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Public lands belong to all of us, and protecting them requires collaboration, strategy, and action. That’s why we want to share an important event happening May 28-30, 2025 The Healthy Public Lands Conference is a gathering of advocates, experts, and community members working to address the challenges facing our public lands. From overgrazing and habitat…
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Senators Curtis, Hickenlooper, Padilla, and Sheehy introduced Senate 1462 Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA) legislation. Similar legislation has already passed the House of Representatives. FOFA is a solution looking for a problem. Unfortunately, our forests do not have problems; even if they did, FOFA would not fix them. The idea that logging and prescribed burns…
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Top Line: In these dark times for nature, if not also the republic, it is all the more important not only to oppose but also to propose. I have either been part of or witnessed a multitude of gatherings of a few people uniting and proposing something that—at the time—was entirely out of reach, out of…
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From the good folks at WyoFile by Angus M. Thuermer Jr. As the Department of the Interior develops a plan to “restore American prosperity” by exploiting Western natural resources, a Wyoming attorney who has steeled rural communities against federal policies is atop the hierarchy that will marshal the effort. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum…
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In March, President Trump declared a national emergency by Executive Order to speed up the logging of our national forests. The order affects more than 112 million acres, larger than the entire state of California. It would remove or nullify most environmental safeguards on our national forests. Trump’s order exempts objections to timber sales by…
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In a recent article on the plight of the Pinyon Jay, I mentioned a major new 550,000 acre Cedar City BLM Pinyon-Juniper deforestation proposal, the Indian Peak Watershed Restoration Plan, on the Utah-Nevada border. BLM’s scoping letter described: “To better understand current ecological conditions, forecast future trends, and develop conservation strategies, BLM partnered with the…
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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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This is the second in a series of two Public Lands Blog posts on big old trees. Part 1 exploded the myth that big old trees slow in their rate of growth as they age and also introduced the concept of tree-related microhabitats. Part 2 examines a new scientific paper on the state of medium-sized and large…
