The Mill Creek area where the Forest Service’s proposes a dry forest restoration. Photo George Wuerthner
The Ochoco National Forest proposes what they call a “dry forest restoration” on approximately 23,015 acres in the Mill Creek Dry Forest Restoration Project area east of Prineville, Oregon. https://www.fs.usda.gov/nfs/11558/www/nepa/113632_FSPLT3_5569731.pdf
As with almost everything […]
Continue Reading →A week ago, eight prominent scientists sent a letter to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) declaring that the agency’s proposed Tri-State Fuel Break (TSFB) is flawed and will endanger sagebrush ecosystems.
The Final Environmental Impact Statement (“FEIS”) and other project documents are available on the agency’s website at https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/42341/510.
To quote the scientists: […]
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High elevation forests like the mountain hemlock seen here at Crater Lake have long intervals between fires. They only burn when there is the right combination of climate/weather. Fire suppression has had little influence on such forests. Photo George Wuerthner
The recent piece published in the December 22 Guardian titled: […]
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Glacier National Park is home to 30-40 wolverine. Photo George Wuerthner
On December 14, 2020, 24 organizations and one individual (me) filed two different lawsuits to challenge the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) decision not to list the wolverine as a threatened Distinct Population Segment (DPS) under the Endangered Species […]
Continue Reading →If cattle graze to bare soil, it is true that fires are slowed under such conditions, but the ecological impacts are enormous. Photo George Wuerthner
When I worked for the BLM, us “ologists” (hydrologist, ecologists, biologists, archaeologists, geologists, and botanists) used to refer to Range Conservationists as Range “Cons” because they conned […]
Continue Reading →Upper Deschutes River is essentially an irrigation cancel for irrigators. Photo George Wuerthner
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will soon decide whether to approve a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) for the Deschutes River Basin. The HCP was initiated by local irrigators and the city of Prineville who want to maintain their privilege […]
Continue Reading →Black-tailed praire dog. Photo by George Wuerthner
Years ago, I went out of my way to visit the Thunder Basin National Grassland. With a name like “Thunder Basin,” how could I resist.
The Thunder Basin National Grassland is located in northeastern Wyoming in the Powder River Basin between the Big Horn Mountains and […]
Continue Reading →The Idaho side of the Tetons, much of it in the Jedediah Smith Wilderness or proposed additions. Photo by George Wuerthner.
The Caribou-Targhee National Forest plan to implement prescribed burns on 1.7 million acres along the Tetons’ west slope deserves a response.
As reported in the Jackson Hole Guide, the “problem,” according to […]
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The Six Mile North drainage is currently vacant, but the FS proposes grazing the allotment. It was burned by the Emigrant Fire but grasslands are robust. Photo by George Wuerthner
Below are my comments concerning the expansion of grazing of the East Paradise Grazing Allotments. This is some of the most […]
Continue Reading →Prescribed burning by Forest Service. Photo by George Wuerthner
There has been a spate of articles in various newspapers and magazines asserting that if the Forest Service were following burning practices of Indigenous people the large wildfires we have seen around the West would be tamed.
Here are some representative of Indian burning […]
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