Scientific Planning Helps Wyoming's Wildlife Treasures

• Jurisdiction: United States,Federal,Wyoming
• Citation: Vol. 31 No. 1 Pg. 6
• Publication year: 2008
• Pages: 6
• Year: 2008
• topic: Energy & Natural Resources

Wyoming Bar Journal 2008.

Vol. 31, No. 1, #6. Scientific Planning Helps Wyoming's Wildlife Treasures

Wyoming Bar Journal
Issue: February, 2008

Author: Andrea Erickson Quiroz and Kerry Brophy Lloyd

Scientific Planning Helps Wyoming's Wildlife Treasures

As the nation's thirst for natural gas continues to drive energy development in Wyoming, concern mounts over the impacts to what many consider America's backcountry Wyomingites question if damage to the landscape and the environment can truly be compensated

Scientists at The Nature Conservancy, an international nonprofit conservation organization, have set out to address this question in a very new way. For more than 50 years, the Conservancy has used scientific methods to locate and prioritize biologically-important lands and waters. In 2007, the organization's Wyoming program took a new twist on a longstanding conservation approach: planning for energy development sites in a way that maintains biodiversity.

The Nature Conservancy's first-of-its kind plan aimed to help industry and land managers think more proactively about conservation - ideally before drilling projects even begin. Whereas many environmental groups focus on litigation as a tool to influence energy development, the Conservancy wanted to take a more collaborative tact, one that promised to raise the conservation planning process to a higher scientific level.

The Project

The Conservancy's project focused on southwest Wyoming's Jonah Natural Gas Field, one of the largest energy development areas in the nation, with well pads and infrastructure covering more than 30,000 acres. The Jonah...