Letter to the Editor:
Federal Conservation Budget Cuts

West Virginia’s landscape is one of our greatest assets and I feel so fortunate to live here and enjoy its scenic beauty. I value the investment that we’ve made to conserve our waters, wildlife habitat, farmland, and recreational areas. Unfortunately, now this investment in West Virginia’s special places is threatened by the U.S. Congress, which is considering serious cuts to the programs that protect our natural resources.

I urge Congress to save the programs that protect farmland providing food for us to eat, forestland providing clean water for us to drink, habitat for America’s plants and animals, and lands for hiking, hunting, and fishing.

I understand that conservation and environmental programs should shoulder a fair portion of the burden of the budget reductions needed to reduce our national debt, but disproportionate cuts of 90 or 100 percent for conservation programs – as recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives – are shortsighted and will create more expensive problems in the future.

In West Virginia, the Land & Water Conservation Fund is the primary funding source used to conserve lands in and around our special places like the New River Gorge National River, the Monongahela National Forest, and Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge. The Forest Legacy program enables private landowners to choose conservation, and thereby invest in our state’s future through the economic returns from tourism, outdoor recreation, and the forest products industry.

I urge West Virginia’s senators and representatives to protect the conservation programs that our children and grandchildren need in order to have a healthy future.

Sincerely,
Terrill Ellis,
Executive Director