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Defend Gold Butte
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Gold Butte The time has come for the permanent protection of Gold Butte, Nevada's piece of the Grand Canyon. Northeast of Las Vegas waits the 350,000-acre region known as Gold Butte, which offers wondrous geology, intriguing history and prehistory, remote and undeveloped camping opportunities, important and fragile wildlife species, and timeless solitude.
Friends of Nevada Wilderness, Friends of Gold Butte and the Nevada Wilderness Coalition have proposed that Congress Gold Butte with a combination of National Conservation Area and wilderness. These designations will conserve the wildlife habitat, historic and prehistoric resources, scenery, exploration and discovery that enhance the heritage and tourism economy of southern Nevada. With your help, we can turn Gold Butte from a threatened jewel into one of our nation's great Conservation Lands, which will provide benefits for everyone who lives in or visits this region. Click here to see a map of the Gold Butte region. Background Gold Butte lies east of the Overton Arm of Lake Mead, west of the Arizona border, south of Virgin Peak, and north of the Colorado River. In this region, the Great Basin, Mojave, Sonoran and Colorado Plateau eco-regions all meet, each contributing a colorful piece to the region. The Bureau of Land Management has designated several Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) in the region to protect critical habitat for desert tortoise and 77 other plant and animal species, fragile rock art and other cultural resources, historic mining districts and unique scenery. Unfortunately, ACECs are administrative, which means they can be removed and don't offer the permanence of Congressional protection like wilderness or national conservation area designation.
In 2002, the Clark County public lands bill designated two small wilderness areas — Lime Canyon and Jumbo Springs. But these two areas comprise only 28,000 acres of this large, beautiful landscape. Many other places, such as Billy Goat Peak, the Million Hills Wilderness Study Area, Black Ridge and North Bitter Ridge are home to wonderful biological, cultural, scenic and historic resources that deserve protection from short-sighted ignorance and recklessness. It's also feeling the brunt of excessive and uncontrolled off-road vehicle use and other disrespectful human activities. The lack of management or control of human activities in Gold Butte leaves means that many of the things that make this region wonderful might be destroyed before it's too late. Our Golden Heritage More and more people are falling in love with the beauty and special resources found in the Gold Butte region. Let's all work together to ensure this unique region gets the long-term protection it deserves. We hope to see legislation that would create the Gold Butte National Conservation Area and designate a number of stunning wild places as wilderness. We want to make sure that these designations allow for public access and are consistent with the BLM's travel management plan for the region. Some of the areas include the BLM Million Hills Wilderness Study Area, Bitter Ridge, Billy Goat Peak as well as the Scanlon Wash and Twin Springs Wilderness in Lake Mead NRA.
Why legislation is important
Please take a moment right now to write the following Congressmen and Senators, and let them know you support legislation to protect Gold Butte. Some reasons why are listed below. Contact info for Nevada's delegation More info on Gold Butte
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How to take action: Something to Ponder
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