Ground Truth Blog
asSAuLTing a Unique Forest on the Toiyabe
Reaching 11,918 feet above sea level, Mt. Charleston is the highest peak in the Spring Mountains, a forested oasis on the Toiyabe National Forest west of Las Vegas. Because of its high elevation and drastically different ecosystem than the surrounding Mojave Desert,...
Encourage Elected Officials to Protect Vital Salmon Strongholds
Please call and urge your senators and representatives to support Senate Bill 440, the Oregon Recreation Enhancement Act, and Senate Bill 162, the Smith River National Recreation Area Expansion Act. Together, these bills will protect vital salmon strongholds and...
Protecting Salmon Strongholds in the Klamath Mountains
by Grant Werschkull The Smith River watershed in northern California and southern Oregon is a land of superlatives. Ancient redwood forests stand along the lower river as it flows through Redwood National and State parks. The Smith is the only major undammed river in...
The Northwest Forest Plan Amendment
The Northwest Forest Plan — the world’s largest ecosystem management plan — was adopted in 1994 after President Bill Clinton essentially imposed the Plan on the Forest Service and other reluctant federal agencies. Of the Washington, Oregon, and California lands...
Don’t Offer up our National Forests for Industrial Carbon Waste Dumping
by Jim Furnish In my 34-year career at the U.S. Forest Service, the agency worked to support American industry while also maintaining public lands and the renewable resources they foster. That’s why I am shocked to learn that the agency plans to make a fundamental...
You’re not the Boss in Wilderness
by John Clayton, Writers on the Range When my friends and I encountered the fresh grizzly bear scat, we were deep in Wyoming’s Teton Wilderness, 20 miles from a trailhead. I’d seen grizzlies before—from the car. But this experience was on a whole other level. I felt...
Old-Growth Forests
Can the Forest Service Kick its 100-year Addiction to Logging? President Biden was widely praised for Executive Order 14072, which ordered the first-ever national inventory of old-growth and mature forests on federal lands. Issued April 22, 2022 (Earth Day), the order...
Researchers Sequence Whitebark Pine Genome
Among efforts to stave off the rapid decline of whitebark pine trees, researchers have recently sequenced the genome of this keystone species and are publishing their findings. Conifer genomes can be challenging to sequence as they are 3-10 times larger than the human...
2023 Brings Quietest U.S. Fire Season in Decades
The most current data show 2023 was a relatively quiet fire year. The National Interagency Fire Center reports 54,273 wildfires burned 2,627,112 acres through Dec. 18. While the number of fires was in line with the 10-year average, the number of acres burned was the...
Mount Hood National Forest
The Mount Hood National Forest encompasses 1.1 million acres, with about a third of those acres designated as wilderness within eight wilderness areas. The Forest has a rich history and offers year-round recreation opportunities. Its watersheds provide drinking water...
Urge Your Senators to Pass the Wild Olympics Bill
The Wild Olympics Wilderness and Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (Senate Bill 1254) achieved an important milestone when it cleared the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Committee Dec. 14. Sen. Patty Murray (D, Wash.) first introduced the bill in 2012 and...
How Homes Can Survive Wildfire
While there’s no historical evidence that Nero “fiddled while Rome burned,” there’s been plenty of fiddling in our forests while homes and communities burn in the American West. Jack Cohen has not been fiddling. His decades-long research at Forest Service Fire...