BLM to rip, tear, and burn huge area of public lands in southwest Idaho
http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2019/02/14/blm-to-rip-tear-and-burn-huge-area-of-public-lands-in-southwest-idaho/By Ralph Maughan On February 14, 2019
Newly approved vegetation “treatment” project is questionable, expensive
BOISE, Idaho — Today, the Bureau of Land Management approved a plan to log off or tear out native juniper trees from 617,000 acres of public land in Idaho. The agency will cut, shred, and burn juniper trees under the guise of improving sage-grouse habitat, despite science demonstrating that juniper woodlands occur naturally in the desert ecosystem and that removing or reducing livestock grazing would benefit sage-grouse far more than this expensive and ecologically damaging vegetation project.
The project, called the Bruneau Owyhee Sage-grouse Habitat Project (BOSH Project) was stalled last summer when Western Watersheds Project (WWP) raised serious objections to the methodology and utility of the effort. WWP pointed out that the agency hadn’t considered evidence that large-scale logging of juniper woodlands could spread invasive weeds, intensify wildfires, and degrade sagebrush habitats.
“We’re not fooled—this is not going to protect sage-grouse,” said Scott Lake, Idaho Director for Western Watersheds Project. “It’s a huge federal welfare program created to cover up the land abuse from livestock overgrazing that has continued to devastate sagebrush habitats in Idaho for decades. It’s clear that the agency would rather throw money at the symptoms of the problem than address the root cause of sage-grouse declines.”
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All for the sake of opening up grazing land for ranchers and their overpopulated herds of cattle. In the arid environment of the American West, the land never recovers and becomes eroded and overgrown with noxious weeds. Our forests provide important carbon sinks, but the Bureau of Land MisManagement couldn't care less. In my neck of the woods, the land that the BLM can't destroy by chaining and over-grazing is given over to the tender mercies of outfits like Halliburton and Kinder Morgan for fracking operations and drilling natural gas. Kinder Morgan in particular is responsible for the devastation of several National Monuments here - Hovenweep and Canyons of the Ancients. Not content with the many atrocities they've already committed, KM is now eyeing Mesa Verde National Park.
I get enraged every time I think about it all. 
