LOUISIANA AUDUBON CAUSE

I. PROTECT AND RESTORE HABITATS FOR BIRDS AND WILDLIFE.

a. Engage in and encourage the study and conservation of all wild plants and animals in Louisiana.

b. Help establish and protect wildlife refuges and management areas, parks, wilderness and preservation areas, wild and scenic areas, and other public lands in Louisiana.

c. Defend the national and state interest in wildlife populations on public lands in Louisiana.

d. Promote the private and governmental funding needed for the protection of wildlife and the integrity of natural systems in Louisiana.

e. Engage in and encourage the protection and restoration of threatened and endangered species, with special attention to the preservation of critical habitat in Louisiana.

f. Promote professional and enlightened plant and wildlife management programs (including non-game species) in the relevant state and federal agencies for the purpose of protecting and restoring their historical populations including threatened and endangered species.

g. Promote the development and implementation of Louisiana environmental education programs for all ages and in all sectors of society. 

h. Support the National Audubon Society's Important Bird Area program.

i. Support the Louisiana Coastal Birding Trail.

II. FURTHER THE CONSERVATION OF LAND AND WATER

a. Support laws and policies that encourage environmentally and
economically sound land and water resource planning at the national, state, parish, and local level.

b. Encourage and support efforts to protect the estuaries (including the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary), barrier islands, cheniers, coastal wetlands, and outer continental shelf areas in Louisiana and elsewhere in the nation, including full implementation of the Federal Coastal Zone Management Act and the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act (CWPPRA).

c. Support the development of ecologically sound national and state laws and policies for farmlands, forest lands, wetlands and urban greenspace.

d. Advocate the implementation of water conservation programs in the residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural sectors in Louisiana.

e. Encourage the protection of the quality and quantity of ground water in Louisiana. 

f. Advocate ecologically sound floodplain, beach, and watershed management. Encourage non- structural approaches and termination of government policies and programs that encourage and subsidize development in floodprone areas.

g. Promote environmentally sensitive development and rehabilitation in Louisiana's towns and cities, and the creation and preservation of environmental education centers, greenspace, and greenbelts in urban areas. Work to reduce urban/suburban sprawl.

h. Support the concept of billboard free highways in rural and natural areas of Louisiana. 

i. Support reforms in tax structures and the creation of additional incentives for the preservation of productive agricultural and forest lands, and where possible, the conversion of farmland back to wetlands and other natural habitats.

j. Support reforms in tax structures to remove subsidies to polluters.

k. Promote the preservation and restoration of natural aquatic ecosystems, including streams, lakes, and wetlands, and oppose environmentally unsound channelization, dredging, drainage, dam-building, diversion and navigation projects.

l. Promote the equitable cost sharing for the construction and maintenance of highways, railways, airports, and public waterways.

m. Actively defend the public interest in federal and state lands and oppose transfer of these lands, except where such transfers are clearly in the public interest.

n. Encourage the establishment, adequate funding, and proper management of federal and state lands such as parks, monuments, commemorative areas, preserves, wildlife refuges, management areas, and wild and scenic rivers in Louisiana, including the Atchafalaya Basin Floodway. Promote the designation of the Atchafalaya Trace National Heritage Area.

o. Work for proper environmental controls over oil and gas exploration and production, prospecting, mining, grazing, logging, off-road vehicles, and recreational activities on federal, state, parish, and other public lands.

p. Urge preservation of the integrity of natural stream flows where diversions threaten aquatic and riparian ecosystems.

q. Monitor the development of biotechnology and genetically engineered products that may adversely impact plants, wildlife and their habitats.

r. For the purposes of Sec. 404 of the Clean Water Act, support alternative upland sites for wetlands development projects and support sequencing in which mitigation is a last resort.

s. Oppose and discourage abuses of takings claims which threaten environmental protection and ecological health. 

III. PROTECT LIFE FROM POLLUTION, RADIATION, AND TOXIC SUBSTANCES.

a. Support the purposes, defend the integrity, and monitor the effectiveness of the basic pollution control and abatement laws in effect in Louisiana (state and federal) such as the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, National Environmental Policy Act, Toxic Substances Control Act, Superfund, Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, and the Louisiana Environmental Quality Act.

b. Seek better pollution control and abatement programs, with opportunities for public participation and full access to relevant information, at the national, state, parish, and municipal level.

c. Encourage the recycling of all recoverable resources, such as supporting recycling programs, and the purposes of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. 

d. Advocate biological and integrated pest control measures while working to phase out the use in Louisiana (and elsewhere) of persistent, highly mobile pesticides, and other toxic substances that poison natural ecosystems.

e. Support laws, regulations, and programs to reduce radiation exposure to humans and wildlife, and the natural environment.

f. Support laws and the enactment and enforcement of federal and state laws dealing with oil spills and hazardous chemical wastes.

g. Support the phase out of lead, mercury and other toxic metals in industrial and commercial processes.

IV. SEEK SOLUTIONS FOR GLOBAL PROBLEMS

a. Support the purposes of the United Nations Environmental Programme, and urge full U.S. participation and funding.

b. Promote the U.S. participation in international treaties and conventions for the protection of wildlife, plants, and the environment.

c. Work with national, international, and other state organizations, both private and public, in cooperative efforts to protect and preserve wildlife as well as rainforests, oceans, and other ecosystems of global concern. Work to educate national, international, and other state organizations about the functions and values of hardwood bottomlands and other wetlands in Louisiana.

d. Cooperate with private and public agencies to develop rational
strategies for reducing population growth.

e. Emphasize the relationship between population pressures and
environmental problems, and include population concerns in our educational and legislative programs.

f. Encourage only sustainable development of natural resources, while opposing any development that squanders the biological capital of the global ecosystem.

g. Increase awareness of the potential effects of stratospheric ozone depletion and global warming on the biotic resources of Louisiana, the United States, and the world, and encourage the development of appropriate strategies to deal with these challenges.

h. Support and defend the environmental integrity of Caddo Lake and Catahoula Lake in Louisiana, which have been declared "wetlands of international importance" under the Ramsar Treaty.

V. PROMOTE RATIONAL STRATEGIES FOR ENERGY DEVELOPMENT AND USE, STRESSING CONSERVATION AND RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES.

a. Support private and public energy policies and practices that recognize the conservation of energy as essential to economic vitality, environmental quality, and national security.

b. Recognize the regional, state, and local aspects of energy problems, and encourage, at all governmental levels, those solutions that are responsive and appropriate to the long term needs of the state and communities.

c. Encourage Audubon members to use sound energy use principles and
practices. 

e. Promote the governmental and private funding for, and the rapid
development of, the various renewable sources of energy.

f. Strive for improved safety, emergency planning, and scientifically sound nuclear waste disposal.

g. Support legislation and policies to protect air and water quality and ecological integrity, and to increase efficiencies in the development, transportation, and use of fossil fuels.

h. Insist on diligent concern for the environmental effects of technologies used in the generation, transmission, and consumption of electric power.

i. Support transportation policies that promote energy efficiency in the movement of goods and people.

j. Support the implementation of state and federal laws to effect sound environmental controls over mining /extraction of fuels and reclamation of mined lands based on specific uniform federal standards.

k. Monitor the permitting, construction and operation of dams or structures which impede natural water flows. Maintain water quality.

l. Promote the development of a state, national, and global energy strategy that reduces the Greenhouse Effect.

m. Locate pipelines and transmission lines to minimize the visual and environmental impacts.

(As amended and adopted by the LAC, Sept. 7, 2002)