In an implicit acknowledgement that public lands ranching is often incompatible with native species viability on public lands, Margaret Soulen Hinson provides more hyperbolic rhetoric at a hearing of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands: Public Lands Council Press Release: RANCHERS WARN U.S. FOREST POLICIES THREATEN LIVESTOCK GRAZING Nov. 16, 2011…
Land and Water Conservation Funds cuts hurt places that depend on wildlife and scenery, Interior Sec. says- The Land and Water Conservation Fund dates to the Eisenhower Administration. It is to purchase important conservation lands (and waters). The Fund’s monies come from oil leasing fees so to make up for the damage oil exploration and…
Long battle to keep off-roaders out of the bottom of Salt Creek- Salt Creek is a wet canyon in Canyonlands National Park. So it is rare and very valuable. Way back near the time the national park was created, NPS left it open to ORVs, not realizing how the use would grow. The mudboggers surely…
So much for Harry Reid’s promise that the budget bill wouldn’t be used to carry anti-environment riders Around Christmas, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that the administration would be pursuing a BLM Wild Lands initiative, vague direction to BLM to inventory lands which exhibit wilderness characteristics for future Congressional Wilderness designation consideration. It was a…
On February 28, 2011 Chief Judge B. Lynn Winmill of the United States District Court for Idaho agreed with Western Watersheds Project and reimposed an injunction stopping livestock grazing on 17 grazing allotments covering over 450,000 acres of public land in the Jarbidge Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management in southern Idaho. The…
George Wuerthner nails it again, questioning the chief assumption that informs livestock-wolf conflict management. Do ranchers have a right to predator free landscape? – George Wuethner, NewWest One of the unquestioned and unspoken assumptions heard across the West is that ranchers have a right to a predator free environment. Even environmental groups like Defenders of…
Lands are managed to provide revenue for the public schools- Having a one party state is a problem here. Representative Hart, who took timber, only faces a write-in candidate. Rep. Hart logged state land for home. Candidate never paid debt for stolen timber. Betsy Z. Russell. The Spokesman-Review
No more hush, hush on who has grazing permits on your public lands- Most people are amazed that the BLM won’t tell them who holds the almost free grazing permits they issue on the public land of the United States, but Western Watersheds and Wild Earth Guardians, represented by Advocates for the West have just…