WWPBlog

After much hard work WWP Wins TRO on Spruce Mountain.  The victory is particularly important for many reasons. 

BLM claims the project is necessary to prevent catastrophic fire.  It follows that this would be the reason front and center - considering fire is where the funds are at.  The Spruce Mountain Project is home to healthy habitat which includes Pinyons from 200 - 400 years old.  Fires are part of healthy ecosystems and Spruce Mountain, being distant from any significant human structures or developement, is an illustrative example of just that.  Those ancient trees have survived and thrived for generations providing native habitat for numerous wildlife without BLM’s ‘helpful hand’.   

Additionally, the claim is that these Pinyon-Junipers are crowding out the grasses necessary for wildlife forage.  As Ralph Maughan points out these areas of established habitat with old growth trees are not the smaller trees that become invasive and wildlife do just fine on sagebrush and other natives.  Their problem is that where Pinyons and sagebrush grow, other forage that cattle eat won’t grow.  If only BLM could eradicate every plant that doesn’t serve the livestock interest. 

That project would cost tax-payers a lot of money to turn our native land into something else.

For the larger picture check out Katie’s previous  post  

The Owyhee Initiative and Boulder-White Clouds demonstrate the bewildering special interest giveaways that frequently stymie conservation efforts.  Here’s an example of what’s happening in Utah with the Zion-Mojave Wilderness.  Check out the 6 minute video on the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance’s site. 

The honorable Governor Jim Risch frequently passes by me (hurriedly) on his way to mass at St. Paul’s Catholic Center.

This week I’m thinking about stopping him on his way to mass making him even more tardy.

My first question will be: Do you know that Catholic doctrine mandates a better voting record on environmental issues than you have?  Then, I will follow this lead-in with a brief lecture on the Bible and judicious stewardship of the land pointing out that his environmental policies are not at all Catholic.

 I wonder if he’ll switch churches for next week’s services?

(Ok, I’m not really going to do this, but if I get a chance to congenially discuss matters with him, I certainly will bring up the topic.)

This letter was emailed to every newspaper in California’s 11th Congressional District Today!

I hope District 11 Congressional voters realize that a vote for Richard Pombo is a vote for abject hypocrisy.

Pombo claims to be the friend and protector of private property rights, but last year he included a  provision in the Budget Reconciliation Act that would have forced the Bureau of Land Management to effectively give 1000 acres of public land next to our property in Idaho to a California mining company without any notification or discussion with us.

Fortunately that provision was derailed at the last moment.

Pombo’s support for private property rights extends only to his friends and cronies.

Your vote for Jerry McNerney will restore long overdue honesty, truthfulness and real support for property rights in the 11th Congressional District.

The drive of government agencies to anthropogenically engineer the health  production of our natural lands is happening all around us. 

Take for example Washington’s pilot program with Washington Cattleman’s Association.

Lands that have been allowed to exist in their natural state (cattle free) for 15 - 20 years allegedly haven’t been producing enough deer or elk for hunters. 

So, "Over and over again we hear, ‘Geez, we see all these deer on the (grazing land), and we go on the wildlife areas and we don’t see any of them," said Edd Bracken. 

Looks like sound science to me eh? 

Wildlife agencies in the state will begin allowing intensive grazing of the pilot areas to see whether a manicured nature is better than a natural nature. 

"This will be a program of short bursts of grazing by lots of cattle"