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The U.S. Forest Service is being criticized by public lands users locally and nationwide for the lack of public process involved in its Recreational Site Facilities Master Planning (RSFMP) initiative. The Forest Services’ secretive approach to the program has left the public confused and suspicious.

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Among the streams nominated for protection are the Pecos and Gallinas rivers and numerous of their tributaries, which provide abundant habitat for fish and wildlife and a variety of recreational opportunities. The Pecos Wilderness Area alone receives 48,000 site visits annually for a contribution of $2.6 million to the State. The rivers not only provide municipal drinking water but also vital water for traditional agriculture downstream. In total, the nomination calls for the protection of more than 100 miles of waterway.

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If you grew up in Pennsylvania as I did, you understood that just about everything was owned by somebody, and if you wanted to walk or hunt somewhere, you had to get permission. Something like 13 percent of Pennsylvania is public land; where I grew up none of it was.
I read somewhere that in Texas only 4 percent of its land is public so it must be difficult for someone from there to have an appreciation for public land when they see so little of it. It is hard for many people to understand that more than 50 percent of what they see in Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and other states of the West is Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management land. They don’t know what it is like to just walk into the mountains without permission.

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The conference reminded me how people of different cultural backgrounds can share common dreams and goals. Participants viewed the documentary “Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action” before the environmental panel discussion, which was led by international educator Henrietta Mann.

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A federal judge this week sent applications to drill for oil and gas beneath the Big Thicket National Preserve back to the National Park Service for further environmental assessments.

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It’s just a matter of time before as many as 15,000 crows blacken the skies of downtown Riverton, much like they did last winter before the citizenry and police went on a legal shooting rampage and killed more than 4,000 of the birds.

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ST. ANTHONY, Idaho (AP) — Authorities have decided not to prosecute a hunter who shot an elk inside a private eastern Idaho hunting reserve owned by Rex Rammell.

Meanwhile, Rammell has been banned from Yellowstone National Park for a year for giving park rangers a fake name when they asked him for ID.

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Perhaps more striking is what’s missing. There is no sound of airplane traffic, campground generators or overchatty hikers — all sounds that Hempton says are disturbing the peace at national parks across the country.

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“It is illegal for us to let a road erode away,” said Beard, “If we can’t manage it, if it is unnecessary, or if endangers soils, wildlife or watershed, it will be closed … unless the public can make a solid argument as to why it should stay open.”

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BOISE, Idaho — The U.S. Forest Service has dismissed an objection from an environmental group that sought to delay the logging of thousands of trees uprooted by a rare tornado in a remote stretch of central Idaho.