The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is America’s environmental charter. Signed into law by Richard Nixon, it has three central tenets. First, federal agencies must look before they leap and examine the full environmental impacts of most major actions that receive federal funding, including the direct, indirect, and cumulative effects those actions will have. Second, […]
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Relict “historic” cottonwood along Missouri River. Photo by George Wuerthner
One hundred forty-nine miles of the Missouri River in Montana is a designated Wild and Scenic River. It is also within the 375,000 acres Missouri River Breaks National Monument, which includes the Lewis and Clark and Nez Perce National Historic Trails. […]
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Ed. note: An earlier draft version of this post was inadvertently posted before final review. Please replace all prior copies with this final draft.
Last summer, in a remote corner of the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, in the one spot with just a little cell reception, I sat in my car listening by phone to […]
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Western Watersheds Project, Alliance for the Rockies, and the Yellowstone to Uintas Connection are seeking to block the killing of up to 72 grizzly bears over the next 10 years on national forest land in the headwaters of the Green River. With the Yellowstone grizzly listed as a ‘threatened species’ under […]
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The Wilderness Society just teamed up with Yale University to release a report promoting renewable energy development on public lands, and like the recent Michael Moore documentary Planet of the Humans, it’s stirring up controversy. The report suggests we should ramp up utility-scale renewable production on federal public lands, with a particular focus […]
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In an act of appalling hubris, the oil and gas industry is asking the federal government to loosen enforcement of federal regulations on public lands in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Kathleen Sgamma of the Western Energy Alliance, one of the petroleum industry’s primary lobbying groups, was quoted in EnergyWire as seeking one-year extensions […]
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On March 9, a colleague from Endangered Species Coalition and I published this op-ed in the Albuquerque Journal, identifying Arizona and New Mexico as major stumbling blocks to wolf recovery, “[B]ecause both are allowing the Fish and Wildlife Service only to conduct cross-fostering in their states.” We called out the urgency with which […]
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(Written by Talasi Brooks)
I recently testified before the Idaho Fish and Game Commission opposing proposals to increase wolf-killing and allow glorified wolf baiting in Idaho. I pointed out that since the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) does not have a wolf population estimate based on radio collar data and aerial surveys, increasing […]
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Western Watersheds Project sued the Arizona Bureau of Land Management today for bringing a long-dead grazing permit back to life and handing it off to a new permittee without any public process. WWP’s press release with a link to the complaint is online here.
After nearly thirty years of no authorized grazing (but Continue Reading →
Collaboration on environmental issues is pushed by big funders and by consulting groups, but so far has borne only bitter fruit for conservationists. Favored by shrewd industrial interests who recognize collaboration as a means to greenwash environmentally harmful activities, this practice undermines the enforcement of environmental laws and regulations. Commercial interests often engage in […]
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