The ecological impacts of livestock production is significant and there is seldom a full accounting of these costs. Photo George Wuerthner
Livestock is responsible for more ecological damage to the western landscape than any other human activity. However, few accounting of these impacts is ever compiled. One source is my book Continue Reading →
No chance of fires here–remove all vegetation and your problem with wildfire is solved. Photo George Wuerthner
A recent article in the Capitol Press titled: “New game plan: How targeted grazing on public lands is changing” describes how targeted grazing can fix any problems on public lands. Not unlike how […]
Continue Reading →Biocrusts are important in arid ecosystems. Photo George Wuerthner
Biological soil crusts, known as biocrusts, are lichens, algae, mosses, fungi, and cyanobacteria common on the soil surface.[i]They are critical to arid ecosystems, where they help to reduce soil erosion and maintain stability. They assist in water retention and act like […]
Continue Reading →Senators Steve Daines of Montana and Diane Feinstein of California have once again introduced legislation, the “Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020” that is based upon misguided assumptions that fuel reductions will preclude the large blazes occurring as the West.
Never mind that climate change is the driving force in all these fires […]
Continue Reading →Juniper removal below Abert Rim, Oregon Photo by George Wuerthner
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is now taking comments on a massive vegetation project for the Great Basin and adjacent areas of the Colorado Plateau. The PEIS for Fuels Reduction and Rangeland Restoration in the Great Basin (the Fuels Reduction and […]
Continue Reading →
Caption: Above Cheatgrass invades fuel break cleared along road in Oregon. Bottom: Fuel break created in Idaho’s Snake River Plain. Photos by George Wuerthner
The Department of Interior released a final decision to created 11,000 miles of linear cheatgrass corridors, which they are euphemistically calling “fuel breaks.” Think […]
Continue Reading →
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is rewriting its grazing regulations to allow more “flexibility” into range management. The agency even proposes increases in grazing seasons and numbers. All of this, of course, is the result of the pressure from the fox (Trump administration) guarding the hen house.
I think most career […]
Continue Reading →
Stream dried up for irrigation of livestock forage. Photo by George Wuerthner
Recently the Greater Yellowstone Coalition (GYC) announced they were working to reduce the wildlife impacts of fences. Not by removing the fences, but by changing the wire on them to facilitate easier wildlife passage. Fences, as GYC, noted […]
Continue Reading →Recently Nevada Bureau of Land Management (BLM) State Director Jon Raby suggested that the agency will try “targeted grazing” among other methods to reduce wildfires in the sagebrush ecosystem. Raby says the BLM is implementing this action “because of the threat of annual invasive grasses, specifically cheatgrass, play in altering fire regime conditions that intensify […]
Continue Reading →This past winter, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) began preparing two Environmental Impact Statements to review the environmental consequences of creating a region-wide series of “fuel breaks” that will add thousands of miles of new linear pathways across the Great Basin portion of Nevada, Idaho, Oregon and Utah.
The goal of fuel breaks […]
Continue Reading →Subscribe to Blog via Email
Recent Posts
- Western Rewilding Network Proposal August 9, 2022
- Holiday Farm Fire And Industrial Logging August 8, 2022
- Another Misleading New York Times Fire Article August 4, 2022
- San Pedro Grazing Challenged August 3, 2022
- M-44 Ban On Public Lands Near Enactment August 1, 2022
Recent Comments
- Beeline on Western Rewilding Network Proposal
- Ed Loosli on A Greater Yellowstone National Park Proposal
- Hiker on Western Rewilding Network Proposal
- Mark L on Western Rewilding Network Proposal
- rastadoggie on Holiday Farm Fire And Industrial Logging
- Rosemary Lowe on Western Rewilding Network Proposal
- Ida Lupine on Western Rewilding Network Proposal
- Ida Lupine on Western Rewilding Network Proposal
- Pat on Western Rewilding Network Proposal
- Laurinda Reinhart on Western Rewilding Network Proposal
- Glenn on Western Rewilding Network Proposal
- Sam on Holiday Farm Fire And Industrial Logging
- Jeff Lonn on Holiday Farm Fire And Industrial Logging
- Mark L on Another Misleading New York Times Fire Article
- Ida Lupine on M-44 Ban On Public Lands Near Enactment