George Wuerthner
-
In 2008 at a Bureau of Land Management Oil and Gas lease auction Tim DeChristopher bid on 14 parcels of land (totaling 22,500 acres) for $1.8 million that he had no intention of buying. The FBI arrested him and charged him with a two-count felony indictment. DeChristopher was branded an “eco-terrorist.” Even though the very…
-
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) brought some early Christmas presents to the mountain biking community at the expense of wilderness. Buried in the Act was a boundary adjustment to the Wheeler Peak Wilderness of New Mexico. The existing boundary was put into place 50 years ago with the signing of the Wilderness Act. Since…
-
The bull trout, a char, is listed under the Endangered Species Act as threatened in the lower 48 states. It has been extirpated from about 60 percent of its natural range. Worse, like many native salmonids, it is primarily found in headwater streams with little connectivity to larger river systems. The bull trout is a top apex predator, and as a…
-
Heather Tallis and Jane Lubchenco published a commentary titled “A Call for Inclusive Conservation” in the November 2014 issue of Nature. The essay sought to broker a truce or compromise between two philosophical positions in the conservation movement today that can be characterized as “new conservation” which promotes human utility as the primary goal of…
-
Recently I was wandering through a burnt forest in the aftermath of a wildfire with a mixed group of people as part of a field trip with a forest collaborative. We were examining the burn severity pattern that a wildfire had carved through the forest. In many places, the fire had barely charred the ground,…
-
I sent this into the Helena IR in response to an article that basically tried to portray the idea that environmental lawyers and groups were getting rich off of law suits that are often characterized as “frivolous”. In truth no one wins a law suit if it’s frivolous, and the fact that some groups win…
-
In a recent editorial in the Jackson Hole Guide, Luther Propst of Jackson asserts that conservationists needed to keep in mind that many public lands recreationalists have a common interest in protecting the land. (see Propts piece here http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/opinion/guest_shot/fun-hogs-and-the-future-of-conservation/article_f98a41a3-6dd0-5915-b166-fe0a5b898138.html) Recreationists like mountain biking proponents could be allies in efforts to protect wildlands as designated wilderness for…