Bureau of Land Management
Any inventory reveals that most of the nation’s mature and old-growth forests have fallen to the saw. Not only must all that remains remain, but degraded forests should also be allowed to become mature and old-growth forests once again.
Read MoreThe nation’s largest land manager is proposing a new “conservation” rule that might result in improved land management but more likely will serve as a shield for the agency to continue to degrade public lands at the expense of this and future generations.
Read MoreUnderstanding the history of public lands is useful if one is to be the best advocate for the conservation of public lands.
Read MoreWhile some states have more forested BLM land than does Oregon, in terms of biomass (think lots of big trees) Oregon’s BLM lands are likely more carbon-rich than all of the others combined.
Read Morethird try may be the charm in Senator Wyden’s long effort to enact public lands legislation to conserve wildlands in the Owyhee and lower Malheur Basins in Oregon.
Read MoreFor President Biden to ensure that 30 percent of the nation’s lands and waters are conserved by 2030, as he promised, the pace and scale of protections needs to increase dramatically.
Read MorePresident Biden is poised to enter the pantheon of forest-protecting American presidents.
Read MoreTop Line: Oregon’s senior senator is poised to leave a legacy of national recreation areas. Just how many and how good that legacy will be is up to him.
Read MoreA fee based on the social cost of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide should be imposed on fossil-fuel mining leases on federal public lands.
Read MoreLegislation has been introduced to conserve and restore one of the most colorful natural landscapes in Oregon for the benefit of this and future generations.
Read MoreTwo national monuments in Utah have been restored, but it isn’t over.
Read MoreDomestic livestock grazing could end on the federal public lands (with great benefit to federal taxpayers and incalculable benefits to nature) with no affect on the nation’s beef, lamb, and wool supply.
Read MoreFigure 1. Graffiti by me. I’m not going there yet but may have to. Source: Forest Stewardship Council-US.
So far, I have happily recommended FSC-certified tree flesh to those who have asked (and commended to those who haven’t). However, if any federal forest lands are certified by the FSC, I will no longer be able to recommend FSC-certified wood as I cannot be assured that the FSC label means the wood product didn’t come from the logging of older (mature and old-growth) forests on federal public forest lands.
Read MoreFigure 1. Some red cliffs in the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area. Source: Bureau of Land Management.
As the Trump administration was slithering out the door in mid-January, it issued decisions that would put a new 4.5-mile-long four-lane divided highway through both the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area and a particular stronghold for the imperiled Mojave desert tortoise.
Read MoreNearly 4,700 miles of Oregon’s free-flowing streams will be added to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System if legislation introduced this past Wednesday by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) becomes law.
Read MoreThe federal government, through the Land and Water Conservation Fund, should buy a significant portion of state trust lands that have high conservation value. The Oregon Legislative Assembly should use the state’s bonding authority to issue bonds to buy the state trust lands out of their bondage in the Common School Fund.
Read MoreI am bearish on the prospect of establishing any new national parks in Oregon, save perhaps one that would be a hell of a long shot. I am semi-bullish on the possibility of modest additions to Oregon’s only national park. But I am bullish on the chances of designating several new National Park System units in Oregon.
Read MoreThere may (or may not) soon be an existential threat to over two million acres of federal public forestlands in western Oregon administered (for now, at least) by the Bureau of Land Management. Northwest Forest War III may be in the offing, and such would be a good thing.
Read MoreMalheur is the French word for adversity, misfortune, and/or tragedy. It is also, among other things, a name for a county in Oregon, a national forest, a national wildlife refuge, and a river. Senator Ron Wyden’s proposed Malheur Community Empowerment for the Owyhee Act is indeed a misfortune and a tragedy.
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