Metro Teleproductions Inc (MTI) worked with the Wildlands Network on a live webcast from the Senate Visitors Center at the US Capitol.  MTI live streamed the press briefing, setting up in just 25 minutes with a single Panasonic  camera (AGDVX 200), and  a MacBook Pro encoder.

The briefing can be accessed on the Wildlands Network Facebook page  https://www.facebook.com/wildlandsnetwork/videos/643779646125006/

Metro Teleproductions (MTI) is one of the pioneers in live webcasting in the DMV, our first livestream was back in 1998.  MTI works with a variety of non profit organizations in video production

Environmental and legislative leaders spoke in support of the Wildlife Corridors Conservation Act of 2019 at a Congressional briefing hosted by Wildlands Network and collaborating organizations. If passed, the Act would restore habitat and protect America’s native wildlife by establishing a National Wildlife Corridors Program that facilitates the designation of wildlife corridors on federal lands and provides grants to maintain wildlife corridors on non-federal lands.

Leaders included Sir Robert Watson, the former immediate chair of IPBES, which released a report earlier this year detailing the risk of extinction for approximately one million species; E.O. Wilson, renowned Harvard biologist; Dr. Ron Sutherland, Chief Scientist at Wildlands Network; and Aran Johnson, wildlife biologist for the Southern Ute Reservation

“If America’s natural heritage of plants and animals is to be saved, this wildlife corridors bill must be supported and implemented,” said Sir Watson.

Wildlife corridors are critically important habitat areas that allow animals to move between areas of habitat, facilitating migration, range expansion, and mating. Protecting wildlife corridors also increases potential resiliency of animal populations in the face of changing landscapes and climate.

“The Wildlife Corridors Conservation Act would provide the most important step of any single piece of legislation at the present time in enlarging the nations protected areas and thereby saving large swaths of America’s wildlife and other fauna and flora, especially in this critical time of climate change and shifting locations of the original environments in which a large part of biodiversity has existed,” said E.O. Wilson.

“It is just common sense that protecting and restoring the connections between natural areas is a powerful solution for preventing extinctions here in the United States,” said Dr. Sutherland.

The bill was originally introduced in May 2019 with Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) leading the charge in the Senate. The bill was co-sponsored in the Senate by Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D- NJ), Kamala Harris (D-CA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Jon Tester (D-MT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR). Reps. Don Beyer (D-VA) and Vern Buchanan (R-FL) introduced the bill in the House of Representatives.

Sen. Udall and Reps. Beyer and Buchanan—who also spoke at the briefing—highlighted the need for bipartisan support of wildlife corridors protection as a response the looming extinction crisis.