the subjects of interest. This Initiative was recently launched in an effort to reverse the decades of mismanagement that has severely damaged the River and surrounding ecosystems.
This is a new vision for the River as a connected natural system. NAS has formulated four goals for the Initiative:
1. Protect and enhance vulnerable and threatened bird species tied to specific habitats: bottomland forests, emergent wetlands, and grasslands, coastal and urban areas
2. Improve water quality
3. Restore natural hydrology
4. Coordinate actions at a hemispheric, national, regional and local scale
Please visit this website http://www.audubon.org/campaign/Mississippi/newcourse.html for detailed information about this project.
Perhaps something of this nature could be initiated for the river systems of Alabama.
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Conservation 
