Ground Truth Blog

The Forest Service will allow chainsaws to be used in two wilderness areas in Colorado this summer to clear beetle-killed trees that have fallen over trails. Critics say the move would violate the Wilderness Act, which prohibits motorized equipment in wilderness areas...

Conservationists filed a lawsuit yesterday challenging the renewal of grazing permits for two Oregon ranchers who had previously been imprisoned after being found guilty of setting fire to public lands. Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven, were convicted of arson in...

Nearly three dozen former Forest Service employees have signed a letter urging the Trump administration to back away from plans for a major open-pit mine next to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northeastern Minnesota. Twin Metals, a subsidiary of the Chilean firm...

The Bureau of Land Management’s Washington, D.C. headquarters will move west, a top Department of the Interior official told a congressional subcommittee this week, drawing criticism from Democrats on the panel. Scott Cameron, the department’s principal deputy...

The Trump administration last week released plans to open more than 1 million acres in California to fracking, which would end a five-year moratorium on leasing public land in the state for oil and gas development. On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management released a...

A half dozen officials in President Trump’s Department of the Interior are under investigation for possible ethics violations, according to a Washington Post article published this week. All are accused of engaging with former employers or clients in their official...

A rare salamander that occupies a unique niche in the Pacific Northwest will likely have its day in court to decide whether it merits protection under the Endangered Species Act. The Siskiyou Mountains salamander depends on damp, deep-forest talus slopes. It survives...

David Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for the oil and gas industry who has drawn intense criticism for alleged conflicts of interest during his stint as a top official in the Trump administration’s Department of the Interior, was confirmed as permanent Secretary of the...

A conservation group is suing the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management for approving a Canadian company’s request to explore for gold and other minerals just outside the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument in Washington’s Cascade Mountains. In...

The owners of a small Utah ski area have apparently withdrawn a request for a Forest Service permit that would clear the way for a major expansion into a roadless area of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Last year, Mountain Capital Partners, owners of the...