Month: December 2010

Turning ranch into public asset benefits wildlife

by

[Source: Opinions, AZ Republic]

A historic ranch, sitting in the middle of the Agua Fria National Monument, is about to be protected.

The 199-acre private inholding has rich riparian habitat and a collection of buildings that includes bunkhouses, two houses and a barn. With easy access to the Valley, right along Interstate 17, the site has enormous potential for education and outdoor recreation.

The Arizona Game and Fish Commission stepped in to put this quintessentially Western site into public stewardship. In October, it approved the acquisition of Horseshoe Ranch with money from the Heritage Fund and other sources. A staff member will live on site, providing a much-needed layer of security for a place that’s so close to a major metropolitan area. The monument has petroglyphs and archaeological sites that need the extra oversight.

This is a winning move from many angles. Acquiring the ranch ensures easy public access to the national monument, which might otherwise be limited.

Wildlife benefits from keeping this vast landscape intact, avoiding fragmentation from development. The monument and ranch are home to animals that range from a large herd of pronghorn to javelinas and mountain lions. Endangered species there include the Gila topminnow and desert pupfish.

Game and Fish will work with other agencies to restore grasslands and manage the critical Agua Fria watershed.

The public can enjoy the opportunities for hunting, fishing, exploring, viewing wildlife and bird watching. The Agua Fria was designated as an “important bird area” by the National Audubon Society.

It took a lot of partners to put this $3.3 million deal together. The owner had bought the land with the goal of a federal land exchange. When that didn’t work out, the Trust for Public Land helped carry the property.

No tax dollars from the state general fund are going toward the purchase, which will be paid through the Lottery-supported Heritage Fund (which has a dedicated land-acquisition fund) and a U.S. Fish and Wildlife grant. The ranch’s 68,000-acre grazing rights are being bought with help from the Arizona Antelope Foundation ($185,000) and the National Wild Turkey Federation ($1,000), using money raised from raffling special big-game tags.

The partnerships will continue to support the management of the ranch. A few strings remained to be tied, including a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the Agua Fria National Monument.

Then this unique property will belong to all Arizonans from now on.

Editorial: Arizona’s Budget Solutions Increasingly Dire

by

[Editor’s Note: While the Arizona Heritage Alliance has serious reservations and questions about privatization of state agencies, we offer the reader what’s being said and written about the topic — and other related topics — from news and editorial pages from across the state.  The source of the following editorial is the Prescott Daily Courier.]

When Arizona lawmakers said “tough decisions” are ahead in dealing with the state budget, they were not kidding. Arizona currently faces an estimated shortfall of nearly $900 million and, with education taking the lion’s share of the budget, cuts likely will be deep and painful.

Enter into the equation two recommendations the 11-member state commission on privatization and efficiency has floated: privatizing at least some state parks and increasing the state’s use of privately operated prisons.

The panel’s members have not projected potential savings – they submitted a preliminary report several months ago and now are preparing a larger report due Dec. 31 – but one of the two “targets” appears to be rather simple, and the other certainly would be contentious.

The first – privatizing some state parks – is the rather simple one. Yavapai County Supervisor Carol Springer is a member of the commission, and it was Yavapai County that was part of a partnership that saved state parks from the budget axe.

The partnership included Yavapai County government, the Arizona State Parks Board, the Town of Jerome, Town of Camp Verde, City of Sedona, Camp Verde Historical Society, Jerome Historical Society, Concerned Citizens of the Verde Valley and the Benefactors of Red Rock State Park. They kept open Fort Verde State Historic Park in Camp Verde and Red Rock State Park in Sedona, and reopened Jerome State Historic Park in Jerome.

Was it a private effort? No. However, these three parks attract more than 150,000 visitors each year and if the state can find more entities, even private ones, to take on the task – more power to them.

The sticky concept of utilizing more private prisons is an unpopular one locally and statewide.

It was in Prescott Valley that an effort failed this past spring to bring a prison to a site just outside of the town’s boundaries. Widespread public opposition and lack of support from a majority of the Prescott Valley Town Council prompted prison officials to abandon the site.

Also, the topic became even more controversial across the West after the July 30 escape of three violent offenders from a private prison near Kingman. Serious lapses were found in both the prison’s security operations and the state’s monitoring, according to the Associated Press. The escapees were recaptured but two of them and an accomplice are accused of committing a double homicide in New Mexico while at large.

Arizona uses private prisons to house about 5,500 of its 40,000 inmates, but expanding the use of private prisons is an uphill battle.

Yes, privatize the parks – as long as the responsible party maintains service. For the prisons, good luck. That will be about as popular as cutting financing for education, which legislators have said is not off the table.  What’s certain is the state is running out of options.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Camp Verde Centennial Project Gets Official Nod

by

[Source: Steve Ayers, Verde Independent]

The State of Arizona has given its official endorsement to a local project that will celebrate the state’s centennial in 2012.

A letter from the Arizona Historical Advisory Commission, dated Nov. 4, officially notified the Verde Confluence Centennial Committee that their digital storytelling project would be included among dozens of Legacy Projects being carried out by communities and organizations statewide.

Titled “Echoes of the Verde Confluence,” the project will, over the next year, produce a series of three- to five-minute digital videos that will tell bits and pieces of the history of the lower Verde Valley.

The short movies will be stitched together into a full-length presentation and shown to the public on or around Arizona’s 100th birthday on Feb. 14, 2012.

Partners in the project include the Yavapai-Apache Nation, National Park Service, Arizona State Parks, Town of Camp Verde, Beaver Creek Regional Council, Yavapai College, Camp Verde Unified School District, Beaver Creek School, plus some are charter schools and community organizations.

The group received a $2,500 contribution from the National Park Service to purchase digital recording equipment and pay for storytelling workshops for anyone wishing to participate.

Three groups of students from Camp Verde High School are producing the initial videos. One will tell the story of the Wingfield family, another the story of the 1899 murder of Clinton Wingfield and Mac Rodgers and one the story of Main Street, past and present.

The project, however, is not just for students. The public is invited to participate.

“We are encouraging anyone who would like to produce a short history story to contact the Camp Verde Historical Society. We would love to have as many people as possible from Camp Verde and the Beaver Creek communities, participate,” says historical society president Shirley Brinkman.

According to Judy Piner, archivist and video storyteller for the Yavapai-Apache Nation and one of the committee’s technical advisors, a five-minute video takes about 30 to 40 hours to produce.

“We teach workshops for the tribal members, old and young, and the results are phenomenal. Anyone with a desire to tell their story can and should do so. No one needs to feel intimidated by the technology,” Piner says.

Those who like to participate but are unsure what story to tell can contact the historical society. They have lots of suggestions, according to Brinkman.

“There are so many stories to be told – so many good stories. We have lots of historic documents, recordings made by some of the area’s pioneers, photos and other resources that can be used to make a good story a great story,” Brinkman says.

The Camp Verde Historical Society can be reached at (928) 567-9560. The museum, located at 435 S. Main Street, is open Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and by appointment.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Arizona’s Heritage Fund celebrates 20 years of helping Arizona wildlife

by

[Source: Gretchen Mominee, Examiner.com]

Photo: Gretchen Mominee

Twenty years ago, Arizona residents voted almost two to one to create the Heritage Fund, showing a “huge groundswell of grassroots support” from a “broad base of different groups” according to Lynda Lambert, Public Information Officer for  Arizona Game and Fish Department. What’s not to like? The Heritage Fund benefits native wildlife and habitats, it benefits rural communities, and it benefits anyone who loves the outdoors — all at no cost to the taxpayers.

The Heritage Fund is supported entirely by sales of Arizona Lottery tickets, and the Fund allows the Arizona Game and Fish Department to effectively operate a number of their programs and projects. In addition, the Fund is matched with federal dollars, which creates a statewide impact, helping not only the wildlife itself, but also helping the state economy. It is particularly an asset to rural communities, where the Fund has helped purchase land, restore habitat and create public access areas which draw hunters, anglers, hikers and birdwatchers. In fact, the Heritage Fund has been responsible for opening two million acres for public access in Arizona.

The Heritage Fund also supports environmental education, reaching out to almost 40,000 fourth graders annually. The Fund has given 640 grants that have gone toward projects such as creating schoolyard wildlife habitats and funding school outings so that students are able to directly experience the impacts of invasive species such as crayfish.

The Heritage Fund has also helped with bald eagle management. Lambert noted that the state has gone from 11 pairs of bald eagles in teh 1970s to 52 nesting pairs today. Part of the reason for their numbers increasing is undoubtedly due to DDT being banned, but the Heritage Fund has also played a role in their comeback, establishing a program in which teams of seasonal field employees monitor the nesting sites, estimating when the eggs hatch and intervening in cases in which babies have fallen.  The teams also help educate the public, ensuring that seasonal closures are respected and explaining to hikers and boaters the reason for the closures.

The Heritage Fund has also been integral in assisting with reintroduction projects such as bringing the black-footed ferret, California condors and black-tailed prairie dogs back to their native habitat. The Fund also supports habitat restoration efforts which help all the native species in those areas, not just one reintroduced species, since a healthy habitat for a black-footed ferret is also going to tend to be a healthy environment for other native plants and animals. And, Lambert noted, “Arizona has the highest

Enhanced by Zemanta