Ground Truth
‘Conservation Value of National Forest Roadless Areas’
In 2001, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule prohibited road construction and timber harvesting on more than 90,000 square miles of inventoried roadless areas (IRAs) in National Forests. Since these areas are not protected by legislation, 40 percent of these lands are...
Trump’s Forest Service Legacy
Donald J. Trump’s environmental legacy will be remembered as one of the most destructive in the nation’s history. While he and his enablers unleashed a preponderance of their environmental attacks through the Bureau of Land Management and the Environmental Protection...
Vilsack Confirmed to Head Ag Department
While President Joe Biden’s picks to head the Department of Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency will make history if confirmed, his nomination of Tom Vilsack to lead the Department of Agriculture is considered politically safe, as reflected in the 92-7...
Trump Administration Redefines ‘Habitat’
In December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, at the direction of Trump appointees, finalized a rule to limit the government’s ability to protect crucial ecosystems by redefining “habitat” as it relates to the designation of areas critical to the survival of...
FSEEE leadership criticizes Democrats for Oak Flat capitulation
As reported by The Arizona Republic, FSEEE Executive Director Andy Stahl criticized the Democratic Party for putting its political gain ahead of Native American religious objections to a proposed massive copper mine on the Tonto National Forest. The proposed mine...
Dirty politics for dirty oil
A proposed railway would unlock some of the dirtiest petroleum reserves in the U.S. by transporting heavy crude oil across National Forest lands. The opportunity to submit comments opposing this Ill-conceived project has been extended until Feb. 12. The Uinta Basin in...
Senator Introduces Forest Restoration Jobs Bill
In a move to “create and sustain jobs in the outdoors” through “forest and watershed restoration and resilience,” Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) introduced the Outdoor Restoration Force Act in the waning days of the 116th Congress. “For years, Congress has failed to...
Fish and Wildlife Service proposes protections for whitebark pine, a keystone species
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service News Release New proposed conservation protections for the whitebark pine, an emblem of the American West, would aim to bolster new and ongoing conservation actions for the species’ recovery so these unique trees, and the many plants and...
Trump officials rush to auction off rights to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before Biden can block it
By Juliet Eilperin — The Trump administration is asking oil and gas firms to pick spots where they want to drill in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as it races to open the pristine wilderness to development and lock in drilling rights before President-elect...
Eleven Alaska Native tribes offer new way forward on managing the Tongass
By Anna V. Smith — In the early fall of 2018, Marina Anderson sped down the rough road connecting one side of Alaska’s Prince of Wales Island to the other. She had only a few hours to get to a public meeting over the potential opening of the Tongass National Forest,...
Trump Administration Moves To Expand Development In Alaska’s Tongass National Forest
By Laurel Wamsley and Scott Neuman — The Trump administration has cleared the way to open the country's largest national forest to more development and logging. In a revised environmental impact study made public on Friday, the Department of Agriculture recommends...
Northern spotted owls vs. timber
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposes eliminating about 205,000 acres in Oregon from the northern spotted owl critical habitat designation. The reduction would apply to Bureau of Land Management lands, where officials have said that eliminating “unnecessary...
‘Timber Wars’ podcast goes live
"Timber Wars," a podcast from Oregon Public Broadcasting, is now available online. The new podcast tells the story of how a small group of activists and scientists turned the fight over old-growth trees and the northern spotted owl into one of the biggest...
Opinion: Look to wildfires history to better prepare for next one
By Guest Columnist Tom Spies in The Oregonian — Spies is an emeritus scientist with the USDA Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station. He lives in Corvallis. The devastating wildfires in western Oregon have caused tragic losses of life, homes and forests....
‘Nothing left in the bucket’: Wildfire resources run thin
By James Anderson and Matthew Brown — Justin Silvera came off the fire lines in Northern California after a grueling 36 straight days battling wildfires and evacuating residents ahead of the flames. Before that, he and his crew had worked for 20 days, followed by a...
The Water Tap: Waging the war against wildfire with water
By Joan Meiners in The Spectrum — If you’ve spent any time in the west this summer, you’ve seen the skies fill with smoke from wildfires, prompting thousands of firefighters to be called to the front lines to fight the flames. One of the tools in their arsenal is...
All California National Forests closed due to fire risk
By Mary Forgione, Christopher Reynolds — With California menaced by fires and shrouded in smoke, state and federal officials have now closed 30 state parks, Highway 1 south of Big Sur and all of the state’s national forests. State parks officials posted most recent...
Stewardship pact gives Wyoming more say on national forests
By Angus M. Thuermer Jr. — Gov. Mark Gordon signed an agreement Aug. 25 with the U.S. Department of Agriculture that gives the state more say in “active management” of national forests in Wyoming including logging, firefighting and invasive weed control. Critics...
Forest Service Authorizes One of Largest Timber Sales in Wyoming History
“The Forest Service’s decision today authorizes one of the largest timber sales in Wyoming’s history by allowing timber cutting and other actions on up to 288,000 acres of the Medicine Bow National Forest over the next 15 years,” said Adam Rissien, ReWilding Advocate...
One Trillion Trees
In February 2019, ecologist Thomas Crowther declared that planting 1.2 trillion trees would cancel out the last 10 years of carbon dioxide emissions and help mitigate climate change. Crowther based his statement on the results of a study produced at the Swiss research...
Retardant use spikes as crews fight blazes — and COVID-19
By Marc Heller — This wildfire season could be a banner year for chemical fire retardants. The COVID-19 pandemic is part of the reason. With the Forest Service under pressure to stop wildfires before they become big enough to require big fire crews on the ground,...