Steve Wilent

“The Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service and the Fish & Wildlife Service manage more public lands than the Parks Service. And their staffs have also been cut.” (Typo: It’s Park Service)

As a subscriber, I can pass this link to the full text….

Questions linger over what this year’s layoffs and ranger protests at the National Park Service will mean for travelers, who made a record 331 million visits to park properties last year. Adding to the confusion is the federal court ruling on Thursday that the firings were done unlawfully and agencies must rehire their cut workers.

The National Park Service’s parks, sites and monuments, however, are not the only public lands affected by the seesawing reports of staffing levels and budget cutbacks brought on by the Trump administration’s goal to trim government spending.

The Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the three largest managers of public land in the United States, also keep public lands accessible. The B.L.M. alone covers 235 million acres, or nearly one-tenth of the country. If these agencies lose many of their workers, who will be around to handle the influx of visitors as summer travel season gears up?

A Jefferson Public Radio article. Text and audio.

The Northwest Forest Plan lays out how to manage millions of acres across Washington, Oregon and Northern California. But the scientists behind the plan say it hasn’t been very successful. It cost thousands of timber industry jobs and failed to protect vulnerable species. Now that the government is reconsidering it, the scientists reflect on what was considered the best option 31 years ago.

A friend set this…

https://mailchi.mp/rangelands.org/rangeflash-feb2025?e=9ae042e2d5

Here’s a portion of the post:

SRM is also prioritizing immediate resources to support those impacted. Here are several ways we are helping to connect and engage our membership:

• Job Boards: SRM is offering free job listings during this time to help members connect to new opportunities. We encourage you to explore openings on the SRM Job Board as well as postings from partner organizations compiled here at the bottom of this email.
• Facebook Live Session: Join us next week for a Facebook Live session with SRM leadership. We’ll provide an update on our advocacy work with agency leaders and discuss how SRM is engaging on behalf of members. Watch our Facebook & your email for details!
• Zoom Meeting for Member Input: Also next week, SRM in conjunction with our Young Professionals Conclave will host the 1st of several private Zoom “Townhalls” exclusively for members to share their experiences. These insights will help build a clearer picture of how staffing changes are impacting the management of rangelands and those who depend on them.

  Three-part Townhall series: 

  • TALK THE TALK: February 27th at 6PM MT
  • WALK THE WALK: Details coming soon!
  • SRM IS HERE: Details coming soon!

I often work or interact with US Forest Service and BLM folks, as an employee of a nonprofit contractor for both agencies, as a member of a Resource Advisory Committee, as a member of a community wildfire defense partnership group, as a forestry instructor (folks who have come to my classes to make presentations or who have led field tours, including a forest supervisor, a silviculturist, an FMO, a Hotshot crew superindentant, HR officer, etc.), and as a private citizen (recreation, firewood permits). I have complained in the past about the agencies’ decisions and policies, but not about the people. By and large, the vast majority of the individuals I’ve worked or interacted with are highly professional, well educated, and, in general, do very good work on the public’s behalf.

Please share your experiences here, and focus on the positive. The folks who have been fired, as well as those who still have their jobs, need and deserve support.

Updates on firings of scientists at USGS, USFWS, USFS, USDA, etc.

In my nearly 30 years as a part-time forestry/wildlife instructor at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, Oregon, one of the most valuable and interesting experiences was over the 15 years or so that our Natural Resources Technology program hosted young students from the Central American Students for Scholarship (CASS) and Scholarships for Education and Economic Development (SEED) programs, both funded by USAID. Each year about two dozen students from Central America, including Mexico and the Caribbean (Haiti, Puerto Rico), attended MHCC to earn degrees, t hen take their knowledge back to their countries and communities, and use them to solve real-world problems. These were young folks from rural areas. I remember one student who had never seen concrete until he went to the airport for the flight to the US. And another who asked about why flooding had in recent years damaged his family’s small farm fields — it was over-harvesting of timber in the mountains upstream and the lack of reforestation or any other work to keep soil from streams. The young man eventually started a tree seedling nursery and a planting program. Imagine going to a college in a foreign country when you speak little, if any, of the native language. That’s what these students did. They were warm, smart, and engaging young men and women, and I think I and MHCC’s Oregon students learned as much from them as they did from us.

Sad to see USAID dismantled.

First draft of a bill in the House, called the ‘‘Ending Presidential 5 Overreach on Public Lands Act’’.  The only provision:

‘‘The establishment or extension of a national monument may be undertaken only by express authorization of
Congress.’’

Note that it does not mention reducing the size of monuments.

I’m disgusted with the current Congress, but I think this bill is worth considering. The act has been in the news recently in Oregon. The Oregonian reported in December:

Gov. Tina Kotek just made one last plea to President Joe Biden to protect a stunning stretch of the state known as “Oregon’s Grand Canyon” before he leaves office.

Kotek wrote to Biden on Nov. 22, asking that he invoke the Antiquities Act of 1906 and designate more than 1 million acres of the 2.5 million acre area in southeast Oregon, including 15 miles of the Owyhee River, a national monument, a move that would limit ranching use and development. The letter is a follow-up to a similar request in August to protect the area if Congress failed to act.

This land deserves consideration as a monument, but such a designation is more properly one Congress ought to make. The Antiquities Act was never intended to be used in such a way.

(1) In a letter to the Trump administration sent Monday, 14 Democrats wrote that they were hearing from constituents that “the Bureau of Land Management has issued stop work orders” for projects that aim to reduce wildfire risk.
Wildfire mitigation projects caught up in Trump’s spending freeze https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5137016-trump-spending-freeze-wildfire-mitigation-projects/

From Jefferson Public Radio via Oregon Public Broadcasting: “Curry County considers using state of emergency to take over federal forests management.” Full text:

Curry County, Oregon, is considering taking over management of federal forests within its borders by applying a novel legal strategy used by a county in Arizona.

Curry County commissioners presented a draft proclamation on Wednesday to declare a state of emergency for the purpose of taking over management of public forests from federal authorities.

Those in support of the proposal say it is needed due to federal agencies’ failure to manage their forests for wildfire.

At the recent meeting, Commissioner Jay Trost claimed every major recent fire in the county occurred on state and federal land.

“The private timber industry is managing their land right,” said Trost.

The proclamation also claims that the forest mismanagement, along with state regulations for homeowners in high wildfire hazard zones, will impact county housing costs and supply.

“We’re not looking to be the owners of this federal land. The main idea is that we are going to be holding the agencies accountable to continue to do their jobs,” said Commissioner Patrick Hollinger.

Hollinger said the county isn’t trying to clear-cut forests or start strip mining. But, he said, their management would support industries like logging and biomass.

“[M]ultiple-use management, timber sales, mineral utilization and livestock grazing have been curtailed to the point of causing greatly diminished health on our forests and have created catastrophic health, safety, welfare and economic effects to Curry County,” according to the proclamation.

The proclamation alleges that federal authorities are not following legal requirements for cooperation and consultation with the county for public forest management.

Hollinger explained that the emergency declaration is modeled after a resolution used in Apache County, Arizona, to manage federal lands there. That Arizona resolution was championed by Doyel Shamley with Veritas Research Consulting who visited Curry County recently to discuss land management and the Constitution with commissioners.

The draft resolution wasn’t passed, but a public workshop on the proposal will be held next week.

This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.

This republished story is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit opb.org/partnerships.

Full title, from The Oregonian, Feb. 7, 2025, produced by Columbia Insight. “Columbia Insight’s mission is to inform and inspire readers with original, balanced journalism about environmental issues affecting the Columbia River Basin. We publish stories that highlight the connection between the environment and all the people who call this place home.”

Excerpt:

Internal documents show the Forest Service discussing — both internally and with the timber industry — how its various legal and policy “tools” and emergency authorities related to its wildfire prevention programs could be and have been harnessed to increase sales of board feet of timber.

The documents discuss how “barriers” to achieving these “timber targets,” including civil litigation from environmental organizations, might be overcome through “streamlining” environmental oversight by using legal exemptions to the National Environmental Policy Act.

For the Forest Service and the timber industry, “streamlining” means removing some NEPA red tape. It’s a necessary step, they argue, on the way to creating a win-win scenario that will help prevent wildfires, increase board feet of timber, and, in the process, grow rural timber jobs.

Critically, many of the preferred wildfire crisis tools also allow the agency and its partners to hold onto the timber revenue rather than send it to the U.S. Treasury.