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.

Both a need and opportunities exist to elevate the conservation status of state public lands.

If currently degraded forests are included in a national monument dedicated to long-term conservation, our grandchildren will be able to see the vast landscape of old-growth Douglas-fir forests that our grandparents saw.

While the number of big trees in the United States has generally been increasing, this increase is from an impoverished baseline and will soon reverse if Big Timber gets its way.

Big old trees play outsized roles in a forest stand in terms of biodiversity, carbon storage, and carbon sequestration.

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

Like bankruptcy, the death of the Northwest Forest Plan has proceeded slowly and might end quickly.

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

America’s national forests have lost the greatest inside champion they’ve ever had.

America’s national forests have lost the greatest inside champion they’ve ever had.

Kelp forests are extraordinarily important concentrations of biodiversity and are extremely threatened, along the Oregon coast and around the world.

Many bitter lemons can make quite fine lemonade, but only if the conservation community reinvents itself.

Utah’s lawsuit against the United States is an existential threat to more than 200 million acres of federal public lands.

A new scientific review of many scientific papers suggests it is not necessary to thin before reintroducing fire into fire-dependent forests. Part 2 examines the new science and its implications for policy.

The Forest Service is blowing President Biden’s chance of saving mature and old-growth forest for this and future generations.

A new scientific review of many scientific papers suggests it is not necessary to thin before reintroducing fire into fire-dependent forests. Part 1 sets the stage with a review of past thinking about thinning.

The reduction of surplus production capacity continues to result in lumber mill shutdowns, though the contributing factors cited have changed as times have changed.

Senator Wyden is cosponsoring legislation that would give blank checks and get-out-of-jail-free cards to all BLM grazing permittees and lessees.

When political realities come up against ecological realities, the former must be changed because the latter cannot.

This is the fourth in a series of four Public Lands Blog posts regarding the infamous “O&C” lands, a variant of public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management. Part 4 recommends repeal of the O&C Lands Act of 1937 and transferring administration of all BLM lands in western Oregon to either the Forest Service or the Fish and Wildlife Service.