Public Lands
-
Chaparral is one of the least appreciated natural communities in the West. Yet this shrubland assemblage occupies 9-10% of California’s land area and is one of the most abundant vegetative communities in the state. Wildfire is a significant feature of this community. High-severity fire is the dominant fire regime. However, there are substantial myths about…
-
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…
-
The Biden Administration and Secretary of Interior Haaland are ready to destroy one of the primary protections of the 1964 Wilderness Act. The Biden Administration, with the apparent support of Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland, has sided with some Alaskan Natives and the previous Trump administration to approve the construction of a road through the…
-
The Forest Service spends billions of dollars fighting fires and implementing fuel treatments like logging and prescribed burns to reduce large wildfires. A further problem with the emphasis on logging the forest is that a significant acreage charred each year is in non-forested landscapes like sagebrush, grasslands, and chaparral where “fuel reductions” by logging have…
-
After Donald Trump’s election, many wildlands advocates have become depressed and disheartened and feel that conservation efforts are over. The Trump administration will no doubt try to eliminate, thwart, or dismantle conservation laws and policies. It is important to remember this is nothing new. The old phrase “two steps forward and one step back” often…
-
The Gallatin Range south of Bozeman is the last major unprotected landscape in the northern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. A minimum of 250,000 acres of the Gallatin Range as advocated by the Gallatin Yellowstone Wilderness Alliance should be designated wilderness under the 1964 Wilderness Act. The Gallatin Range is a key area for wildlife, and home…
-
Below is a news item from Caldera Action, an advocacy group for the Valles Caldera Preserve in New Mexico. The Jemez Pueblo won a lawsuit that, among other things, gives them “aboriginal title” to a portion of Valles Caldera Preserve. The suit essentially gives the tribe exclusive privileges to the Jemez Pueblo to hunt, gather…
-
In late May, Sage Steppe Wild convened a training workshop lead by a wide range of experts in western ecology, with a focus on how citizens can be more effective advocates for our public lands. The How Not to be Cowed workshop was a great success, and about 20 people traveled to this remote rangeland…
