Yellowstone National Park brings out the best in society. Photo George Wuerthner I spent the past week in Yellowstone National Park. I was grateful to the people who had the courage and foresight to establish Yellowstone in 1872. It was with gratitude that I watched grizzly bears playing among the meadows. Gratitude that I got…
Izembek National Wildlife Refuge is a 315,000 acre protected landscape located on the Alaskan Peninsula, a chain of volcanos that eventually leds to the Aleutian Islands. Former President Jimmy Carter has filed an AMICUS CURIAE supporting a rehearing of a District Court decision to allow a road to be constructed across the Izembek National…
King Cove, Alaska. Photo Center for American Progress Recently Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland visited the isolated Aleut community of King Cove on the Alaskan Peninsula southwest of Anchorage, Alaska, to see and hear firsthand whether to approve the construction of a road across the Izembek Wilderness and National Wildlife Refuge. Recently, a federal court…
The Bitterroot Mountains rise up above the Bitterroot Valley in western Montana. Photo George Wuerthner Montana’s Bitterroot National Forest is proposing the Bitterroot Front Project (BFP), encompassing 144,000 acres. This action will impact an area more than four times the size of the 34,000-acre Rattlesnake Wilderness north of Missoula. The Bitterroot Front Project will impact…
The Rogue River cuts through the coastal Siskiyou Mountains. Photo George Wuerthner Congressman Peter DeFazio (D) from Eugene, Oregon, has introduced into the House the Wild Rogue Conservation and Recreation Enhancement Act. It is a companion bill to earlier legislation in the Senator supported by Senators Wyden and Merkley. Rogue River. Photo George Wuerthner The…
Escudilla Mountain rises above the landscape and dominates the views in northern Arizona. Photo George Wuerthner “Life in Arizona was bounded underfoot by grama grass, overhead by the sky, and on the horizon by Escudilla.” So begins Aldo Leopold’s memorable essay Escudilla in Sand County Almanac, where he describes the killing of Bigfoot, one of…
I helped to create RESTORE the North Woods in 1991 which put forth a proposal for a 3.2 million acre national park in the Maine Woods. I’ve been a board member and now president for a long time now. We still are advocating for a large national park in Maine and achieved the beginnings of…
Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The park was originally created to protect geological phenomena like geysers and canyons. Photo George Wuerthner The year 2022 is the 150th birthday of the creation of Yellowstone National Park. The establishment of the park in 1872 is something to celebrate globally. It is a shining beacon for conservation as…
George Wuerthner is an ecologist and writer who has published 38 books on various topics related to environmental and natural history. He has visited over 400 designated wilderness areas and over 200 national park units.