Between now and 2029, the conservation community needs to reorganize its operations to expand its political power so as to be able, should the opportunity arise, to greatly advance the conservation of public lands and waters in the United States.

The conservation community needs to be prepared to exploit the next big opportunity to greatly advance the conservation of public lands and waters in the United States.

Finally, a quantitative measure allows the public to see how our federal elected officials rate on federal public lands conservation.

In 1770 Edmund Burke said, “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one.” Culture rewrote it into “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” In this case, either works.

Trump’s plan to return to historic levels of timber production on western Oregon BLM holdings will spell the end of mature and old-growth forests on those lands, along with degraded water quality and extirpated species.

To be remembered as the greatest public lands conservationist to come out of the Oregon congressional delegation, Wyden needs to step up his game.

Ron Wyden has a way to go to exceed the Oregon public lands conservation legacy of his predecessor, Mark Hatfield, but he can do it before he retires.

58.5 million acres of inventoried roadless areas within the National Forest System are once again in existential jeopardy.

The public lands (and the entire conservation) community is fundamentally mis-organized to address today’s torrent of existential threats to the nation’s public lands.

The excesses of the executive branch will need to be checked by the judicial branch, the legislative branch, and/or the people.

The Trump administration believes that unless it can be sold or collateralized, it has no value.

We don’t have one national election for president in 2020. Rather we have fifty-one elections (in fifty states and the District of Columbia) that will decide the next president of the United States. Today, we can predict with certainty the total number of votes that will be cast for the presidency: 538.

Trigger warning: Dyed-in-the-wool Democrats, liberals, leftists, and/or the excessively woke may find this post hazardous to their hopes, dreams, stereotypes, and/or prejudices and may wish to seek refuge in a safe space.

This is the second of three Public Lands Blog posts that examine the increasingly difficult political decisions facing Oregon’s public lands conservationists. Part 1 posed a still hypothetical—but prospectively probable—public lands conservation package that contains some great, some good, some bad, and some ugly provisions. Part 2 examines what Oregon public lands conservationists have done in the past when faced with such choices. Part 3 will wrestle with the devil of principle and the angel of pragmatism and make recommendations.

This is the first of three Public Lands Blog posts that examine the increasingly difficult political decisions facing Oregon’s public lands conservationists. Part 1 poses a still hypothetical—but prospectively probable—public lands conservation package that contains some great, some good, some bad, and some ugly provisions. Part 2 will examine what Oregon public lands conservationists have done in the past when faced with such choices. Part 3 will wrestle with the devil of principle and the angel of pragmatism and make recommendations.

If not for Mary Gautreaux, many good things would not have happened for Oregon’s public lands. Several wilderness areas and wild and scenic rivers or additions to them would not have happened. Portland’s drinking water sources, the Bull Run and Little Sandy Rivers, would be dirtier.

Any well-run business has its key performance indicators (KPIs) to judge the health of the firm beyond its current balance sheet and profit-and-loss statement. Let’s delve into the pertinent KPIs for Oregon’s place in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. 

The public lands conservation community has long been wary of the existential threat to the nation’s public lands posed by a fringe group of right-wing crazies who seek to privatize public lands (perhaps via a brief period of state or county ownership).

America’s public lands are often in need of a good lawyer, and they have one in John Leshy. He has served America’s public lands (and its owners) as an academic, author, and advocate. In his long career, he’s published legal textbooks, written briefs, argued cases, and taught law students, and he was the top lawyer in the U.S. Department of the Interior for almost as long as Bruce Babbitt was secretary of the interior.

Today, President Donald J. Trump signed Executive Grants of Clemency (Full Pardons) for Dwight Lincoln Hammond, Jr., and his son, Steven Hammond. The Hammonds are multi-generation cattle ranchers in Oregon imprisoned in connection with a fire that leaked onto a small portion of neighboring public grazing land. The evidence at trial regarding the Hammonds’ responsibility for the fire was conflicting, and the jury acquitted them on most of the charges.