• A coalition of 29 environmental groups have released a 391-page policy document for the incoming administration, focusing on green jobs and clean energy and highlighting the need for science-based policy and transparency, but covering a wide range of topics. You can read it here (pdf). NRDC, one of the co-signers of the document, has some of their folks blogging about various aspects of the proposals.
• FWS has decided that the Northern Mexican Garter Snake should be listed as endangered, but it doesn’t have the funds to do so. Plenty and ESA Blawg consider that fact.
• In honor of Thanksgiving, the NY Times offers a charming editorial on wild foods. “We have a great deal to learn from Twain’s instinctive premise: that losing a wild food means losing part of the landscape of our lives.”
• The Vigorous North, one of my new favorites, shares some links on inner-city wilderness areas, including a proposal to turn Fresh Kills from a dump into a preserve. (Preserve of nature, not trash. Well, the trash is still there. &c.)
• An update on what the American Bison Society’s been up to, including a public survey that shows that Americans care about bison but don’t realize that there are only a few thousand “pure” bison left in the wild.

• The Kirtland’s Warbler may be permanently endangered, says the AP. In the same article, they admit that their population has increased ten-fold in the past 20 years. Headlines!
• CI describes the World Conservation Congress, the “Olympics of Conservation,” says Russ Mittermeier.
• Speaking of Urban Ecology, Nick Paumgarten, in his typically shambolic prose, describes the work of Marko Pecarevic. Pecarevic, a grad student with James Danoff-Burg, studied ant population dynamics in the medians of Manhattan. Previous New Yorker coverage of Manhattan’s wildlife: Beaver, Coyote

Here’s a fascinating article in Conservation Biology (and picked up by Nature) on home location choice and environmental attitudes in the Teton Valley outside Yellowstone. The authors found that the more their respondants cared about the environment, the more likely they were to be living in an environmentally damaging way (i.e. big ranches, small families), whereas people with lower environmentally-oriented attitudes lived in a more sustainable manner, in denser areas closer to town. Interestingly, the authors also found that the longer folks had been living out in the wilderness, the lower their concern for environmental issues.

That second point could, I think, be taken one of two ways: either they’re just finding that people who have lived out in Wyoming and Idaho for 50 years weren’t raised with the same environmental ethos that the recent Hollywod Celebrity Types and the other enviro-carpetbaggers bring with them. I think the more interesting angle would be if people legitimately became less concerned with enviromental issues the longer they’re in a place that’s more “natural.” I think the current crop of American environmental scientists, ecologists, conservationists, etc., were raised in suburbs and exurbs that have changed substantially over the course of our lifetime: seeing the loss of local creeks, small town forests, and trails was, for me, a great motivator. Being able to connect those local issues with global ones pushed me into this science. But there are no doubt areas that are doing just fine, especially if you own the 1,000 acres (404 ha) around you. No development problem there!

I think, also, this article re-highlights the need for a substantial shift in our focus on urban ecology: people who care about environmental issues are driven out of cities because there’s so little nature there. We need to find ways to make city living attractive to people who crave wilderness.

Peterson, M.N. et al. Household Location Choices: Implications for Biodiversity Conservation. Conservation Biology, 22:4. (doi: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2008.00929.x)