October 2018
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By Laura Cunningham, California Director, Western Watersheds Project A controversy has irrupted in a volcanic caldera used for livestock grazing in the scenic Eastern Sierra region of California. Ditch irrigation is a common use of wet meadows along the eastern front of the Sierra Nevada, where snowmelt streams pour into basins and connect to rivers…
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By Erik Molvar Credit: Photo by Steve Stevens courtesy Flickr Creative Commons A federal court has ruled that a Wyoming statutes designed to suppress the collection of “resource data” by nonprofit environmental groups and other members of the public violates constitutional free speech rights, and consequently the court struck down the two state laws. sources…
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Despite Wyoming Game and Fish’s official conclusion to the investigation into Mark Uptain’s death, the only takeaway from which is that they killed the “right” bears, I still find myself troubled by reporter Mike Koshmrl’s account of the incident. Between his innuendo and comments made by Wyoming Game and Fish’s large carnivore chief, Dan Thompson,…
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Editor’s note: many articles were written about this back in 2015-16. It was one of the most serious attempts in Utah, Idaho or Wyoming commonly know as “ag-gag bills,” to make it very hard for public interest groups to collect data about possible illegal practices against consumers and the environment in the agricultural sector, especially…
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In Medieval society, if someone were sick, the common solution was to bleed the patient to rid the body of “bad” blood. If the patient recovered, then obviously bleeding was the cure. If the patient died, it was because not enough of the “bad” blood had been removed. In many ways, our approach to wildfire…
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The highest reaches of the Pryor Mountains are covered with alpine meadows. Photo George Wuerthner Billings, Montana has seen a steady increase in population and economic diversity. In all likelihood, Billings will continue to grow. At a modest average growth of 1.5 percent a year, Billing’s population will increase by more than 40,000 people in…
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They are attempting an incredible public land grab By Erik Molvar Point Reyes is about as far west as you can go in the lower 48 states. Here, where coastal prairies meet the sea, Congress established a National Seashore “to save and preserve, for the purposes of public recreation, benefit, and inspiration.” That 1962 legislation…
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“The grazing of livestock, where established prior to the effective date of this Act, shall be permitted to continue subject to such reasonable regulations as are deemed necessary by the Secretary of Agriculture.” The Wilderness Act of 1964, Section 4(d)(4)(2) Livestock grazing occurs on some 260 million acres of federal lands, including lands administered by the Forest…
