Disgraceful Plans for Utah Monuments

Disgraceful Plans for Utah Monuments

The Trump administration has finalized management plans for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. Both plans make it easier to obtain rights of way for development. The plans also allow chaining, the practice of dragging chains between...
Updates from El Yunque

Updates from El Yunque

El Yunque National Forest encompasses much of Puerto Rico’s Sierra de Luquillo Mountains and is the only tropical rain forest in the U.S. National Forest system. Even though it is one of the smallest National Forests, its hundreds of animal and plant species make it...
Protecting America’s Wilderness Act

Protecting America’s Wilderness Act

The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2546 by a vote of 231-183, sending the bill to the Senate in mid February. The Protecting America’s Wilderness Act would designate more than 1.3 million acres as wilderness at dozens of locations in Washington, Colorado...
Forest Service Takes FSEEE’s Advice

Forest Service Takes FSEEE’s Advice

Last winter, the Forest Service proposed that people pay a fee to hike or camp in central Oregon’s undeveloped wilderness areas. The agency argued that wilderness areas are “special” places in which Congress has authorized hiking and camping fees. FSEEE pointed out...
FSEEE Weighs in on Wilderness User Fees

FSEEE Weighs in on Wilderness User Fees

Last month, the Forest Service proposed levying fees for entering three wilderness areas the agency oversees in Oregon, even for hikers and campers. FSEEE opposes the move. Here’s a letter Executive Director Andy Stahl wrote to the agency this week outlining our...
Dogs and Lizards

Dogs and Lizards

We all know this about dogs—they’re serious sniffers. Now, biologists are putting that olfactory prowess to work to help save an endangered lizard in California. Blunt-nosed leopard lizards used to be common in the San Joaquin Valley. But their populations have...
Fire Season Returns To “Old” Normal

Fire Season Returns To “Old” Normal

The latest statistics from the National Interagency Fire Center show that 2019 has seen a decrease in the total amount of wildfire activity across the United States compared to the past decade. As of yesterday, there have been 40,263 wildfires across the nation,...
Lawsuit Challenges Minnesota Mine

Lawsuit Challenges Minnesota Mine

Conservationists filed a lawsuit this week challenging a government ruling granting a water permit to a Canadian mining firm that wants to dig an open-pit copper and nickel mine in the Superior National Forest. The litigation claims the mine would threaten the...
Federal Land Critic Now in Charge of BLM

Federal Land Critic Now in Charge of BLM

A man who argues that all lands owned by the federal government should be sold is now in charge of the nation’s largest system of federal lands. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt signed an order this week naming William Perry Pendley, a former Reagan Administration...
More Goats Removed from Olympics

More Goats Removed from Olympics

Another 76 mountain goats have left the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state as wildlife managers continue their efforts to move the invasive ungulates to the North Cascade mountains. The animals were lifted by helicopter to staging areas on the peninsula, then...