Public Lands

  • Removing 21-inch Protection For Large Trees Isn’t Restoration

    George Wuerthner

    Large old growth grand fir like this pictured could be cut if the 21-inch rule is discarded. Photo by George Wuerthner Old-growth fir trees in the Lookout Mountain Proposed Wilderness, Ochoco National Forest, Photo by George Wuerthner The Forest Service is proposing to remove the prohibition against logging trees larger than 21 inches that grow…

  • BLM Fuels Reduction and Restoration: License to Destroy Sagebrush Ecosystems

    George Wuerthner

    Juniper removal below Abert Rim, Oregon Photo by George Wuerthner   The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is now taking comments on a massive vegetation project for the Great Basin and adjacent areas of the Colorado Plateau. The PEIS for Fuels Reduction and Rangeland Restoration in the Great Basin (the Fuels Reduction and Rangeland Restoration…

  • Lionhead Proposed Wilderness

    George Wuerthner

            One of the most outstanding wildlands on the Custer Gallatin National Forest is the 43,759-acre proposed Lionhead Wilderness. The Lionhead lies along the Continental Divide and rises up above  Hebgen Lake near West Yellowstone. The Madison River and Quake Lake on the north, while Targhee Pass on the south and Raynold…

  • Medicine Bow NF Massive Logging Unacceptable

    George Wuerthner

    The Medicine Bow National Forest is proposing to implement the  Landscape Vegetation Analysis (LaVA) Project, one of the most massive logging operations in the lower 48 states.  As much as 320,000 acres (an area bigger than Grand Teton National Park) will be “treated” by logging and other “vegetation” manipulations. http://www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=51255 In the 1970s, the Targhee…

  • Bozeman Watershed Project Spills Bad Blood

    George Wuerthner

    Hyalite Reservoir in Bozeman watershed. Photo by George Wuerthner   Safeway in ruin at Paradise California despite being surrounded by parking lot–lack of fuel didn’t save the building Photo by George Wuerthner   Back in the Middle Ages, it was a common practice for “doctors” to bleed the “bad blood” from sick patients. If the…

  • Emotion instead of reason drives Utah Legislature

    Ralph Maughan

    When it comes to wild carnivores these lawmakers look to their gut instead of their brain- A couple months ago I went to the Utah Capitol to oppose House Bill 228 (the brainchild of state Rep. Casey Snyder), otherwise known as the Livestock Predators Removal Amendments. The bill was one of two designed to do…

  • Ochoco NF Chainsaw Medicine

    George Wuerthner

    Forest on the Ochoco National Forest. Photo by George Wuerthner   Hurray for Central Oregon Land Watch and Oregon Wild for suing the Ochoco National Forest over its proposed Black Mountain Vegetation Management Project near Big Prairie. As is typical of the Forest Service today, they use euphemisms to conceal what they always have been…

  • New National Parks article

    George Wuerthner

    https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/national-parks-were-one-of-americas-greatest-ideas.-lets-expand-on-that/   National Parks Were One of America’s Greatest Ideas. Let’s Expand on That. To fully protect the values for which they were established, we need to add new national parks and expand many existing ones. GEORGE WUERTHNER AND MICHAEL KELLETT April 23, 2020    One of United States’ greatest contributions to the global marketplace…

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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

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