Forest Service
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Sequester looks almost certain. What now happens to public lands? The New York Times article linked below discusses the effects of the now almost certain sequester on the national parks . Most people who follow this issue know that they are chronically underfunded when it comes to resource protection. The Parks aside, what about…
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Once again, it’s $1.35/AUM — just a token fee- Like last year, the USFS and the BLM have announced that the 2013 grazing will a mere $1.35 per animal unit month (AUM). In a news release, the agencies wrote: “An AUM or HM – treated as equivalent measures for fee purposes – is the occupancy…
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Last week Rep. Ken Ivory, R of West Jordan, Utah, came north to Idaho, up out of the smog (worst in the country), to tell Idaho’s lawmakers that they should make a play to take over the U.S. public lands like Utah has proposed to do. We predicted this would happen because Utah’s legislature gets…
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Controversial proposal rejected on Jan. 22 by Forest Service- In a news release the Jackson Hole Alliance celebrated the end of the proposal to combine national forests in Idaho and Wyoming that include some of the West’s best wildlife and scenery. There is still on the table, however, the idea that perhaps the headquarters (the…
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Plans to combine the Caribou-Targhee and the Bridger-Teton spark criticism- Once there was the Teton National Forest and the Bridger National Forest in Wyoming. Next door in Idaho their was the Caribou National Forest and the Targhee National Forest. Seeking efficiency, and perhaps other goals, a generation ago the U.S. Forest Service combined the Bridger…
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Past efforts to grab national forests, parks, wildlife refuges led by livestock industry. Now it will be Koch Bros, oil, GOP- Some call our public lands “American’s common treasure,” but the love of our land expressed in many forms, and the freedom they provide, have not stopped what are sometimes called “sagebrush rebellions” every decade…
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Badly managed cattle devastate the most remote public lands- “Till the cows come home” . . . that phase usually means a long time. That’s how it is on most of public lands of the Western United States. The cattle are put out before the grass and forbs (perennial flowers) are sturdy and ready for…
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A big victory for conservation after years of political then legal wrangling- For many years U.S. national forest users battled over development of those areas with no roads (“roadless areas”). As the more economically valuable roadless area were developed first, those that remained were usually developed only because of ever increasing federal subsidies. Roads in…