100 NC Scientists Call For Strong Environmental Conservation

(27 August 2003 — Raleigh, NC)  More than 100 of North Carolina’s leading scientists have endorsed a report recently released by Environmental Defense that calls for stronger conservation measures to protect the state’s environment.  “Horizon 2100: Aggressive Conservation for North Carolina’s Future” outlines the healthy and prosperous future for North Carolina’s environment that would result from proactive conservation and contrasts that vision with the impoverished environment that will likely result from continuation of sprawling development, casually managed growth and limited conservation.

The report is the result of a year-long effort by nine of the state’s top conservation scientists to document the critical role that aggressive conservation can play in preserving, restoring and maintaining natural systems.  The report is available at www.environmentaldefense.org/go/nchorizon.

“We have been flooded with e-mails from conservation experts across the state who have read the report and support its vision for a healthy environment and the steps that North Carolina must take to truly conserve the function of its natural systems,” said David McNaught, senior policy analyst with Environmental Defense in North Carolina.  “A healthy environment will help ensure a prosperous future for North Carolina.  Innovative conservation planning now can help the state chart its course for the next 100 years.”

“Without aggressive conservation, North Carolina will likely experience profound and perhaps irrevocable ecological losses over the next three to four decades,” said Charles Peterson, vice chair of the N.C. Environmental Management Commission.  “Environmental conservation programs should be focused on long-term outcomes and attentive to inevitable realities.  Otherwise, the current trajectories of population growth and land use change will result in a North Carolina that is far less healthy, vital and prosperous than that which is attainable.”