Natural Resource Management

As a college student in the mid-1980s, Maria Fernandez-Gimenez worked as a seasonal interpreter for the National Park Service. That’s when she was first exposed to the great Western debate over public-lands ranching. She soon became familiar with environmentalists’ gripes about grazing impacts, but realized she knew nothing about the ranchers’ point of view. So she went to work on a distant cousin’s ranch in northwestern Colorado, where she spent the summer sleeping in a hayloft.

As many of you probably already heard, last week the Coastal Conservancy approved up to $6.5 million to complete studies and permitting for the Ballona Wetlands. If that price tag for planning is giving you sticker shock, I have two words: Army Corps. Actually more than two words – you see, one alternative proposes removing and relocating the levees that currently contain Ballona Creek’s flows from spreading over the wetlands. (You know, th

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What will cost $7 billion; will snake across the country from Alberta to the Gulf Coast, carrying 700,000 barrels a day of Canadian crude oil; and seems (at least from the animated assertions of Congressional Republicans and the American Petroleum Institute) a perfect solution for the flagging U.S. economy? Answer: TransCanada’s Keystone oil sands pipeline expansion project. Imagine a river of dirty oil running right through the country’s mid-section. Read the entire piece

“Consumers shouldn’t have to choose between tigers and toilet paper,” said Linda Kramme, Forest Program Manager of WWF. “Paseo is currently the fastest growing brand of toilet paper in the US, but as long as it costs the lives of tigers and other endangered species, consumers should look for other options, such as paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).” Read the WWF press release