Public Lands
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I wrote this in response to an editorial by Mr. Oberueller in Wyoming File. You can see the original editorial at https://www.wyofile.com/public-lands-initiative-deserves-praise-for-collaboration/ The WPLI is an attempt to garner local agreement on the fate of federal BLM and Forest Service Wilderness Study Areas. These federal lands are managed to retain their potential suitability for future designation…
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The Proposed Plan of the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area is Announced The Bureau of Land Management intends to reopen much of the protected area to cattle grazing TUCSON, Arizona— This morning, the Bureau of Land Management released a long-awaited draft plan for managing the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area (SPRNCA), signaling its…
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One of the biggest impacts resulting from logging our forests that is largely ignored by public land management agencies is the contribution that timber harvest makes to Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. Increasingly it is clear that the greatest value of our public forests might be to end all thinning/logging and protect them as carbon…
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This past winter, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) began preparing two Environmental Impact Statements to review the environmental consequences of creating a region-wide series of “fuel breaks” that will add thousands of miles of new linear pathways across the Great Basin portion of Nevada, Idaho, Oregon and Utah. The goal of fuel breaks is…
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We often hear that our forests are “unhealthy” and among the indicators of forest ill-health are large acreages burning in wildfires. However, if you look back a few centuries or more, you find that we have a fire deficit. Many paleoclimate studies document major wildfires long before there was “fire suppression”. Indeed, one study by…
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The Western Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies released a report declaring that invasive plants, especially cheatgrass, is an enormous threat to the sagebrush ecosystem and sage grouse. Ironically the report emphasized that invasive weeds are a threat to the livestock industry as well. The reason it is ironic is that across the West livestock…
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I recently attended a presentation on invasive weeds by a representative of the Deschutes National Forest. The problem with the presentation was that it promoted and legitimized an industrial paradigm to weed threats. The Forest Service (FS) promotes an Industrial Forestry Paradigm that treats the symptoms, not the causes of ecological degradation. The biggest factors…
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Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke has directed the National Park Service to reverse Obama-era directives implemented in October of 2015 that prohibited certain “hunting” practices in Alaskan national park units. Zinke is attempting to reinstate the killing of black bears with cubs and hunting them with dogs, hunting grizzlies over bait like donuts and bacon,…
