Free Republic

The nation's drug czar chopped down marijuana plants growing deep inside the Sequoia National Forest in Tulare County on Tuesday. John Walters.... came to California to bring attention to a new locally coordinated, but partly federally funded, marijuana eradication program to raid marijuana gardens planted on public lands by Mexican drug cartels. U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott joined Walters in a helicopter ride to a remote location to remove plants, then both spoke at a news conference in Visalia. Scott said those arrested for growing 1,000 or more marijuana plants on public lands face minimum 10-year terms. Mexican drug cartels are...

For Kiley Miller and John Rzeczycki, owners of 160 acres of wild desert outside Moab, Utah, Easter brings jeeps. Hummers, too, and modified pickups, and stripped-down rock crawlers—by the tens of thousands they descend on Moab for the annual Easter Jeep Safari, one of the nation's largest off-road-vehicle events. The jeeps whine through gears on a windswept uplift named Black Ridge near the couple's property, leaving a spoor of beer cans and brake fluid. Once, a group of jeepers left a message on one of the Private Property signs Miller and Rzeczyckihad put up—a noose, as carefully knotted as a...

Days ago, in a proposal unnoticed by the media, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced the largest land grab since President Clinton designated massive national monuments across the West. When Clinton decreed 1.9 million acres of federal land in Utah as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to kill a vast underground coal mine that would have employed 1,000 locals in the most economically depressed region of southern Utah, generated $20 million in annual revenue, and produced environmentally - compliant coal for generating electricity, there were protests across the West. When the Bush Administration published its plans, there was...

Wyoming may soon get own conservation corps By Jennifer Frazer rep8@wyomingnews.com Published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle CHEYENNE - The Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s was famous for its use of the nation's youth to rejuvenate forests and public lands. Soon Wyoming may have a modern-day version of the corps, which would join corps in Utah, Montana and Colorado. The corps in all three of those states have worked in Wyoming in the past. The Wyoming Conservation Corps would provide youth 18-24 with an opportunity to learn skills and work with government agencies while improving Wyoming's public lands. The project...

ORGAN PIPE CACTUS NATIONAL MONUMENT — While politicians in Phoenix and Congress talk about building a tall fence along Arizona's border with Mexico, workers here are completing a shorter and more modest obstacle. This low-slung vehicle barrier will do nothing to stop people from walking into Southern Arizona illegally. But on public lands where the obstacles are popping up, officials say the devices have succeeded in stopping the so-called drive-throughs that can imperil law enforcement and scar the thin-skinned desert for decades. Homeland Security and other officials have disclosed plans to build similar barriers along most of the border between...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 29, 2005 Conservation Groups File Lawsuit to Protect National Parks From Harmful Off-Road Vehicle Use: Survey of Parks Reveals Extensive Damage from Off-Road Vehicles, Lack of Funding for Enforcement WASHINGTON, D.C. - Bluewater Network, a division of Friends of the Earth; the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA); and Wildlands CPR today filed a lawsuit against the National Park Service and theDepartment of Interior in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., alleging that those agencies have failed in numerous ways to protect the National Park System against the extensive damage caused by all-terrain vehicles and other off-road...

WASHINGTON — Federal agencies spend at least $123 million a year to keep public lands open to livestock grazing, according to a government report that environmentalists say bolsters their argument that grazing should be limited. "If we are going to allow grazing on our public lands, the very least we should be doing is we should be recovering the costs," said Greta Anderson, a Tucson, Ariz., botanist and the range restoration campaign coordinator for the Center for Biological Diversity. Jim Hughes, deputy director of the Bureau of Land Management -- which, with the Forest Service, manages 98 percent of grazing...

"GMUG" stands for the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests. Combined, they encompass some 2.9 million acres of National Forest lands in Central and Western Colorado. These three forests are home to some of the most outstanding recreational opportunity in the West. Right now, the forest's are revising their Forest Plans. These management plans provide broad guidance on what activities may or may not occur on these lands. The BlueRibbon Coalition (BRC), a national recreation advocacy group that champions recreational access and responsible use of public and private lands, is growing increasingly concerned about the influence several anti-access groups...

Dear ..., Thank you for taking the time to write to me, and I agree that often, business and politics do not mix. However, in this particular case, my decision to support John Kerry is a business decision. The bottom line is that Western Spirit needs undeveloped public land to run our trips. The Bush administration is currently pushing for oil and gas development on our public lands at an unprecedented rate. While I agree with the need for us to be less dependent on foreign oil, there is not enough oil in the US to meet our longterm needs---even...

Originally published June 15,2001 THE GREAT GOLD HEISTThe Desert Wilderness Protection Act by Karen Lee Bixman Published in: Media ByPass Magazine (1-800-4-bypass) Senator Diane Feinstein: "The Modern Jesse James" Congress should be convening a criminal investigation. On October 8, 1994, the biggest gold heist in history occurred, but this theft lacked the melodrama of a Jesse James' holdup or the excitement of a Brink's truck robbery. Nary a word was reported by the media even though this thievery was committed in the light of day. The citizens that were being robbed tried to cry out for help but the lawmen...

<p>In a frontal assault on one of the most contentious federal subsidies in the West, eight environmental groups sued the U.S. Forest Service on Wednesday for failing to complete a plan in the mid-1990s to increase fees that ranchers pay to graze livestock on public lands.</p>

It´s only June, the hot, dry months of summer are ahead, and according to the Washington Post, "there are six major fires in Colorado. Fires are also burning out of control in California, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona, where a large and dangerous fire in the tinder-dry forests of the eastern part of the state raced through a hastily abandoned town today, chasing firefighters off the line and prompting an evacuation warning for thousands of residents." MSNBC reported "About 393,000 acres have been consumed in eastern Arizona by two fires — the Chedesky fire and the larger Rodeo fire...

JOHN DAY, Or. Frustration is boiling over in Eastern Oregon's Grant County as logging that has always been the rural county's lifeblood slips away, taking jobs and families with it. Locals are mounting Oregon's own brand of Sagebrush Rebellion, challenging federal management of surrounding national forests. They know it could spark the kind of angry confrontation that has flared where other Western counties have attempted to take control of public land. But they say Grant County has no choice. "For us, we have nothing more to lose," says Herb Brusman, a hunting guide and former federal trapper. "It's nothing but...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Second conviction includes 30 days in halfway house RENO -- A Nevada rancher convicted twice for trespassing cattle on national forest land was sentenced Monday to a halfway house for 30 days and to house arrest for three months. Cliff Gardner, 63, of Ruby Valley, also was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine and placed on probation for a year for his latest conviction in an 8-year feud with the Forest Service over livestock grazing regulations. After his release from the Reno halfway house, which a federal prosecutor described as a...