Category: In Depth

July 20, 2021 — The 2020 wildfire season set a record for acres burned in the U.S. since 1983, and fire season started early for 2021 with drought conditions continuing across most of the country. At this writing, … More

March 22, 2021 — In December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) proposed listing whitebark pine (pinus albicaulisis) as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), nearly 30 years after protections were first proposed. Native to the … More

July 31, 2020 — In February 2019, ecologist Thomas Crowther declared that planting 1.2 trillion trees would cancel out the last 10 years of carbon dioxide emissions and help mitigate climate change. Crowther based his statement on the … More

October 8, 2018 — They are wilderness areas without a capital “W.” They are “inventoried roadless areas,” governed by a rule adopted in the waning days of the Clinton administration designed to preserve the last remaining stretches of … More

July 10, 2018 — President Trump today pardoned two Oregon ranchers whose imprisonment sparked the 2016 armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven, were sentenced to a mandatory minimum prison term … More

May 22, 2018 — On June 20, 2010, someone (authorities never found the culprit) left a campfire unattended in the forested mountains just north of Flagstaff, Arizona. The day was sunny and warm, with a stiff afternoon wind … More

October 3, 2017 — The first months of the Trump administration brought plenty of setbacks for conservationists. There was Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s proposal to scale back national monument designations. A budget plan calling for double-digit cuts to … More

September 15, 2017 — Global SuperTanker Services, LLC, a subsidiary of a Connecticut equities firm, says it has what it takes to put out wildfires. The company owns the largest firefighting aircraft on the planet, a retrofitted Boeing … More

June 5, 2017 — In the waning days of 1973, Richard Nixon signed into law the Endangered Species Act. It was anything but a controversial step for the embattled president, who a few months later would resign his … More