Opinion: Tester logging bill proposes a calamitous precedent

Key player in passage of the ’64 Wilderness Act blast Tester’s Wilderness/logging bill-

This is an opinion in the Billings Gazette by Stewart Brandborg who was executive director of the Wilderness Society when the Wilderness Act became law.

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My take on Tester’s bill is that is very much the stuff ex-Idaho senator Larry Craig was always pushing — mandated levels of logging completely unrelated to the conditions of the market. One big difference in favor of Tester is he does designate some Wilderness.

Craig simply pushed artificial levels of logging. I used to call them Craig’s Soviet forestry because of their similarity to the way production goals were set in the former Communist Soviet Union.

Brandborg fills out the whole rooster of violations of past law and public oversight embodied in the Tester Bill.

Guest opinion: Tester logging bill proposes a calamitous precedent.  By Stewart M. Brandborg. Billings Gazette.|

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More recent opinion on Tester bill.

USFS Retiree [Bill Worf] on Tester Bill: Gutting the USFS is not the Solution. Unfiltered in New West. By Matthew Koehler,

Lawsuit Settled over grazing in Sonoran Desert National Monument

Joint news release by the BLM and Western Watersheds Project-

This is a victory for WWPs Arizona Office in Tucson.

NEWS RESEASE

(PHOENIX, AZ)—The U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and Western Watersheds Projects announced today settlement of a federal lawsuit involving the Sonoran Desert National Monument southwest of Phoenix, Arizona.

Western Watersheds Project filed suit in August of 2008 to challenge livestock grazing within the Monument.  “Our goal was to compel BLM to manage grazing in ways that protect the National Monument and its natural resources,” says Greta Anderson, the Arizona Director of Western Watersheds.

The BLM, a federal agency, is currently drafting a land use plan for the management of the National Monument, called a Resource Management Plan. The settlement stipulates that the Plan must be completed by December 15, 2011.  They will include a determination of whether or not livestock grazing is compatible with the protection of objects identified in the 2001 Presidential Proclamation that established the Monument.   “The Arizona BLM is dedicated to protecting the objects of the National Monument, and this settlement affords the staff a greater opportunity to focus on field work and achieve the deadline to complete the management plans,” says Jim Kenna, the BLM Arizona state director.

PBS program on wolves, bears, bison and the ESA

This is a good national television treatment of the issue-

Salle put this link on the “have run across any good stories” page, but it should be a full post.

Hunting Wolves, Saving Wolves. PBS

Salle. I know you tried to call me about this, but I was out in the hills most of the day. Ralph

Additional info on wolves, etc. from PBS. I have to wonder about some of it like “On a calm night, howls can be heard from as far as 120 miles away.” They must have meant twelve miles.