Currently viewing the category: "Invasive Species"

Cattle congregating in the riparian area, Chama, New Mexico. Photo George Wuerthner

SOIL CARBON AND LIVESTOCK

Rangelands make up a large proportion of the Earth’s surface, and the soils hold a significant amount of sequestered carbon (Schuman,G.E et al.  2001). Rangelands are estimated to contain more than one-third of the world’s above […]

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The dawn breaks each morning on a hundred different mountain ranges in the Great Basin, with few human eyes to see it. Many of these mountain chains will be unfamiliar to most – the Toquimas, the Wah Wahs, the Goshutes, the Sheeprocks, the Fox Range – but the one thing they all have in common […]

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A week ago, eight prominent scientists sent a letter to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) declaring that the agency’s proposed Tri-State Fuel Break (TSFB) is flawed and will endanger sagebrush ecosystems.

The Final Environmental Impact Statement (“FEIS”) and other project documents are available on the agency’s website at https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/42341/510.

To quote the scientists: […]

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If cattle graze to bare soil, it is true that fires are slowed under such conditions, but the ecological impacts are enormous. Photo George Wuerthner 

When I worked for the BLM, us “ologists” (hydrologist, ecologists, biologists, archaeologists, geologists, and botanists) used to refer to Range Conservationists as Range “Cons” because they conned […]

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Most land trusts and many conservation groups frequently ignore the impacts of Agriculture and focus on urbanization and sprawl as the main threat to biodiversity and ecosystems.

A good example is the Teton Land Trust, Idaho. A recent story about their board president, John Nedrow, a farmer, talks about how he put a conservation easement […]

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The commentary by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition in the October 10th Bozeman Chronicle “Together we can tackle the fire issue” was another example of how the organization sees its role as a shill of the livestock industry.

The misinformation presented on sagebrush, juniper, and Doug fir “invasion” in southwest Montana lacks critical scientific expertise and […]

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In a recent news story, the Sacramento Bee speculated that cattle grazing might be a “secret weapon” to fight fire. The story presents the dangerously simplistic claim that cattle grazing reduces fire risk, based on an unpublished study funded by the California Cattle Council, the results of which have yet to be subjected to the […]

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Senators Steve Daines of Montana and Diane Feinstein of California have once again introduced legislation, the “Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020” that is based upon misguided assumptions that fuel reductions will preclude the large blazes occurring as the West.

Never mind that climate change is the driving force in all these fires […]

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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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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