For decades, powerful environmental groups have pursued a vision of our national forests that steadily removes people from the landscape. They have advocated for less road access and less active management, while supporting policies that place millions of additional acres beyond meaningful human use. Now, as the Forest Service proposes rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule,…
Darrell Kerby is a former Idaho State Senator and former mayor of Bonners Ferry, ID There’s a quiet truth in America that almost no one in our national environmental conversation wants to acknowledge: there are two kinds of environmentalists, and only one of them actually protects the environment. The first kind lives with the land.…
The Forest Service is considering an important change in how millions of acres of our national forests are managed, and your voice can help support it. The agency has proposed rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule, which restricts access and forest management across millions of acres regardless of the conditions on the ground. Twenty-five years later,…
Another difficult wildfire season is unfolding across the West, providing another reminder of the urgent need to improve conditions on America’s federal lands. More than 5.1 million acres have burned so far this year across the Northwest, California, Northern Rockies, Great Basin, Southwest and Rocky Mountain regions, with about 61 percent of those acres reported…
When a wildfire starts in our national forests, it is common sense to put out the fire while it is small. That is also what the American public expects from the agencies responsible for protecting our forests and nearby communities. Yet a recent Associated Press story described the federal government’s emphasis on quickly suppressing wildfires…
Congressman Tom Tiffany (WI-07) and Congresswoman Harriet Hageman (WY-At Large) introduced the Fixing Egregiously Expensive Suits Act, or FEES Act for short. The Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) was enacted in 1980 to help ordinary Americans challenge federal overreach. It was intended to protect veterans, Social Security recipients, small businesses, and other individuals from prohibitive legal…
By Nick Smith Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities For years, foresters, firefighters, and rural communities have argued that active forest management can reduce wildfire impacts. New research is putting numbers behind that experience. Researchers examining hundreds of wildfires across the West found that fuel treatments reduced fire spread, lowered suppression costs, and prevented billions of dollars…
Karl Brauneis is a retired U.S. Forest Service forester, former smokejumper, and longtime student of federal forest policy and history. Over a decades long career in the woods, Karl witnessed firsthand how active forest management, rapid fire response, and sustained yield forestry once shaped healthier and more resilient forests across the West. In the following…
Wildfire-driven deforestation rates in California are now among the highest in the world, according to new research highlighted by Phys.org. California’s wildfire crisis has become so severe that Governor Gavin Newsom waived portions of the California Environmental Quality Act, commonly known as CEQA, in 2025 to accelerate vegetation management projects, mirroring efforts pursued by the…
Some anti-forestry groups claim active forest management comes at the expense of outdoor recreation on public lands. Stop logging, they argue, and rural communities will transition toward more prosperous tourism-based economies. New research recently highlighted in The Conversation disputes those claims. Researchers found that severe wildfires are driving major declines in outdoor recreation across the…