• Forests

Wildfires Leave Local Communities Balancing Safety with Business

• climate change
• National Forests
• wildfire

by Amy Lupica, ODP Staff Writer Unprecedented wildfires should cause alarm everywhere, but the fires are burning up more than trees for some communities. They’re burning up a way of life. Each year, National Forests are closing earlier and earlier in the season, leaving communities that rely on tourism and the draw of nature high and dry. […]

• Politics

Governor Bullock Rolls Out A Plan for Public Lands

• climate change
• mining
• National Forests
• National Parks
• Public Lands
• reclamation

Last Friday, in the midst of a snowstorm that dumped up to four feet of snow in some areas of Montana, Governor Steve Bullock announced the second major policy proposal of his Presidential campaign, a policy on public lands management and ownership.  Bullock’s plan has three main principles:  (1) tackling climate change; (2) honoring our heritage of public land ownership by restoring and increasing public lands; and (3) making sure that all Americans get a fair shot at enjoying the opportunities that public lands provide.

Why This Matters:  As a western governor whose state consists of some of the nation’s most beloved and beautiful national parks, Bullock is in a good position to speak to the issue of whether the federal government should own and should conserve (rather than develop) more land.

• Land

FDR’s New Deal Was Green

• CCC
• conservation
• Dust Bowl
• FDR
• floods
• GND
• Green New Deal
• Hurricanes
• National Forests
• National Parks
• soil erosion
• the New Deal
• trails

As we contemplate the sweeping Green New Deal resolution recently introduced, which promises that “public lands, waters, and oceans are protected” and that all Americans have “access to nature,” we should look back at the very green legacy of  FDR’s New Deal.  As part of historic first 100 days legislation, Roosevelt proposed the Emergency Conservation Work (EWC) Act, more commonly known as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to put to work unemployed young men in a peacetime “army” and “send them into battle” against destruction and erosion of our country’s natural resources.