Help Protect America's Wildest Grassland

Help Protect America's Wildest Grassland

I pledge to...

New Mexico's Otero Mesa is the largest and wildest Chihuahuan Desert grassland left on public lands in this country. Yet this ecological gem has been under serious threat from potential oil and gas drilling since the beginning of the Bush Administration.<br /><br />But now, thanks to years of hard work by The Wilderness Society, our conservation partners, and the State of New Mexico, there is a chance to safeguard Otero Mesa, but we need your help.<br /><br /><a href='http://action.wilderness.org/campaign/saveland09/'>Click here to help protect Otero Mesa today!<br /><br /></a>Earlier this year, the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) plan to open Otero Mesa to oil and gas leasing was flawed.<br /><br />The court said that the BLM did not adequately consider the potential impact oil and gas development has in causing habitat fragmentation. Otero Mesa is home to some 1,000 wildlife species, including the states's only genetically pure herd of pronghorn antelope. The court also found that the BLM should have considered an alternative plan to protect all of Otero Mesa from oil and gas drilling.<br /><br />The BLM must now go back to the drawing board and incorporate this ruling into new plans for determining how Otero Mesa is managed and protected. <br /><br />This gives us an important chance to ask the Department of Interior to give Otero Mesa permanent protection. <a href='http://action.wilderness.org/campaign/saveland09/'>Please take action now!<br /><br /></a>Please ask Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to permanently protect Otero Mesa as part of the BLM's Conservation System. Without permanent protection, Otero Mesa's wilderness and wildlife remain at risk.

[Your name]