Category: Wilderness/Roadless
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Should We Garden Our Forests?
A new study published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management “Significant mortality of old trees across a dry forest landscape, Oregon,” found that older larch and ponderosa pine are suffering increased death rates. The main author, James Johnston, formerly at Oregon State University Forestry School, now at the University of Oregon’s Institute for Resilient Organizations, Communities, and…
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Protect Communities Not Log The Forest
A recent article in the Daily Montanan State wildfire briefing indicates fire season ‘could be significant’ that promotes misguided information about wildfire. It starts with Montana Governor Greg Gianforte’s claim that the state firefighters have been able to keep “95% of wildfire starts to 10 acres or fewer since 2021.” What is missing from such…
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Public Lands Welfare Ranchers Again Subsidized By Taxpayers
Livestock are grazed on all federal lands, including national parks and wildlife refuges. Still, most livestock grazing occurs on lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the US Forest Service. Even specially protected landscapes that are supposed to be managed for natural conditions, like designated Wilderness areas, are grazed by domestic animals.…
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Gallatin Range Deserves Wilderness
The Gallatin Range, which runs south from Bozeman into Yellowstone National Park, is the largest unprotected roadless area in the northern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). The range contains some of the best wildlife habitat in Montana. In particular, the Buffalo Horn and Porcupine drainages are critical lands for elk migration, grizzly bears, and numerous other…
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South Cottonwood Proposed Wilderness Threatened
The South Cottonwood drainage in the northern Gallatin Range proposed wilderness lies immediately south of Bozeman, to the west of Hyalite Canyon. The Forest Service’s nearly 8,000-acre Hyalite Cottonwood Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project threatens some of the proposed wilderness. Keep in mind that one acre is approximately equal to a football field. So, imagine what…
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Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act Reintroduced
The Beartooth Mountains contain some of the most extensive alpine terrain in the Rockies. Photo by George Wuerthner The Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA) is the most comprehensive and ecologically defensible legislation currently before Congress. The Act was first introduced in 1993. NREPA was reintroduced by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Madeleine Dean, who…
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Interview About Public Lands And Indian Land Back Efforts
In this episode, George Wuerthner discusses issues arising about tribal efforts to garner more authority and control of public lands, and the efforts to transfer public lands to tribal entities. Click on the link above to listen in your browser or the PLAY button in the upper left corner below.
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The Need For More Wilderness Preservation
Big W, or designated wilderness as prescribed under the 1964 Wilderness Act, is one of the most biocentric pieces of legislation ever passed by Congress. Under the Act’s mandate, federal lands that meet the essential criteria of roadless character and “untrammeled” by human influence will be protected from resource exploitation so that natural evolutionary and…