Environment
Hillary doesn't listen anyway
Worry Assignment: Idaho’s Fruit Crop
I’m much too worried about the Idaho fruit crop to fret over Tuesday’s presidential primary in Pennsylvania.
It’s my next-door neighbor’s fault. She’s related to a Very Important Idaho Political-and-Fruit-Growing Family with operations at Sunny Slope in Canyon County, just west of Boise. I’m fond of my neighbor. We met yesterday on a dog walk, and while her nice small dog stood still and my let’s-get-going retriever tried to yoink my brain out my ears, she told me that the peaches on the family ranch had bloomed a week or so ago, and the whole crop was threatened. Sure enough, freezing weather came along last night and there’s more predicted for tonight.
Suddenly, I am next-door neighbor to an entire fruit ranch. I’ve eaten those yummy peaches. I am invested. I am part of the chain.
[more]
A Little More Room to Breathe
Yellowstone Bison Agreement Provides Additional Habitat
For the first time in a decade, wild bison will be allowed to legally roam outside of Yellowstone National Park.
The purchase of the cattle grazing rights from the Church Universal and Triumphant’s Royal Teton Ranch will provide an approximate 5,000-acre “zone” where bison can roam outside of the park boundary while having little-to-no risk of possible interaction and transmission of brucellosis to Montana’s cattle.
Although too small in landmass to provide the title “Free-ranging Yellowstone bison," the range is released through a pact agreement and collaboration between three federal agencies, two Montana agencies, one private landowner and a coalition of four non-profit organizations.
[more]
"a secret, closed-door plan"?
Forest Service, Plum Creek Conspire on Roads for Real Estate, County Says
Elected officials are raising red flags after finding out about alleged back-room negotiations between the U.S. Forest Service and Plum Creek Timber Co. aimed at easing Plum Creek's transition into residential real estate by amending road use regulations.
Last Thursday, the Missoula Board of County Commissioners wrote Montana Sen. Jon Tester an open letter alerting him of private dialogue on forest road easements that could, they said, significantly affect communities in Western Montana where Plum Creek owns large swaths of land.
According to Plum Creek spokeswoman Kathy Budinick, Plum Creek has not acted deceitfully.
"It has been characterized as a process that occurred behind closed doors and that is inaccurate, and in fact, just the opposite is true," said Budinick. "The easement amendment was heavily vetted really at all stages of its drafting."
[more]
A PREDATOR BECOMES PREY
Can Wolf Hunting Help Conserve the Species?
Hunting outfitter Ray Rugg toes a crusted depression in the snow. "Wolf tracks," he says. The tracks crisscross this small meadow past a piece of front leg and scraps of hide, the last remains of a white-tail deer.
On this damp early Spring afternoon Rugg's only looking for signs of the six wolves he frequently sees on his ranch in the rugged Bitterroot Mountains west of Superior, Montana. But come September, these predators will become prey. Rugg plans to guide hunters into these mountains on both sides of the Montana-Idaho border when the first legal wolf hunting season in the contiguous United States begins.
"I already got a line of clients waiting to put in an application if the hunt goes through," Rugg says.
As the first wolf hunts begin in the Northern Rockies, state and federal wildlife officials hail the transition to state management with public hunting as a major step forward in wolf conservation. They say it will develop greater acceptance and a conservation constituency for the contentious carnivore among hunters like Rugg and the public at large, because citizens will have a hand in management. But critics contend that a more enlightened ethic is unlikely, and the wolf's long-entrenched malevolent symbolism, and the backlash it incites, will persist.
[more]
wilderness issues lecture series
“Green” Jobs Can Revive Economy, Golden SaysTo address the problem of climate change Americans must strive to create a "green" economy bolstered by federal regulations that promote innovation and investment, said K.C. Golden in his lecture Tuesday night at the University of Montana.
“The problem is upon us now,” he said. “It’s time to move from being very worried to being very focused on the issue.”
Golden’s talk, the final lecture in the University’s Wilderness Issues Lecture Series, focused on ways the United States can work to lessen the severity of global climate change while reducing our dependence on costly and unstable imported fossil fuels.
[more]
Majestic but not without its challenges
Sense of Place: Understanding the Risks of Where You Live
There are challenges of living in this breathtaking environment. Susan Duncan discusses in this continued series how similar risks that faced the pioneers decades ago are still present.
The Western landscape is brawny and majestic, offering panoramic views.
For visitors and residents alike, the appeal lies in the landforms that reflect the raw power of the forces of Nature that created them. The landforms beckon and challenge. Risk is part of the appeal. Volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, forest fires, temperature extremes, and avalanches created this landscape.
The risks they pose are still here and affect our daily lives. Have you assessed the risks of where you live and how you respond?
[more]
Guest Commentary: George Wuerthner's "On the Range"
Conservation Reserve Program of Questionable ValueThere was a recent article in the New York Times describing how many farmers, in light of rising grain prices, are hoping to cancel their contracts for the Conservation Reserve Program or CRP. Few people outside of the farm belt have heard of this program, but for 25 years, CRP has been the backbone of the government’s welfare system for farmers.
The program pays AG producers to take highly erosion-able lands out of production and plant it to some kind of cover vegetation—usually grass. The program currently covers 36 million acres or about 8 percent of all cropland. Ostensibly CRP was created to prevent the loss of soil to wind and water. But over the years it became a vehicle for pumping billions of dollars into rural counties based on a host of other reasons—many of them illusionary, transitory, or ineffective at best, in particular the idea that CRP protected wildlife habitat.
[more]
going green
Northern Plains’ LEED-Certified “Home on the Range” Wins Award
In this golden age of green, even a dilapidated, baby-blue grocery store can become an architectural Cinderella story.
Home on the Range, the former Billings store turned headquarters for the Northern Plains Resource Council and the Western Organization of Resource Councils, was awarded the prestigious “What Makes it Green Award” by the American Institute of Architects Seattle Committee on the Environment. The award was announced April 7 at the ReGeneration Conference in Seattle and recognizes the top “green” projects in the Northwest and Pacific regions.
[more]
Bison Update
Yellowstone Bison and the Fate of the Royal Teton Ranch Lease
As changing land use and attitudes toward bison open the possibility for reduced conflict between bison, cattle and humans on the west side of Yellowstone National Parl, a potential deal on the north side of the park could allow bison to follow a traditional migration corridor for the first time in a long time. But the deal is short some $1.5 million from the federal government, and it is also not without criticism from bison advocates. [more]
wilderness issues lecture lecture series
Climate Change Action the Mission of a Generation, Goodstein SaysOn Tuesday night, Eban Goodstein stood before an audience of mainly college students at the University of Montana and urged them to take action in making climate change the most important issue of their generation.
“This really is the mission of your generation, and with that mission you cannot afford to fail,” he said.
Goodstein, a professor of economics at Lewis and Clark College in Portland Oregon and founder of Focus the Nation, was speaking as part of the University’s Wilderness Issues Lecture Series. Goodstein said that in order to posses technologies such as solar energy and wind power that will be vital for dealing with global warming, today’s college students must convince their leaders to make investments right now. Goodstein called the process “intergenerational gift giving” and said that it is necessary considering the level of restructuring required by future generations.
[more]
