Jonathan Ratner

  • Nearly 60 million acres of BLM land fail to meet agency’s standards for land health

    Jonathan Ratner

    The Bureau of Land Management oversees 245 million acres of public land across the U.S. More than 60% of that rangeland is being managed through leased livestock grazing allotments in Oregon and nine other Western states. But according to the nonpartisan Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, livestock grazing is the main reason why nearly 60…

  • On Agency Capture…

    Jonathan Ratner

    While those of us who care about our public lands and wildlife are often focused on on-the-ground conditions for this species or that, we can lose sight of the bigger picture. So many of the wildlands and wildlife problems we are concerned about are merely symptoms of agency capture, corruption. “The tendency of regulators to…

  • A Window into the Corruption of Our Public Lands Management Agencies

    Jonathan Ratner

    Twenty five years ago I was working for the Forest Service, on the Pinedale Ranger District of the Bridger-Teton National Forest in western Wyoming doing Wilderness Rangering. The District had gotten a number of complaints about abusive sheep grazing in the southern end of the Wind River Range (Europe Canyon) and I was assigned to…

  • Wild Earth Journal Archives

    Jonathan Ratner

    Intended as yet another instrument for attacking anthropocentric ideologies and voracious agricultural/industrial civilizations, the journal Wild Earth was published between 1991–2004. For those of you who remember Wild Earth, it was probably one the most beautiful publications ever produced with a mix of from the scientific to the philosophical and everything in between. For those…

  • Welfare Ranching

    Welfare Ranching – The Subsidized Destruction of the American West Now available for download

    Jonathan Ratner

    The seminal work on public lands livestock grazing and its web of impacts, Welfare Ranching – The Subsidized Destruction of the American West is now available for download.

  • George Wuerthner and Jonathan Ratner on the Rewilding Earth Podcast

    Jonathan Ratner

    Episode 123: Who Pays for Conservation, Being the Lorax, and Introducing A New Voice For Western Lands Conservation Join George Wuerthner and Jonathan Ratner in conversation with Jack Humphrey of The Rewilding Institute for a discussion about the direction of conservation in the United States, the shift of American conservation from its roots in biocentrism…

  • The Wildlife News – Renovation

    Jonathan Ratner

    Dear Subscribers, Recently, Ralph Maughan, the founder of The Wildlife News, has turned over operations to myself and The Wildlife News will be supported and managed as a project of Sage Steppe Wild. As you may have noticed, the site is undergoing renovations and is now accessible on mobile devices. The Wildlife News will continue…

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‎”At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour.”

Edward Abbey

“The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans.”

Jim Fowler

“Our forests offer much more than just beautiful landscapes and wildlife. Each one has a different story to tell.”

Raveena Tandon

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