Publication archives

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today plans to ask the federal government to prohibit roads on 4.4 million acres of national forest land in California, with limited exceptions for thinning trees to reduce fire danger. The goal is to protect areas of the forests that currently are not accessible by roads, Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman said Tuesday.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued its final management plan for the upper Mississippi River refuge on Tuesday, scaling back several earlier proposals restricting hunting, fishing and boat access.

Jeff Brown is probably the harshest critic of the trails designation process. He's the founder of Minnesotans for Responsible Recreation, a grassroots group that advocates for quiet sports. He's angry because the legislation that directed the DNR to designate trails, set aside the usual environmental review process.

Members of CDA - Iriba an association of bee keepers have called on other bee farmers to conserve the environment while carrying out their activity. In an exclusive interview with The New Times last week, Vedaste Birindwa, the President of Iriba, revealed that working together in an association has encouraged them to realise the importance of conserving the environment.

Up to 60 percent of aspen stands in the Dolores Ranger District's Turkey Knolls area are dead or dying, and that's raised more than a few eyebrows among forest officials and local business leaders. "I think we're going to see huge changes in 30 to 40 years," said Phil Kemp, forester with the Dolores Public Lands Center. Turkey Knolls is about 12 miles north of Mancos.

A new study led by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, implicates rising seasonal temperatures and the earlier arrival of spring conditions in connection with a dramatic increase of large wildfires in the western United States.

An unusual alliance of off-road vehicle enthusiasts, environmentalists and local officials in the Eastern Sierra has crafted a deal to set aside more than 40,000 acres of wilderness near Yosemite National Park, which lawmakers are calling a model of how to build consensus to protect public lands.

Water-logged easterners may not believe it, but much of the country is unseasonably dry. Moisture levels are below average in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, and Wyoming, and much of the Great Plains from Oklahoma to North Dakota is experiencing drought as well. In all, one-fourth of the US is facing moderate-to-extreme drought conditions, which brings the threat of fire.