The American Wildlife Conservation Partners, a coalition of over 30 hunting and outdoors organizations, recently sent a letter to key leaders of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. In light of the committee’s recent draft legislation, the groups urged the Senators to pass meaningful, bipartisan legislation to fix federal wildfire suppression funding and approve…
The U.S. House Natural Resources Committee’s ranking member, Rep. Raul M. Grijalva, D-Ariz., is holding a forum on the “growing anti-government extremism on public lands.” Grijalva says the forum will discuss the emergence of this movement and the government’s efforts to confront these dangers, and has invited the public to send comments on the issue…
Advocates for rural Oregon say the Bureau of Land Management’s final proposed Resource Management Plan for Western Oregon will cost rural jobs, threaten public services and leave forests more vulnerable to wildfire, insects and disease. In seeking to adopt a new management plan before President Obama leaves office, they say the agency ignored pleas by…
Forest access on federal lands is essential for recreation, timber management, firefighting and law enforcement. Unfortunately the federal government has continued its aggressive efforts to destroy or decommission thousands of miles of forest roads, jeopardizing forested communities and making it difficult to fight fires and restore forests back to health. This critical issue is finally…
The barred owl was first detected within the range of the northern spotted owl (NSO) in the 1970’s. Researchers started to become concerned about the impacts the barred owl would have on the NSO in the 1980’s. In 1989, the USFWS acknowledged that the expansion of the barred owl population was of “considerable concern”. The…
Every year it’s estimated the average U.S. citizen uses the equivalent of a tree 100 feet tall, and 18 inches in diameter. We use 3.5 times more wood than we did in 1970. Yet, despite our leadership in the sustainable logging and manufacturing of softwood and hardwood lumber, the United States is a net importer…
“If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them something more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.” “We must not only protect the countryside and save…
For more than 50 years, there has been a growing campaign against the beneficial use of natural resources. The campaigners have several names: preservationists, conservationists, radical environmentalists, and greens. I will use “greens,” since it is rather inclusive and short. Years ago, it may have started as a movement to preserve some outstanding scenic or…
Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Commissioner Chris Brong of Skamania County, Washington reminds readers of the challenges of funding critical services in a forested county when most of the land base is controlled by the federal government. Here’s what he had to say: In Skamania County, WA, we have only 2% County private lands,…
Fringe activists are predictably making hay over statements made by Sen. Jon Tester regarding the impact of litigation and the “analysis paralysis” driving federal forest management today. They are making the most of their “gotcha” moment; one individual went so far as to liken the Democratic senator to Adolf Hitler. To be clear not every…