In recent years it has become fashionable for conservationists to substitute and promote other land classification in place of wilderness designation. Wilderness is “passé” so we are told, even though it is the “gold standard” for land protection.
In a recent white paper, The Wilderness Society outlined some of these alternatives such as National Recreation […]
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Buffalo Horn drainage
The Gallatin Range that lies south of Bozeman, Montana is the largest unprotected wildlands in the northern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). The Gallatin Range is highly scenic with glaciated cirques, grassy meadows, and subalpine lakes.
Biologically it is one of the more diverse […]
Continue Reading →My title may seem excessively harsh by some groups who are doing what they believe is the best way to protect public lands from industrial development. However, when you consider that we have only 2.7% of the lower 48 states in designated wilderness, while at the same time there are calls from many ecologists to […]
Continue Reading →In a March 26th Times News article, Karen Launchbaugh, a University of Idaho range professor, propagandized misleading ideas about livestock grazing. Like nearly all range professor, Ms. Launchbaugh, sees her job as promoting livestock grazing. I know because I studied range management both as an undergraduate and in grad school, so familiar with the emphasis […]
Continue Reading →Why Collaboration Won’t Protect our Public Lands By Rick Meis, Halfway, OR
Collaboration is a process of playing two sides off against each other in order to create enough guilt in one or all the parties that a compromise is reached. The primary problem is that it is specifically NOT based on science […]
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Most of environmental/conservation groups in the West are participants in various public land collaboratives. The majority are forest-oriented like the Northwest Forestry Collaborative https://www.conservationnw.org/our-work/wildlands/forest-collaboration/ or the Deschutes Forest Collaborative in Oregon http://deschutescollaborativeforest.org/ or the Southwest Crown Collaborative in Montana https://www.swcrown.org/. Though there are others like the Wyoming Public Lands Initiative https://wcca.wygisc.org/wpli/homepage/index.html which focuses primarily […]
Continue Reading →Oregon Public Radio had a story about the Deschutes River and its water flow problems. The Deschutes River which historically had one of the most constant flows of any river in the United States due to the abundance of springs that form its headwaters. The annual difference in high and low flows was about […]
Continue Reading →The 4th Annual Speak for Wolves will take place on July 27-29, 2017 in the Historic Union Pacific Dining Lodge in West Yellowstone, Montana. This annual wildlife advocacy conference in the heart of Yellowstone is a family-friendly event featuring guest speakers, live music, food, poetry, book readings, panel discussions and a field trip. […]
Continue Reading →National Forests across the West are facing dire threats from politicians, the timber industry and the Forest Service. The public is currently being misled into thinking that our forests are “unhealthy”, and that they need to be “restored” due to “beetle infestations” and “insect and disease.” All of this is euphemism to drastically ramp up […]
Continue Reading →The announcement by Senator John Tester that he would be introducing legislation to protect approximately 80,000 acres in the Blackfoot Clearwater area adjacent to the Bob Marshall Wilderness is to be commended. I have personally hiked all the areas included in this legislation and can attest to its important to the ecological integrity of the […]
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