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Powerful Friends: Sympathetic Officials and “Cultural Power” Help Ranchers Dodge Oversight
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Elected officials are quick to support public lands ranchers who are accused of breaking rules. As a result, federal agencies pull punches when enforcing regulations.
https://www.propublica.org/article/politicians-help-ranchers-dodge-oversight?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

#News #USPolitics #Government #Regulation #Law #PublicLands

Fact Checking The 60 Minutes Public Lands Episode Can TV journalism survive a rightwing takeover? Wes Siler #PublicLands #Montana #PublicLandsInPublicHands #MTPol https://open.substack.com/pub/wessiler/p/fact-checking-the-60-minutes-public

Fact Checking The 60 Minutes P...

Fact Checking The 60 Minutes Public Lands Episode
Can TV journalism survive a rightwing takeover?
Wes Siler
#PublicLands #Montana #PublicLandsInPublicHands #MTPol
https://open.substack.com/pub/wessiler/p/fact-checking-the-60-minutes-public

Low winter sun comes early
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#photography #NaturePhotography #nature #landscape #LandscapePhotography #water #halation #reflection #moody #psychadelic #GoldenHour #dusk #BlueHour #Kodak #KodakGold #KodakGold200 #Gold200 #PublicLands #NationalParks

Wealthy Ranchers Profit From Public Lands. Taxpayers Pick Up the Tab.
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A ProPublica and High Country News investigation found that government programs supporting grazing on public lands prop up a wealthy few while harming the environment. The Trump administration is supercharging the system.
https://www.propublica.org/article/grazing-ranchers-public-lands-trump?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

#News #Government #Trump #Environment #Grazing #PublicLands #Tax

Support The Wilderness Society, the National Parks Conservation Association, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Public Lands Foundation to save our public lands!
campingemporium.com

#PublicLands #Conservation #TheWildernessSociety #NationalParksConservationAssociaton

Funny how that works:

"The wealthy profit from public lands, and taxpayers pick up the tab"

"Roughly two-thirds of grazing on Bureau of Land Management land is controlled by just 10% of permit holders. "

https://www.hcn.org/issues/57-12/the-wealthy-profit-from-public-lands-and-taxpayers-pick-up-the-tab/

#landuse #grazing #publiclands #profit #BLM

Crater Lake National Park today (View of Crater Lake from the Sinnott Memorial Overlook). Learn more at https://www.nps.gov/crla/index.htm and #nps #nationalparks #interpretation #publiclands #photography #landscapephotography #craterlake Image credit National Park Service #orwx #oregon #snow #fall #travel #lake #geology #clouds #andesite #island #reflection

Blue sky, calm conditions, and an attractive reflection of Wizard Island and some of the geological features of Crater Lake National Park in this view from the Sinnott Memorial Overlook today. The blue color of the lake surface includes a few white cloud reflections as well. Vegetation on the island is green, while the surrounding slopes are orange, yellow, grey, and black. Mount Thielsen is indeed in view today. Look for the distant peak, upper right.

A Loophole Allows Ranchers to Renew Grazing Permits With Little Scrutiny of the Environmental Impact
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With dwindling oversight, cattle are grazing where they’re not supposed to and in greater numbers or for longer periods than permitted. This can spread invasive plants, pushing out native species and worsening wildfire risk.
https://www.propublica.org/article/grazing-environment-public-lands-oversight?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

#News #Environment #PublicLands #Cattle #Grazing #Law

Henry Mountains at Sunset
Halls Creek Road, UT

#MountainMonday #photo #Landscape #PublicLands #Utah

Looking across rolling low sandstone hills of piñon/juniper habitat at two mountains that cross the horizon. They are tinted pink by the setting sun.
©BosqueBill.com

Passage to Paradise
Valley of the Gods, UT

#SilentSunday #photo #landscape #travel #PublicLands #redrock #Utah

An aerial view of the edge of southwest US desert canyon country with steep redrock cliffs, buttes, and mesas with debris below at the angle of repose. In the foreground a rolling landscape of red dirt with small green shrubs. A narrow dirt road roams from bottom center to middle right. A pronounced wash "flows" from middle left to lower right. Blue sky with both white and dark clouds.
©BosqueBill.com

Butler Wash Road
Bluff, UT

#saturdayScenery #photo #travel #geology #PublicLands #BearsEars #Utah #UAV

Aerial view looking up a desert wash with steep sandy banks and deep cut tributaries. Bottom of the wash is filled with shrubs and small trees. Surrounding flats have small sere shrubs. Shallow white sandstone cliffs one far right running to horizon; steep red sandstone cliffs and mesas on the right. Glimpse of distant mountains behind. Blue sky above; thin clouds along horizon.
©BosqueBill.com

Yosemite National Park today. For more information https://www.nps.gov/yose/index.htm and https://yosemite.org/ and #interpretation #nps #nationalparks #publiclands #landscapephotography #photography Image credit Yosemite Conservancy and National Park Service #yosemite #cawx #fall #trees #california #halfdome #sun #shadow #nationalpark #geology

Sun and shadow in this view of Yosemite National Park today. In the foreground on the right, an island of trees is lit by the sun. Shadows behind give way to sunlit rock faces, including Half Dome in the center. The sun is also evident in the evergreen trees flanking the valley floor. A blue sky completes the view.

The Case for Returning U.S. #PublicLands to #IndigenousPeople

by Joe Whittle, Mar 6, 2025

"Since the start of Trump’s second term, his administration has fired thousands of federal workers across multiple public lands agencies, including the National Park Service, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The effects of this are vast: It’s going to have a profoundly negative impact on the environment and the way millions of Americans enjoy public lands, cause immeasurable harm to America’s wildest places, and devastate the economies built around them.

"After serving 12 years as a backcountry wilderness ranger for the U.S. Forest Service, I'm convinced there is an alternative: the U.S. needs to return its public lands to Native Americans. In fact, I believe that might be the only way to save our parks and forests from corporate privatization and destruction, as well as preserve public access to them. If the U.S. won’t properly care for its public lands, why not return them to their original caretakers?

"This isn’t a new idea. #NativeAmericans argued that treaty law required
'abandoned' federal land to be returned to tribes during the occupation of #Alcatraz Island by the #AmericanIndianMovement in the 1960s. In more recent years, the #LandbackMovement has given rise to increased calls for the return of territorial land to #IndigenousNations, and the return of land management based in #TraditionalEcologicalKnowledge—expertise gathered from thousands of years of having deep relationships with specific environments. There’s a strong legal argument that land return is constitutionally required as damages due for hundreds of treaty violations. However, there’s also a lot of data showing Indigenous land management is more ecologically sound than government or industrially managed land. For instance, #ProjectDrawdown, a global leader in science-based #ClimateChange solutions, estimates that returning 1,000 million hectares of land to Indigenous tenureship by 2050 would sequester over 12 gigatons of carbon dioxide."