Flight Across America

Flight Across America, planned as an annual event is designed to engage our nations young adults in the environmental issues of the day and attract increased media and public attention to development and fragmentation occurring on America's western public wild lands.

Utilizing small aircraft, EcoFlight enlists 4-6 student observers from colleges and regional high schools throughout the Rocky Mountain States who travel with them over a portion of public lands in the Rocky Mountains. From the air students study and photograph specific issues, then present their findings to the public at press events scheduled along the route. In addition, national and regional press and photographers are invited to fly along with the students, providing a fresh and unique story line through which the public can examine the issue as well.

 "I have found myself more motivated than ever to take a stand against the increasingly active and persistent companies in my home of Pinedale.  Hopefully the other students are going to take away similar feelings from this experience and be able to educate more members of their communities, which I believe is the first step towards preserving these areas."

Monica  DeGraffenreid, 17, Flight Across America participant from Pinedale, Wyoming.

EcoFlight's 2009 Flight Across America was a study of the pine beetle infestation occurring in the Rocky Mountain region, specifically in Colorado and Wyoming. Multiple flights took local high school students, educators and members of the press to observe the issue from the air. Full student seminars on the pine beetle topic were held in Colorado and Wyoming. In addition three high school students from Colorado were selected to accompany EcoFlight to Jackson, Wyoming and the Teton Science School to study the white bark pine beetle infestation in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

See images from Flight Across America 2009 in our Gallery:  http://ecoflight.info/gallery.html?id_cat=59

Watch the video from Flight Across America 2009:  http://ecoflight.info/virtual-tour.html?id_video=7551230

The 2007 Flight Across America event flew students over the environmental threats and eyesores in New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. Students met with environmental organization leaders from each area, engaging them directly the debates about drilling, mining and ORVs.  Together, students attempted to answer the follow questions:
 - Does a US citizen today have any real say in what happens to their local ecosystems or even their own land?
 - What are the alternatives to the current assault being wrought upon America's public wild lands by energy and resource extraction companies?
 - Do young adults care about the future of their living environment?
 - How can the experience of flight be followed up by each participant in ways that leverage what they've learned to protect western public lands and the life support systems they provide?

EcoFlight's 2006 Flight Across America took three students on a hard-hitting aerial tour of the new energy front of the United States.  From the smog laden air around the Four Corners Power Plants obscuring the landmark Ship Rock, to the Red Rock beauty of Canyonlands, to the 150 foot waterfall of the Roan Plateau, nothing is being spared in the quest for oil and gas and coal in our wildest of lands, no landscape is sacrosanct.  Gas wells litter the land from one horizon to the next. 

Flight Across America's students Craig MacCready, a fifth generation ranching family high school student from Aztec, New Mexico; Dailey Haren, a High School junior from Moab, Utah and Sadye Harvey, a high school senior from Basalt, Colorado, had the opportunity to meet with environmental leaders at each flight stop and to question what alternatives there are to impede the disappearance of America's wildest places.


Students Fly, Learn and Speak Out

Testament to the effectiveness of the Flight Across America project is revealed in the publication of the students own writings in multiple newspapers and to their own follow-up activities:

2009 participants Rachel Sobke and Lea Linse have both been published in the Aspen Daily News and recently participated in a Pine Beetle symposium attended by Gov. Bill Ritter.

Participant Dailey Haren has put together an activist group from her school that is interested in protecting their surrounding landscape. With Franklin Seal, the Southeast Utah organizer for  our partner organization, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Dailey and EcoFlight are putting together a full Kestrel Project program with debates, a seminar and overflights in April 2007 to further the young adult involvement in local ecosystem issues.

Participant Craig MacCready has become a true voice for young adults. He met with Senator Bingham in Feb 2007 on how to improve ecosystem health in New Mexico, has been published a number of times in various New Mexico newspapers and is trying to protect his family's operating cattle ranch from oil and gas development.

Participant Sadye Harvey has been published in the Aspen Daily News and has become an outspoken critic of western public lands becoming single use lands for energy development at the expense of ecosystem protection and the general public's recreational use.

See images from Flight Across America 2009 in our Gallery: