A nuclear power plant never befouled Cape Kiwanda, and off-road vehicles do not befoul many miles of Oregon beaches today, because of Norma Paulus. In addition, Oregon’s land use planning system, bottle bill, beach protection, billboard limits, bicycle friendliness, and other environmental achievements were mightily helped by Paulus while serving in the Oregon House of Representatives. Oregon’s air and water quality are the better for her work.

It is safe to say that most conservationists, not to mention the rest of Americans, have never heard of the National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS). It is a federal and state partnership that is little known and therefore underappreciated.

In response to increasing overpopulation, what came to Muir Woods will eventually be coming to a natural recreation area near and/or dear to you. But actually, reversing overpopulation is not that hard. If all those who wanted children would limit themselves to two, what is now out of control could soon be back in control.

Why is it that public lands conservation (and other environmental) issues always poll well, but our movement is regularly getting its ass kicked in Congress (and now by the administration as well)? It’s because we’re not political enough.

The Bundy band represents both an existential threat and an existential opportunity for America’s public lands. This is the fourth 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 Bundy et al. to advance the conservation of America’s public lands

The Bundy band represents both an existential threat and an existential opportunity for America’s public lands. This is the third 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 Bundy et al. to advance the conservation of America’s public lands.

The Bundy band represents both an existential threat and an existential opportunity for America’s public lands. This is the second 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 Bundy et al. to advance the conservation of America’s public lands.

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.

There might be far more or far less oil and gas offshore Oregon and Washington than the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has estimated (see last weeks Public Lands Blog post). In any case, we really cannot afford to find out, as the only prudent course is to Keep It in the Ground and out of the atmosphere. This means all fossil fuels, offshore and onshore.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) estimates there is an even chance that 0.4 billion barrels of oil and 2.28 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that are technically exploitable might be discovered under the Outer Continental Shelf offshore Oregon and Washington. At 2017 rates of consumption, this amount of oil and gas would fuel the United States for twenty and thirty-one days respectively, meaning the United States would convert to a carbon-free economy a month later than we otherwise will.

If one is going to live in or near a forest, one assumes a higher risk of fire. The best way to minimize that risk is to seriously and continually create and maintain defensible space. It’s not cheap. If it were, it would have been done already.

Soon after a wildfire, forests undergo a remarkable transformation. Large dead and remaining live trees, native plants, and seed sources act as “biological legacies” that “lifeboat” a forest from new growth to old growth over a period of decades to centuries. Biological legacies provide habitat for scores of pollinators, songbirds and woodpeckers, small mammals, and big game species that readily populate burn areas, including many species that thrive in them.

This is the second of a two-part examination of proposed oil exploitation in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

This is the first of a two-part examination of proposed oil exploitation in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Just as it is in the public interest to have systems of corridors for the movement of vehicles, oil, gas, electrons, and water, it is in the public interest to have a system of corridors for wildlife. Wildlife corridors are for mammals large and small that must walk to where they need to go.

Many politicians call for a return to the era of bipartisanship as a solution to any woe. This call has resonance because the bipartisan era occurred in the living memory of baby boomers. But in the long arc of history this era did not last long, and the evidence of today does not give much hope of a return to it.

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.