Threats
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The Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon spread across 400,000 acres, burning in a mosaic pattern of burned, lightly burned and unburned areas. Photo George Wuerthner As another summer of large fires spread across the West including the Dixie Fire in northern California and the Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon, advocates of “active forest management” have…
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The North Bridger Timber Sale is removing old growth forests to “promote” forest health. Photo George Wuerthner After reading the article in the October 7th Bozeman Daily Chronicle titled “Timber Treatment” about the North Bridger logging project on the Custer Gallatin National Forest of Montana one gets the idea that until the Forest Service and…
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Clearcut in the Ten Mile Drainage near Helena, Montana. Photo George Wuerthner In a recent editorial in the Helena IR, an employee of RY Timber presented misleading commentary in his essay “Forest Service is Right to Restore Forest Health” that deserves a response. First, keep in mind that the timber industry and forestry profession (both…
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Prescribed burning is often seen as a way to reduce to the large climate-driven blazes now occurring across the West, however, there are many problems that proponents fail to acknowledge. Photo George Wuerthner It seems everyone is grasping for some “solution” to big fires. And one of the common assertions is that more prescribed burning…
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Thirteen ranchers won a sweeping victory this week, defeating the interests of three million annual visitors to Point Reyes National Seashore, by securing a plan amendment that extends their commercial livestock operations on Park lands for at least 20 years. The plan amendment – the first epic public lands fail by the nascent Biden administration…
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Recent news stories focus on how a conservation easement on a large ranch in northwest Colorado is blocking a major new transmission line, and therefore stalling the enormous Chokecherry-Sierra Madre wind farm in southcentral Wyoming. While these articles make some valid points about the need for renewable energy, they gloss over the reality that this…
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The northern end of the Bridger Range is proposed as wilderness by some organizations like the Gallatin Yellowstone Wilderness Alliance. Photo George Wuerthner I recently visited the North Bridger Timber sale (euphemistically called the North Bridger Forest Health Project) on the Custer Gallatin NF outside of Bozeman, Montana. Like so many timber sales today, the…
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By Jocelyn Leroux, Washington and Montana Director, Western Watersheds Project This year has proven deadly for many of Montana’s wildlife species. From outrageously regressive rules governing gray wolf management to opening numerous Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) to livestock operations free of charge, the priorities of Montana’s decision makers have been on full display. Wildlife…
