My reaction is that 50 feet is a very narrow strip of land. That may be all we can get, but 100 feet would be much better.
Bob Holtz -----Original Message----- From: Minnesota Birds [mailto:MOU-NET@LISTS.UMN.EDU] On Behalf Of Gordon Andersson Sent: Sunday, March 29, 2015 1:28 AM To: MOU-NET@LISTS.UMN.EDU Subject: [mou-net] the buffer bill and bird habitat Bird Advocates of Minnesota As you know, the Governor has proposed legislation to create 50 foot vegetation buffers along lakeshore, streams, rivers, and ditches throughout the state. If enacted, this "initiative for water quality and habitat" would benefit pheasants and other grassland birds, as well as bees and butterflies, and improve water quality. Preventing soil erosion and fertilizer and herbicide pollution will benefit both fish and waterbirds and the perennial vegetation will provide insects for breeding birds and homes for pollinator species. The Governor's Office press release on the water buffer initiative (March 12, 2015) provides context and graphics. It states as a purpose to ". provide wildlife habitat." http://mn.gov/governor/newsroom/pressreleasedetail.jsp?id=102-158519 It includes links to the current House and Senate bills. In the last decade, more than 1 million acres of wildlife habitat have been lost from Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land in Minnesota. Most of these acres were grassland and are now row crops. The decline in grassland birds in Minnesota and the upper Midwest is well known. If the bill is made law, the buffer strips would comprise 125,000 acres of additional habitat. This would add about 1/8 of the acres lost from CRP, but that is important. Steve Morse, executive director of the Minnesota Environmental Partnership (MEP) said, "This is the most significant conservation initiative for water and wildlife proposed by a Minnesota governor in decades". MEP wrote a letter of support to the Governor that was signed by the 29 MEP member organizations. Here is a copy of the letter: http://www.mepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Buffer-Sign-on-Lette r-Final.pdf Like the Gov press release, the "Action Alert: Buffers" on the MEP home page provides links to both the House (HF 1534) and Senate (SF 1537) bills. http://www.mepartnership.org/ You can use the Action Alert to add your support to this conservation measure. The legislation has not made it out of committee yet. The deadline for passing bills this session is midnight Monday May 18. This is an opportunity for each of us to encourage our senator and representative to support the bill. Even if your legislators are not on any "environment" committees, they all still vote on bills. They work for you and they need to hear from you. If you don't remember how to contact them, here is a link: http://www.gis.leg.mn/OpenLayers/districts/ Put in your zipcode and it gives you your state Senator and Representative. If your computer won't work, the "general info" phone at the Legislature is 651-296-0504 or 800-234-1112. I think they will look up your reps for you. This new bill would provide important conservation benefits for birds, other wildlife, and ourselves. Let's try to make it happen. ------------------------- Gordon Andersson St Paul MOU Conservation Committee ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
