land use
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The Washington Post published an article a few years ago that repeated the old and flawed idea that ranching will “protect” the land and suggesting conservation easements are the solution to sprawl. If championing cows or hayfields is your conservation policy, one must rethink the strategy. Keep in mind that nearly all the development found…
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Our current means of protecting wildlands is to set a boundary around the area. Humans do not create wilderness with survey lines. Any more than we create blue skies with a weather report. We can only recognize and sanction what already exists. San Francisco may well be one of the more beautiful settings for…
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Rural subdivision in Gallatin County, Montana. Photo George Wuerthner Back when I was a student at the University of Montana in Missoula, I had a girlfriend who managed to rent a house adjacent to the Bitterroot Mountains near Hamilton. All of us were very jealous of her luck in obtaining a place to live so…
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Most land trusts and many conservation groups frequently ignore the impacts of Agriculture and focus on urbanization and sprawl as the main threat to biodiversity and ecosystems. A good example is the Teton Land Trust, Idaho. A recent story about their board president, John Nedrow, a farmer, talks about how he put a conservation easement…
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The Gallatin Valley from the air showing that Ag fields dominate the valley (George Wuerthner). The recent commentary promoting agriculture by Brenden Weiner of the Gallatin Valley Land Trust was full of misinformation. https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/county/gallatin-county-open-lands-program-changes-with-shift-from-bond/article_a93eff24-eaec-5005-8b70-a442972d5627.html Weiner suggested that “working farmlands grow our food, provide scenic open space, give wildlife a place of refuge,…
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CAPTION: Open space is not the same as good wildlife habitat. The hayfield shown here has limited wildlife value. The willows and other shrubs on the left are along a creek protected from livestock by a rural subdivision. The right side of the photo dominated by grasses and an entrenched streambed that is actively grazed…
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The survival or defeat of the wolf symbolizes the way people are able to access the land according to their culture- Lessons From Wolves by Jami Wright. Izilwane . Ms. Wright is a graduate student completing her thesis for a master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology at Western Washington University. Her thesis focuses on human-human conflicts…
