Ground Truth

Today marks the beginning of a new era for our public lands. There are many questions yet to be answered: Who will become the chief of the Forest Service? What strategies will the new administration pursue for our public lands? How far will Congress go to weaken our...

Sonny Perdue, a former Georgia governor who famously led a prayer vigil for rain outside the state Capitol during a drought, is president-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service. Trump announced his choice...

On September 17, 2016, six fires sparked along a remote road on the Modoc National Forest in California—the presumed work of an arsonist. As is the case with 98 percent of wildfires, four of the fires were contained within just a few hours, each burning less than half...

January 6, 2017 — A project to remove lead from an abandoned shooting range on Arizona’s Prescott National Forest should be completed by the end of the month, Forest Service officials say. But the cost of the cleanup, covered by taxpayers, has generated criticism from...

December 29, 2016 — In a rebuke to the Bundy family and its supporters, President Obama yesterday designated 300,000 acres in southern Nevada as a national monument. Obama also protected 1.35 million acres of federal land in southeastern Utah by creating the Bears...

December 21, 2016 — The long, slow process of revising the landmark Northwest Forest Plan took a step forward this month with the release of a draft “science synthesis” that examines current conditions on 24 million acres of public land. A team of 45 scientists...

Despite wide public opposition, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management this week opened sections of Ohio’s Wayne National Forest to potential oil and gas drilling. The agency offered 17 parcels on the national forest for private companies to lease for the purpose of...

December 9, 2016 — The main contractor for the largest forest restoration project ever attempted on national forests will pay a former partner more than $1.2 million to settle a lawsuit alleging fraud and breach of contract. Good Earth Power holds a contract with the...

November 22, 2016 — Forest Service officials this week gave a thumbs up to a controversial proposal to expand Colorado’s Arapahoe Basin ski area, including adding amenities designed to attract more summertime visitors. The expansion will add about 338 acres to the...

November 18, 2016 — A wide, wild swath of land in Montana sacred to the Blackfeet Nation gained protection from oil and gas drilling this week when Department of Interior officials canceled 15 energy exploration leases. The Badger-Two Medicine area spans 132,000 acres...

November 14, 2016 — During the long, bruising presidential campaign, relatively little was said about the management of public lands. In the days since the election, conservationists have expressed widespread dismay and fear that a Donald Trump administration will...

November 7, 2016 — When General George Armstrong Custer crossed the Black Hills in the summer of 1874, he noticed large swaths of dead forests. Contemporary ecologists believe mountain pine beetles did the damage. For more than a century, foresters have marked the ebb...

Last September, Forest Service officials approved a logging project that carved a 30-mile-long, 300-foot-wide swath through Washington’s North Cascade Mountains, purportedly to protect two small communities from a distant wildfire that would soon go out on its own. In...