Category: The Great Outdoors
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Gallatin Range Deserves Wilderness Designation
Buffalo Horn drainage The Gallatin Range that lies south of Bozeman, Montana is the largest unprotected wildlands in the northern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). The Gallatin Range is highly scenic with glaciated cirques, grassy meadows, and subalpine lakes. Biologically it is one of the more diverse and important areas in the entire Yellowstone ecosystem. The…
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Returning Half the Earth to Nature
By Erik Molvar, Western Watersheds Project Dr. Edward O. Wilson, one of the world’s foremost ecologists and thinkers, will be in Washington, D.C. next week for a series of presentations on migration corridors in the United States and the diversity of life across the globe. This is part of Dr. Wilson’s ‘Half-Earth’ campaign, a proposal…
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Catastrophic logging threatens national forests
National Forests across the West are facing dire threats from politicians, the timber industry and the Forest Service. The public is currently being misled into thinking that our forests are “unhealthy”, and that they need to be “restored” due to “beetle infestations” and “insect and disease.” All of this is euphemism to drastically ramp up…
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How about a new agency to administer our Wilderness?
The national wilderness preservation system would be strengthened- Taking a long trip into the backcountry during winter doesn’t appeal to some people. That’s understandable. But I enjoy it, and it’s something I try to do a few times a year. Winter backpacking is very different, and more challenging, compared to strapping on the pack during…
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Congress establishes a new Wilderness area, and in Idaho!!
Wilderness in the Boulder and White Clouds mountains after 40 years of trying! Yesterday the U.S. Senate, just like the U.S. House did earlier this summer, passed a 275,000 acre wilderness bill for the scenic Boulder and White Clouds mountains. They rise on the east side of the famous Sawtooth Valley in central Idaho. Of…
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Ag-gag and mineral-gag, exploring the great outdoors gets scary
More danger now than getting stuck, broken leg or lack of water- Many people in the West like to explore its vast open country by 4 x 4, SUV, ATV, motorbike, and on foot and bicycle. They stay away from the crowded national parks and famous recreation and scenic sites. The lure of the roads…
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Anthropocene Boosters and the Attack on Wilderness Conservation
A growing debate has serious consequences for our collective relationship to Nature. Beginning perhaps twenty years ago, a number of academics in disciplines such as history, anthropology, and geography, began to question whether there was any tangible wilderness or wild lands left on Earth. These academics, and others, have argued that humans have so completely…
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Efforts to sell or give away federal public lands is a freedom issue
Privatization or transfer to states would be a massive loss of personal freedom- In politics, it is common to hear that adoption of this or that policy would be a great loss (or gain) for freedom or liberty. Very often such policies do involve economic liberty for some group or business. Other times the policy…