Happy Labor Day Weekend! Stay safe.
1. Roadless Media Coverage Request.. I’m interested in other ENGOs who say the same kind of thing as TU in the Cowboy State Daily about Roadless.. “don’t rescind but fix.” This might only show up in local or regional coverage, but I’d like to collect it. If you notice something along these lines please email me at sharon ..forestpolicypub.com
2. Issue with Border Patrol and contract wildfire crew in Washington State. The Hotshot Wakeup has been following this. Here’s the current status (as on when I’m posting this), and a link to his podcast on the situation. (not paywalled). From his post today:
A senior USDA official provided comment on the situation and answered some of the questions I had:
They are not coordinating with CBP on any further operations.
The USDA\Forest Service in D.C. was alerted that CBP was en route to the Bear Gulch Fire per Regional Leadership.
There have been no contracts terminated by the Agency, and the Agency expressed that the crews involved were only demobed.
3. IMBA comments on the USDA Reorganization. If you or your organization has comments, please link below.
Here are their top recommendations:
Top Recommendations:
● Strategic Plan: Successful USFS Reorganization must be informed by a thoughtful plan that minimizes disruption to on-the-ground projects Americans rely upon under forest management.
● Reinvest: Reinvest cost saving at the forest level by filling critical USFS staff vacancies to help fulfill the forest mission.
● Direct Hiring Authority: Provide USFS Direct Hiring Authority (DHA) to fill critical vacant positions—both pre-existing positions or those created as a result of this
proposed reorganization.
● Public/Private Partnerships: Expand USFS partnership management capacity and resources to fill any appropriate voids created through the reorganization.
● Prioritize the Recreation Economy: Ensure that plan components result in a sustainable outdoor recreation economy being further fostered as a tangible outcome of
the reorganization.and their Reinvest (with savings)
● Restore Field Capacity – Filling recreation, engineering, and natural resource vacancies would place more staff in the field to plan, design, and maintain trails,
campgrounds, and visitor facilities that directly serve millions of users.
● Improve Responsiveness to Local Needs – With more boots on the ground, district-level offices could respond more quickly to the growing recreational demands of
adjacent communities, visitor surges, and user conflicts, strengthening local partnerships and improving overall visitor experience.
● Leverage External Partnerships – Fully staffed recreation programs are better equipped to engage with nonprofit partners (like IMBA and local trail groups) and apply
matching funds or volunteer labor effectively. This leverages the value of federal investments well beyond a 1:1 ratio.
● Deliver Economic Returns – Because outdoor recreation drives billions in gateway community economies, reinvesting savings locally has a multiplier effect: healthier
recreation infrastructure boosts tourism, small business vitality, and local tax revenues.
● Rebalance Agency Mission – As fire management is restructured, reinvestment into recreation ensures that the USFS sustains its relevance to the American public and
continues delivering broad benefits in health, wellness, and access to public lands.
4. LA Times Changes Tune? There is an ongoing “vibe shift” in many areas at this point in time by wildfire reporter Noah Haggerty.
| Muir sold the president on a uniquely American myth of the wilderness — that if we work hard enough to isolate our beautiful public lands from our influence, we can preserve a landscape essentially “untouched” by man. |
| According to virtually all of the ecologists, fire scientists and Indigenous fire practitioners I have spoken with over the last year, this myth created our growing wildfire crisis in California. |
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| Whereas prescribed burns typically follow a discrete cycle of plan, execute and move on, cultural burning is a much more subtle and dynamic practice — a “continuous relationship,” as Lucas Thomas put it. |
| But many old-school environmentalists still find the concept of “active stewardship” uncomfortable. It requires intentionally starting fires — a hard selling point for those who have seen what fire can do to communities across California. |
| Further, the idea of pristine wilderness is so pervasive that many of the champions of active stewardship I’ve spoken with still, in some sense, buy into it. For them, the intent of actively managing the land is to simply undo the damage the last few hundred years have done: Once we restore the land, we can then truly coexist as friendly but detached neighbors. |
| “It’s something that I hear a lot from my students at Cal Poly, too: We’re just trying to ‘fix’ the environment that we’re in right now to get it back to a place pre-colonization,” Lucas Thomas said. “That’s what we hold up to be the utmost goal in a lot of environmental conservation circles.” But in reality, “there’s no static state in the environment.” |
Does this remind anyone of Dan Botkin’s statements over the last 20 years or so?
As I will reveal, actions, policies, laws, and international agreements continue to be developed and enforced based on one or more of the twenty-five myths I will discuss in this book. In the past, when I have pointed out that the practices conform to a specific myth, my colleagues claim they never believed it—that it’s so out-of-date, it isn’t even worth discussing. This is so they can ignore the criticism and tell everybody else to do the same. Then, when nobody is looking, they continue to formulate their policies that are based on the myth, while others continue basic research that assumes and supports the myth. It is against this contradiction between claim and action that I write, hoping independent thinkers will see through the veil placed between claims and actions.”
From his book 25 Myths That Are Destroying the Environment.
Someday scholars will unravel all this and why so many were attached to this myth for so long. Anyway for those interested, our posts and comments on The Virtual Book Club that discussed Dan’s book The Moon and the Nautilus Shell are still available online.
On the subject of wildfire crew and Border Patrol, the comments made by the editor of Hotshot News are pretty typical for a native born American. Rather an unfocused, rambling discussion for over a half hour (I only listened to the second audio).
As a immigrant to the US I learned first hand the different immigrant status laws, rights, and what your not entitled based on your status.
I was a Green Card holder with Resident Alien status. Which everybody assured me was “just like being an American citizen, except you can’t vote”. They were wrong.
I am a naturalized citizen today. Which everybody assures me is “just like being a native born American, except you cannot be President of the United States”. They are wrong.
The gold standard is being a native-born American. A status I cannot achieve no matter what I do.
I was a Resident Alien at the age of 18 when I thought it was a good idea to get summer job with the Forest Service since I had just declared Forestry as my major.
Remember that statement on the SF-191. The one that says “Are you a citizen of the United States?”. I thought my Green Card would let me get a Federal job. Nope, not under almost all government employment conditions.
My mass mailing of SF-191’s resulted in about half coming back, saying we have no jobs. But the other half said “Dude, your not an American citizen. You can’t work for the Federal government”.
I suspect that was the issue with the HotShot crew member that was terminated. That is probably on HR for that mistake.
When I accepted my first career Federal position, I did have to provide my naturalization paper, which HR promptly photo-copied and placed in my OPF folder. A year later, I did get to point out to HR, that copying naturalization papers is a violation of Federal law. I got a dirty look and she ripped it out of OPF folder and threw into the round file!!
The Federal government is a wondrous entity full of mystery and mis-information. I applied for Social Security at age 62 and was denied based on my “status”. Social Security refused to accept the following as proof of US citizenship: My personal US passport, my naturalization papers, a photo-copy of my official US government passport for travel on official business, and records of my Federal pension.
They wanted my Venezuelan birth certificate, which would only prove I wasn’t a native born American!! Their records still showed me as a “foreign national”.
Contract employees with the Federal government are covered under different laws. Nobody asked me about my citizenship status when I worked on Federal contracts with a consulting firm.
The more important issue with the crew members is could they speak and understand English.
I ran into contract crews where no one except the crew supervisor could speak English. That is a REAL safety issues. Every team I worked on was very careful about about not putting contract crew into situations where quick decisive action and communication would be necessary.
BUT still it is a forest fire. At some point, when things go wrong they will be made worse by a lack of English speaking skills.
That is more of an issue than immigration status. And that is also an issue that the fire fighting agencies need to address on contract crew, before it becomes a major factor in a tragic incident.
Vladimir