George Wuerthner
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The Louvre Museum in France houses some of the most famous art works in the world, including paintings by such well-known artists as Rembrandt and Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. What would you think if you heard the famous Louvre Museum began to throw out and burn in the streets these priceless masterpieces saying…
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I have some questions and complaints about how our federal public lands are managed. I think ranchers pay a pittance in grazing fees, while doing a lot of damage to our collective lands. The timber industry is exploiting fear about wildfire to justify accelerated logging of national forests. The oil and gas industry doesn’t pay…
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I regularly hear or read arguments from agencies compromising our natural heritage that such and such studies support their management decisions. However, often the agencies overlook or ignore contrary science that does not support the policy or management decision. To give them a break, the average district ranger or even specialists like wildlife biologists,…
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I recently attended a talk on biomass energy at the Bend City Club. The Bend City Club presentation on biomass was another example of a juggernaut premised on unexamined assumptions without question. At every step of the way there are assumptions that are given and accepted. However, if any of these assumptions is incorrect than…
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“Rather than alarming, a lack of conifer regeneration allows other vegetation its “moment in the sun” so to speak, and provides for a much more diverse forest ecosystem” . . . . George Wuerthner – – – – – – Recently researchers at UC Davis and the US Forest Service presented a new scientific study that suggested…
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The recent designation of Bears Ear National Monument in southern Utah by President Obama engendered a predictable storm of rhetorical protest from Utah’s politicians. Yet a review of their comments and those made historically by western politicians when earlier Presidents had unilaterally created public reserves shows surprisingly consistent responses. In 1887, two weeks before leaving…
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In response to a guest editorial I published in the Missoulian on the shameful slaughter of Yellowstone’s bison, a group of three retired USDA range managers wrote a commentary that was published in the Missoulian on December 30th on Yellowstone’s bison. They argue that bison numbers must be reduced, and thus implicitly supporting the Dept.…
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Several years ago, I published a book on motorized recreation and its impacts on public lands. In doing the research for that book, one of the statistics that I found interesting is the demographic profile of the “average” motorized ORV user. They tended to be male, between the ages of 20 and 40, and had…