Department of Interior
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TRUMPING OUR PARKS The Trump Administration is on the warpath against the environment. From increasing oil and gas leasing on our public lands to decreasing national clean air standards for automobiles, eliminating environmental law enforcement, attacking the Endangered Species Act, removing the United States from the Global Climate Accord, and reducing oversight of livestock grazing…
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Caption: Above Cheatgrass invades fuel break cleared along road in Oregon. Bottom: Fuel break created in Idaho’s Snake River Plain. Photos by George Wuerthner The Department of Interior released a final decision to created 11,000 miles of linear cheatgrass corridors, which they are euphemistically calling “fuel breaks.” Think about that figure. Eleven thousand miles is…
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The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is rewriting its grazing regulations to allow more “flexibility” into range management. The agency even proposes increases in grazing seasons and numbers. All of this, of course, is the result of the pressure from the fox (Trump administration) guarding the hen house. I think most career BLM…
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Senator Wyden and Senator Merkley have introduced the ‘‘Malheur Community Empowerment for the Owyhee Act’’ (MCEOA). The senators can be commended for taking on such a controversial issue and trying to find a solution to public lands protection. While the bill would designate more than a million acres of new wilderness, and among other positive…
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MYTH: FUEL BUILD UP IS RESPONSIBLE FOR LARGE BLAZES? A conventional narrative is that wildfires in the western U.S. are unprecedented and more extensive than in the past. This increase in fire acreage is attributed to “fuel build-up,” presumed to be the result of successful fire suppression. However, such assertions lack context. Compared to the…
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Photos courtesy of Escalante Watershed Partnership Among the more egregious recent decisions of the Utah Bureau of Land Management is to open 50,000 acres of the Escalante River within the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument to renewed livestock grazing. The Escalante was so remote that it was the last major river to be mapped in…
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Just above the northern reaches of the Phoenix megalopolis lies the Agua Fria National Monument, named for the river that runs through it and known for its rich archeological history and the refuge it provides for a broad range of wildlife species, including the imperiled Gila chub, yellow-billed cuckoo and northern Mexican garter snake. It’s a…
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Montana has a wilderness deficit. People may be surprised to learn that only 3.4 million acres out of the state’s nearly 94 million acres are congressionally designated wilderness under the 1964 Wilderness Act. There are at least 6.3 million more U.S. Forest Service acres that potentially could be designated as wilderness, as well as additional…
