Conservation
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One of the common myths perpetuated by the livestock industry is that fire supression has allowed juniper to increase across the West, though under natural conditions juniper has long fire rotations of hundreds of years, so not significantly impacted by fire supression. Some studies suggest juniper expansion may be a natural consequence of climate change.…
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The Forest Service is proposing to amend the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP). The NWFP was created to protect old-growth forests and wildlife.The new plan proposals would weaken the protection of public forests. The NWFP was implemented in response to excessive logging ravaging many acres of public patrimony with massive clearcuts that turned public forests…
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A recent commentary in the Addison Independent supported logging a portion of the Worcester Range in Vermont, arguing that it would “improve” the forest“health” and “resilience.” As a former Vermont resident and an ecologist, I suggest the commentary’s signatories are promoting an anthropocentric, not a biocentric perspective. Ironically, the title of their commentary is “Science-based”…
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Back in 2000, I wrote a piece for California Wild about the prospects for wolf restoration in the state. At that time, there had not been any wolves reported in the Golden State in decades. Nevertheless, I felt the state could easily support a wolf populaiton. In my article, I pretended that it was 2020…
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Editor’s Note: For those of you not in Montana, you may not be familiar with the editorials of George Ochenski. George Ochenski was an environmental and tribal lobbyist at the Montana legislature for 22 years and and wrote, funded and passed many of the significant environmental bills in Montana during those decades. He is Montana’s…
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The National Audubon Society has a program called “Conservation Ranching,” which promotes individual ranchers who practice what Audubon calls “bird-friendly” ranching. One must assume that Audubon is garnering some big bucks from individual wealthy landowners by promoting ranching or is just brain-dead. Livestock production is the most significant factor in Species Endangerment in the West.While…
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A phrase attributed to labor organizer Joe Hill is fitting for this moment: “Don’t Mourn. Organize.” Or in the words of writer Ed Abbey,: “Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.” During the last Trump Administration our small, gritty organization, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, sued the Trump Administration 18 times to…
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NOTE: Written in 2018, I offer this as a response to a TWN reader curious about “fortress preservation”. Once a year the NPS offers a guided tour so you, too, can experience a preserved piece of public lands [w/o citation & monetary fine].) In the 1990s I worked at Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park. I…
