(editor'snote)

While neither Audubon nor its parent organization endorses political candidates, we were disappointed that so many sympathetic to our concerns came up short on November 2. To make matters worse, environmental issues barely registered during the presidential campaign. When the subject arose, briefly, in the second presidential debate, George W. Bush tried to put the best face on his environmental record, claiming, for example, that his Healthy Forests Initiative will reduce forest fires by replacing "lousy federal policy." In fact, the initiative, by subverting the scientific principles that have guided national-forest management since the days of Theodore Roosevelt, would actually increase the risk of fire by culling the biggest and oldest trees—the most fire resistant. In the following days, few of the 46.7 million Americans who saw the debate learned from newspapers or television just how much the President had stretched this and other environmental facts.

That’s because the mainstream media devoted a fraction of the attention to environmental issues that it did to John Kerry's goose-hunting photo op or to the endless swings in polls only a sports fan could love. With the enormity of what could befall us becoming clearer by the day, stories are now appearing about the prospects of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (probable) or about EPA chief Michael Leavitt's boast of a "mandate" to revisit laws ensuring safe and clean water and air (doubtful).

As a voice for conservation since 1899, Audubon will never let up. Here is our four-point plan for future issues, in keeping with our recent direction.

1) Sound the alarm. In the upcoming March-April issue, look for coverage of the administration's plans for strip mining on the primary calving grounds of the western Arctic caribou herd—the largest in the United States and a species vital to the delicate tundra ecosystem. 2) Reward good behavior. Our inventory in this category is understandably low right now, but we're preparing stories on the conservation parts of the federal farm program, and we will acknowledge the President's support for these programs (even if his motives—buying off farm states—may not be so pure). 3) Go stateside. In 1932 Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote that states should be free to serve as "laboratories" of democracy. Audubon will delve more deeply into innovative programs backed by Audubon state offices, like those in California and New York to preserve wetlands. 4) Broaden the base. "In political and financial strength, the 47 million Americans who hunt and/or fish are to environmentalists what the NFL is to Pop Warner football," writes Ted Williams in "Guns & Greens" about the huge potential of forging alliances between sportsmen and environmentalists to "save and restore fish and wildlife." As noted, Audubon will feature ecologically minded and hardworking farmers and ranchers. With farms and ranches covering roughly 850 million acres of this country, they hold the key to a sustainable future on more than a third of the U.S. landmass.

Our country has been building a legacy of conservation for more than a century. If we fight harder to defend it than we ever have before, no one can undo this progress in four years.