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Missing the Mark–A New Wildfire Report by Headwaters Economics
The burnt-out Safeway Store in Paradise, California. Even a big parking lot with no fuel could not prevent the loss of this structure due to wind-blown embers. Photo George Wuerthner A new report...
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Senator Heinrich Will Not Reintroduce Grazing Permit Buyout Legislation
Livestock grazing negatively impacts more public lands in the West than any other industry. Photo George Wuerhner Legislation that would have given the federal government authority to close grazing...
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Community Hardening Instead of Logging the Forest
Thinning the forest is often less effective than eliminating human sources of ignition. Photo George Wuerthner The Deschutes National Forest wildfire policies are misdirected towards logging while...
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Create A Greater Yellowstone National Park
Old Faithful eruptiing, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Photo George Wuerthner I just saw the movie Wild Life about Doug and Kris Thompkins’s efforts to protect wildlands in Patagonia. Doug and...
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Media Distortions On Wildfire Ecology And Prescribed/Cultural Burning
One commonly asserted myth is that frequent burning can substantially reduce the area burned by wildfire across the landscape. Photo George Wuerthner Poorly informed journalists flood the public with...
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Tribal Burning and Fire Suppression
The media and many others, including conservation groups, suggest the cause of today’s wildfires is the result of fire suppression. They point to the cessation of Native American cultural burning as a...
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Lesson from Maui
Wildfire ravaged the community of Lahaina on the Hawaiian Island of Maui, and the death toll mounts. Are there any lessons to be learned from this tragedy? The Lahaina fire offers some insights into...
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Logging Road Impacts
Logging roads are a major negative impact on ecosystems. Photo George Wuerthner The latest attempt by the Forest Service to make timber cutting palatable is using the terms “temporary” and “closed”...
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The Social Carbon Cost of Public Land Livestock Grazing
Public land livestock grazing has a significant social cost in terms of carbon emissions contributing to climate warming. Grand Staircase-Escalante NM Utah. Photo George Wuerthner An important paper...
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The Proposed Ambler Mine and Road–Implications For The Kobuk River Ecosystem...
The word Kobuk means “Big River” in the local native language. Photo George Wuerthner I just returned from floating the Kobuk River in Alaska’s Brooks Range. The Kobuk headwaters are north of the...
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Yellowstone Bison DEIS Comments
Bison in snowstorm, Blacktail Plateau, Yellowstone NP, Wyoming Photo George Wuerthner Yellowstone National Park has produced an DEIS on bison management. The Park Service is accepting comments until...
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Anthropocene Boosters: The Attack On Parks And Wilderness
Anthropocene boosters who criticize parks and wilderness as “colonialism”, ‘imperialism,” and other pejorative terms that threaten conservation goals. Photo George Wuerthner A growing debate has...
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Media Misinterpretation of Wildfire Ecology
Giant sequoia at Sequoia National Park, California. Photo George Wuerthner One significant problem with explaining complex ecological stories is that many journalists are unprepared to interpret...
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Voluntary Grazing Permit Retirement Act
Cattle grazing in the Blue Range Wilderness of New Mexico. Photo George Wuerthner Anyone who has ever worked on public lands livestock issues knows that modifying the negative impacts of ranching...
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The Fire Suppression Myth
We are continuously bombarded with the message that 100 years of fire suppression and lack of logging drive large blazes. The fire suppression myth is a convenient excuse for the timber industry and...
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Wild Bison or Hatchery Bison?
Wildness in bison is maintained by evolutionary agents like harsh weather, native predators, competition for forage and mating. Photo George Wuerthner Many bison advocates assert that bison have been...
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Restoring North America With A Fork: The role of Agriculture in the...
Author’s note. I wrote this piece several decades ago, but never published. Although some of the references may be outdated, the general theme of the article is still valid today. The main conclusion...
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Tribal Rhetoric-Bison Realities
Tribal bison carnage near Yellowstone NP border last winter. Last week, 11 tribes gathered in Fort Hall, Idaho, to discuss “stewardship” of Yellowstone bison. Representative tribes included Shoshone,...
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How the Media and Some Researchers Mislead The Public On Prescribed Burning
Low severity blazes burn up fine fuels like grass and seldom kill mature trees. Photo George Wuerthner This morning, Columbia University released a press release that proclaimed,” Low-intensity fires...
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The Dept of Interior Bans M-44s or Cyanide Bombs On BLM Lands
Coyotes are the prime target of M-44s, but numerous other wildlife and pets are also killed by these devices. Photo George Wuerthner Today, the Biden Administration’s Department of Interior has...
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