The Bundy band represents both an existential threat and an existential opportunity for America’s public lands. This is the first of four Public Lands Blog posts that examine the government mishandling of the Bundys, the Bundys’ legal troubles, the Bundys’ legal troublemaking, and the opportunities for the conservation community to apply political jujitsu on the Bundy gang to advance the conservation of America’s public lands.

Over 70 species of animals and 340 species of plants make their home on the Table Rocks, part BLM ACEC and a preserve of The Nature Conservancy in Jackson County Oregon. Perhaps if the ACEC had been established earlier, the goddamned airstrip, now abandoned, would have never been built.

Barbara Kay Roberts, born in Corvallis, Oregon, in 1936, was Oregon’s thirty-fourth governor, serving from early 1991 to early 1995. Her other elected offices have included school board member, community college board member, state representative, and secretary of state.

Pinnacles is the nation’s fifty-ninth full-fledged national park. Twenty-five of our fifty-nine national parks, totaling 39.6 million acres, were first seeded by the establishment of a presidentially proclaimed national monument. Fourteen of these monumental twenty-five were established from more than one national monument proclamation, in that national monuments were expanded by later presidents.

As of today, the BLM recognizes a total of 4.2 million acres as California Desert National Conservation Lands, 2.89 million acres of which were designated in a recent update to BLM’s comprehensive management plans.

While climate change is an existential threat and the world must move rapidly from nonrenewable carbon fuels to carbon-free renewable energy sources, the public lands need not be industrialized to save Earth as we know it.

It’s time for the members of the Oregon congressional delegation to step up their public lands conservation game. It always takes years, if not years and years, to enact public lands conservation legislation into law. While mere introduction of legislation does not mean enactment into law, no legislation becomes law without first being introduced.

Of the 15 listed Public Lands Enemies, the top three hail from Utah and the state’s congressional delegation occupies fully one-third of the ignoble list. The only member of the state’s delegation not to be on the top 15 public lands enemies is Rep. Mia Love (D-4th-UT.)

The congressional conservation pipeline is clogged. This is not because it is too full of fine legislation that would elevate the conservation status of certain public lands by designating wilderness, wild and scenic rivers, and other special protection areas, but because of the general dysfunction of Congress.

Back in the day, an Act of Congress, signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt on June 8, 1906, soon after became commonly known as the “National Monument Act.” The more recently used name of the “Antiquities Act of 1906” must now be changed back to “National Monument Act of 1906.” Here’s why…

In addition to the usual (and vital) proposed additions to the National Wilderness Preservation System and the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, Huffman’s draft legislation proposes several innovative and novel congressional designations that call for ecological restoration, nature conservation, and/or increased recreation.

In a tepid effort to express support for the conservation of the Owyhee Canyonlands, Oregon’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, introduced legislation (S.3048, 114th Congress, the Southeastern Oregon Mineral Withdrawal and Economic Preservation and Development Act) that would permanently withdraw the area from certain forms of mining and would do other things.

Logging in Lane County, Oregon on both public and private lands.

The Westerman bill would legislate horrifically harmful public forest policy into law. Among its many sins, the Westerman bill would

Over the course of more than a century, Congress—or the executive branch using expressed authorities granted by Congress—has established various systems for the conservation, management, and enjoyment of federal and other lands and waters. On the whole, these systems are bold, visionary, and remarkable.

Until the first judicial injunctions brought most logging of northern spotted owl habitat to a halt, the monies came mostly from the sale of old-growth forest. These forests were being logged at a rate of more than three square miles each week on federal public forestlands in Oregon

It costs more to feed a domestic house cat than to graze domestic livestock on federal public lands. This has generally been the case since the early 1900s, when the federal government first required ranchers to pay a fee for grazing their livestock on millions of acres of federal land, primarily in western states.

There is no question that an Act of Congress can eliminate, shrink, or weaken a national monument proclaimed by a president pursuant to authority granted by Congress. What Congress giveth, Congress can taketh away.

During this Trumpian Quadrennium, with a Congress hostile to conservation, the chances of expanding the National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) approach zero. Yet the need to double the size of the system has never been greater, so now is the time to start.

Following are seven examples of high-public-value BLM Zone 3 lands in western Oregon that should be reclassified or transferred. The parcels in question are shown on the map segments to the left of their descriptions. I’m confident that a similar analysis of BLM eastern Oregon lands will yield similar examples.

Big Timber in Oregon is so 20th Century. It used to be that timber jobs were above the state’s median wage; now they are below it. Today, only 1.3 percent of Oregon’s jobs arise from falling trees. That number will continue to decline in relative terms as Oregon’s economy continues to grow, and it will continue to decline in absolute terms as the timber industry continues to automate.