Currently viewing the category: "Advocacy"

Response to Misguided Guardian Yellowstone Commentary

On March 1, 2022 By

Yellowstone was established in 1872 primarily to protect the unique geological thermal features of the park. Photo George Wuerthner  I see almost weekly repetitions of the myths or revisionist history about Yellowstone and critiquing conservation efforts in general, primarily coming from Anthropocene boosters which now include many in leftish politics. In the long run, I […]

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Mythologizing the Practice of Burning by Native Americans

On February 25, 2022 By

Did Native American use of fire make it so that wild country never really existed?

When reporting about wildfire, current stories in the media often claim that in prehistory, fire was deliberately set by tribal groups so often that big or severe wildfires hardly existed. So, if that practice is restored today, […]

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Judge stops the BLM from increasing grazing in Idaho’s wild Owyhee country

On January 19, 2022 By

A BLM (U.S. Bureau of Land Management) decision to allow livestock grazing to grow up to three times in the Owyhee Country of southwest Idaho has been blocked for now by a Dept. of Interior judge. Dickshooter Cattle Company, owned by J.R. Simplot an Idaho-based agricultural conglomerate, asked to increase cattle grazing by up to […]

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Bridger Teton NF Capitulation to Ranchers on Upper Green River Allotment

On November 28, 2021 By

 

The Elk Ridge Complex grazing allotments were closed to livestock grazing in 2015. Now the BTNF wants to open them to cattle grazing. Photo George Wuerthner 

The Bridger Teton National Forest (BTNF) has recently issued an Environmental Assessment to restock four vacant grazing allotments in the Upper Green River drainage north […]

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The Real Cost of a Hamburger

On November 19, 2021 By

The cost of a hamburger does not reflect the cost of this cowbombed land in Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. Photo George Wuerthner 

Do you know what a Big Mac costs? If you say $4.50 or whatever the current price posted at the McDonald’s restaurant may be, you are vastly under-estimating the […]

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Audubon Society Promotes Livestock Propaganda

On November 16, 2021 By

Cattle grazing and production is one of the most destructive of human activities, if a full accounting of all the costs were considered. Photo George Wuerthner

I recently received a video titled Audubon Conservation Ranching: Hooves on the Ground, Wings in the Air from the Audubon Society. The video promotes beef […]

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Protecting the Greater Gila Ecosystem

On November 15, 2021 By

 

The Mogollon Mountains of the Gila Wilderness, New Mexico is the heart of the Greater Gila Ecosystem. Photo George Wuerthner

 

I have spent most of my adult life living within, exploring, learning about, and trying to protect the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. It is one of the premier wildlands in the […]

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Of Indigenous Peoples, Environmentalism, and Atonement

On September 27, 2021 By

By Erik Molvar and Marsha Small

As America struggles with its history of systemic racism, the environmental movement faces questions of its own over the extent to which policies that were racist, genocidal, or entailed ethnic cleansing played a role in early American conservation. Much of the western United States is federal public land, but […]

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Park Service Sells Out Point Reyes National Seashore to the Livestock Industry

On September 25, 2021 By

Thirteen ranchers won a sweeping victory this week, defeating the interests of three million annual visitors to Point Reyes National Seashore, by securing a plan amendment that extends their commercial livestock operations on Park lands for at least 20 years. The plan amendment – the first epic public lands fail by the nascent Biden administration […]

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“America’s largest wind farm:” An environmental disaster?

On September 15, 2021 By

Recent news stories focus on how a conservation easement on a large ranch in northwest Colorado is blocking a major new transmission line, and therefore stalling the enormous Chokecherry-Sierra Madre wind farm in southcentral Wyoming. While these articles make some valid points about the need for renewable energy, they gloss over the reality that […]

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Quote

‎"At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour."

~ Edward Abbey