In 2023 when megafires erupt across North America, and our national forests seem trapped in an escalating yet faltering war on wildfire, it might be good to look back …
Category: land management
Why Are Boreal Forests Burning
Americans in the eastern half of the country have been breathing thick smoke from fires in Canada this summer. And if June, the hottest month on record weren’t enough …
Downtown Santa Fe Could Flood Soon
Post-fire flooding can and will happen to Santa Fe if we get a large, high-severity fire burning the Santa Fe Watershed. It is not a question of if but when.
Biden Focuses on Western Fire Issues
The United States has a vast area of public forest that needs to burn. Wildfires chip away at these hundreds of millions of acres of decadent forest every year. …
Should We Prescribe Fire in Wilderness Areas?
New Mexico and southern Colorado have beautiful wilderness areas, designated, and protected under the federal Wilderness Act of 1964. We have the Pecos, the Weminuchi, the San Pedro Parks, the …
Fixing the Valles Caldera National Preserve
Today we have a guest editorial from a former National Park Service employee who talks about the management problems at the Valles Caldera. This matters because the VCNP is one …
What is a “Natural” Forest?
A friend told me he wanted to have the forests of northern New Mexico left “natural”. I heard the same from other people who are not happy about the Forest …
Time to Shut Down the Public Lands Livestock Industry
(photo of trespass cattle in the Valles Caldera National Preserve. Photo by Tom Ribe) We aren’t going to solve the climate crisis by doing a few easy things on the …
Trespass Cattle Damaging the Valles Caldera – Out of Control
But for the last few years, cattle from the Coyote District of the Santa Fe National Forest have spilled into the Valles Caldera through broken and cut fences. They have trampled the streams in the Valle Toledo and Valle San Antonio that volunteers and land managers spent years restoring from past livestock damage.
Environmental Protection Depends on a Functioning Democracy
Environmentalists and conservationists must be clear eyed and realistic about what is happening in the broader body politic right now. We cannot join the foggy complacency that seems to captivate …
