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 […]
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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 →The New Yorker recently published an article titled Trailblazing plan to fight California Wildfires https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/26/a-trailblazing-plan-to-fight-california-wildfires that contain misinformation. I’ve had many people ask me what I thought of the piece. Given the influential nature of the New Yorker itself, I decided to respond here.
The writing is good. There is much that is accurate about […]
Continue Reading →The National Park Service has released a plan for Pt. Reyes National Seashore this shocks and angers me, and here is an alert/story by the group, “Restore Pt. Reyes National Seashore.” . . . Ralph Maughan
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The National Park Service (NPS) has released its Draft […]
Continue Reading →In June the BLM released a draft EIS Programmatic EIS for Fuel Breaks in the Great Basin. The proposal would authorize the creation of 11,000 miles of fuel breaks primarily in sagebrush ecosystems across parts of Nevada, California, Utah, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-office/projects/nepa/71149/175534/213852/FuelBreaksDraftPEIS_Bulletin.pdf
This plan is a government boondoggle that will cost […]
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Sometimes a “win” is the fight you don’t have to have. Instead of victories proclaimed from the steps of the courthouse, some wins are the quiet kind which involve not having to go back to court at all.
Western Watersheds Project and our allies recently had such a win, in a […]
Continue Reading →Point Reyes National Seashore was established in the 1960s by the purchase of private ranches. The public paid fair market value for these lands. Livestock operations were to be removed over a 25-grace period. But time and again the ranchers refused to leave OUR property.
Surprisingly Representative Jared Huffman, ordinarily good on environmental issues, has […]
Continue Reading →Across the West, livestock grazing is one of the most destructive land uses. Some 250 million acres of public lands are grazed by domestic livestock including those administered by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, as well as national wildlife refuges and even some national park units.
This use is not benign. […]
Continue Reading →The recent wildfires in California make me feel even more worried about the fate of anyone whose homes are built in the woods. California has experienced the 9 of the largest fires in its history in the past two decades, but large fires have occurred in many other western states during the same period.
What […]
Continue Reading →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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