Threats
-
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…
-
The recent Durango Herald article about the proposal for aggressive logging of Southwest Colorado Forests supported by the Rocky Mountain Restorative Initiative (RMRI) is a classic example of the Industrial Forestry worldview. https://durangoherald.com/articles/306885 The (RMRI) implies that trees killed by drought, beetles, or anything other than a chainsaw are somehow abnormal. Not surprisingly, the membership…
-
State, federal and tribal representatives voted again to slaughter 600-900 Yellowstone Park bison this winter. The agencies and tribes use the less offensive sounding euphemism “cull”. But let’s be honest, what happens is nothing more than butchery done to appease the livestock industry. It is shameful that these agencies and tribes legitimize the annual butchery…
-
A forest stand on the Deschutes NF which has been ecologically damaged by logging. Note the absence of tree age diversity, lack of dead wood and snags, and any shrub layer. This is what the Forest Service and Deschutes Collaborative calls a “healthy” forest. Ecologically speaking this is a human-caused disaster. (Photo by George Wuerthner)…
-
The Fish and Wildlife Service will soon be reviewing a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) for Oregon’s Deschutes River written by contractors working for the Central Oregon irrigators. The HCP will dictate the future of the river. The goal of the irrigators is to obtain a “get out of jail free” pass for their impacts on…
-
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…
-
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…
-
The Wallowa-Whitman National Forest is proposing to log the Lostine Wild and Scenic River corridor. The basic justification is to reduce the potential for large wildfires. Yet according to the Oregon Department of Forestry, in 2019 only acres 67,795 acres burned in the state, compared to 846,411 acres burned last year. Why the big difference?…