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As of August 19, 2020 there were 367 wildfires burning in California sparked by massive rounds of lightening strikes. One of the main areas of the state which are affected and still burning is the Sierra Nevada Mountain range that begins in the foothills and lies on a long strip that is on the East side of the State of California and then rises in elevation to 7,365 feet at Echo Summit on the way to Lake Tahoe and then finally drifts over into the State of Nevada. The Sierra Nevada Mountain range is a truly a marvel to see through all seasons while Lake Tahoe is the blue diamond of the world.
Through my years as a child and also a teen I spent many weeks fishing and swimming in these mountains and took more than one hike into Desolation Wilderness, a granite rock filled dream in an area filled with various lakes and steams that can only be seen by airplane or by hiking in.
After spending many years in these mountains since I was 8 years old, I never saw one major wildfire from 1950 on. But then fires began sweeping across America in the latter 80’s beginning with the Yellowstone Fire in 1988. While not a victim of climate change, the Yellowstone fire was birthed out of a new Forest Service policy billed as “experimental environmentalism” that allowed forest fires to burn which were started by lighting. With that, President Reagan abruptly canceled the policy yet many years later the Clinton administration picked it up again and began scaling back all of the logging in California and closed down the entrances to logging roads while also backfilling many of them with backhoes in order to “protect” the spotted owl and finally 1000 other species. Thus, not climate change but the inability to fight fires because of no access became the nightmare that has followed we the people ever since. With fires being a major factor in various locations of the West and also the Sierras, the American people are still not out of the woods when it comes to thinning the overgrown forests which will take decades to fix and protect from wildfires. Essentially, these infernos in California and other states were created though decades of forestry mismanagement that relied on theories while catering to environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club and many others.
The question may arise…why has it taken so long to fix those federal and state agencies that are responsible for so many wildfires every year that could have been prevented through simple management practices such as bringing in logging contractors to thin the second growth forests. It is because of past government corruption that was investigated years ago by a person that shared this true story. His dad was asked to investigate the many areas of forestry mismanagement in the State of California. He began at the very bottom and worked his way up to the top. He found corruption everywhere and when he finally got to the California State legislature and the Governor he even found corruption there as well and was asked to then stop investigating. Why was he asked to stop? It is obvious. Was there big lobby money going to various persons in the legislature who were connected in some way to either environmentalist organizations but also other players who fly under the radar?
I cannot believe that the smoke filled West which I am breathing at this very moment is still the result of Climate Change when all of the evidence points to forestry service corruption, negligence, decades of improper leadership and politics, but all the while, millions of acres burn regularly and hundreds of millions of dollars are extracted from taxpayers for something that could have been prevented.
Misinformation is alive and well in the late great State of California and other parts of the lost West.
See the second edition of HOUSE OF LORDS:
THIS TRAIN IS BOUND FOR GLORY and the chapter titled,
“The Rising Inferno.” Author Charles W. Frank
Available through Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Walmart
Call in number 917-388-4520
Press #1 immediately when Blogtalk answers to speak to the host!
All shows will be archived and available 24/7 so you can listen at your convenience.
Our show will open with Mathew Fogg, and Tom Devine, to discuss the new police reform bill. Marcel Reid will join in to update on the status of the 2020 Whistleblower’s Summit.
The women of Forestry are back! with Lesa Donnelly
The physical assault on Denice Rice by the Deputy Forest Supervisor was met with management’s failure to act on it, and then retaliation against Denice for reporting it by proposing she be suspended. Denise will also expose the exodus of people from fire on the Eldorado NF.
Shannon Reed is being harassed at her home by the Forestry Service.
The Coalition had a recent ZOOM meeting with Biden’s staff, while at the same time, The Women’s Working Group (WWG) never received any followup from the August 2019 meeting with the Chief and Weldon’s recent email based on complaints to the Secretary about it.
We will cover the failure of the agency to develop and establish a plan to address work place abuses. How Forestry Service does not believe Black Lives Matter because of the way they treat African American employees.
PRESS RELEASE: Rep. Maloney Demands Reinstatement of USFS Employee Fired in Retribution for Reporting Sexual Assault
WASHINGTON, DC – Following yesterday’s hearing in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee with United States Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen, Rep. Maloney requested a written response from Chief Christiansen on how the USFS will change and make better its system for handling workplace sexual assault and harassment.
In her letter, the Congresswoman points out that Shannon Reed was fired in retaliation to lodging a complaint of sexual harassment. The Congresswoman therefore requested in her letter to Chief Christiansen that “as you work to correct these problems at the US Forest Service, I strongly urge you to consider restoring Ms. Reed’s employment, if that is what she desires. It was made clear at the hearing today that Ms. Reed was forced out of her position unjustly and prematurely. Furthermore, having been a victim of both sexual harassment and the dysfunctional process after the fact, Ms. Reed is in a unique position to prevent other women from suffering the same abuse to which she was subjected.”
Once upon a time, some years ago I lived in Paradise, CA. which was a beautiful town. I remember that many times I walked the flume along the Feather River which had been built slightly above the river by the electric company. And since the Camp Fire just went through the town I wonder if that portion of the forest had also vanished. The fire is one of the saddest burns ever, displacing so many people. The property, much of what is private, was covered with thousands upon thousands of evergreen trees. Because of the devastation of the burn, there now needs to be a total reassessment of how forested public lands are managed and now we must forge ahead with a new vision of how lands and people must be protected from fire. The previous forestry blueprint laid the groundwork for seasonal fires to move dramatically and rapidly to where they would not only burn uncontrollably, they would also burn for months until the rains came. The infernos, then and now were still part of a policy that did not lend itself to proper preventative fire management which would include protective firebreaks and the thinning of trees, whether it be on public or private property.
Around the year 2010 I interviewed the Tahoe National Forest supervisor who has since retired and he then shared how the management of the federal forests was actually an “experiment.” So, there is no real science going on here, and with 300 million people in America at risk, previous policies which allowed fires to burn naturally from lightning strikes does not consider the risks involved and the safety of the people.More
Rep. Maloney Demands Reinstatement of USFS Employee Fired in Retribution for Reporting Sexual Assault
WASHINGTON, DC – Following yesterday’s hearing in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee with United States Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen, Rep. Maloney requested a written response from Chief Christiansen on how the USFS will change and make better its system for handling workplace sexual assault and harassment.
In her letter, the Congresswoman points out that Shannon Reed was fired in retaliation to lodging a complaint of sexual harassment. The Congresswoman therefore requested in her letter to Chief Christiansen that “as you work to correct these problems at the US Forest Service, I strongly urge you to consider restoring Ms. Reed’s employment, if that is what she desires. It was made clear at the hearing today that Ms. Reed was forced out of her position unjustly and prematurely. Furthermore, having been a victim of both sexual harassment and the dysfunctional process after the fact, Ms. Reed is in a unique position to prevent other women from suffering the same abuse to which she was subjected.”
Full text of the letter is below and a PDF can be found here.
Dear Chief Christiansen,
Thank you for your testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today about the systemic mistreatment of women at the U.S. Forest Service. As this hearing made clear, for many women, the US Forest Service has not been a safe place to work. Women have been sexually assaulted by their coworkers or superiors, and then retaliated against for reporting the assault. That is intolerable, and even more so because that it is happening at a federal agency. It is incumbent upon you to rectify this situation as quickly as possible.
At the hearing, you committed to providing me a written response when asked for your thoughts about the concerns raised by Ms. Reed and more than 50 other women in a letter to you dated Nov 9, 2018. A copy of that letter is enclosed. The letter details horrific allegations of harassment, retaliation and injustice at the US Forest Service and I am eager to see your response to it.
Additionally, as you work to correct these problems at the US Forest Service, I strongly urge you to consider restoring Ms. Reed’s employment, if that is what she desires. It was made clear at the hearing today that Ms. Reed was forced out of her position unjustly and prematurely. Furthermore, having been a victim of both sexual harassment and the dysfunctional process after the fact, Ms. Reed is in a unique position to prevent other women from suffering the same abuse to which she was subjected.
Your prompt attention to this matter is appreciated. Thank you.
Author,
Chuck Frank
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Only last week I passed through Yosemite National Park only to find, miles upon miles of blacked burned trees still standing, that were left over from the 2013 Rim Fire. The Rim Fire, like the “let it burn” Yellowstone Fire (1988) was a complete disaster, and I believe John Muir and President Teddy Roosevelt who together created Yosemite as America’s first National Park would be asking some tough questions of why preventative measures were never put into place to protect the most beautiful park in the world for future generations. The Rim fire, the third-largest blaze in recorded state history scorched more than 250,000 acres in and around Yosemite National Park.
“The fire also had a devastating environmental effect that biologists said probably transformed the forest for decades to come.”
The LA Tmes.
I was taken back while passing through the park and witnessed first hand the clean up “progress.” I was appalled by the lack of restoration, while at the same time I saw no conservation measures or tree planting even taking place, nor did I see “sustainable development” as an avenue to bring back the park to its natural form.
For the record, “sustainable development is a measure that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs…” Ref. International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) In this instance, the catastrophic Rim Fire event and aftermath does not even come close to meeting the criteria of sustainable development because, by their own admission, (IISD) wants to preserve the environment for future generations but this is not being done with regard to the forest service’s own flawed blueprint which adversely affects not only rural public lands but forested private properties as well. More
Tony Tooke stepped down from his role but disputes allegations against him.
The chief of the U.S. Forest Service, Tony Tooke, resigned on Wednesday after allegations of sexual harassment against him surfaced. According to PBS NewsHour, which first reported the accusations, the Forest Service hired an independent investigator to look into allegations that Tooke had improper relationships with subordinates before he became the head of the agency. Tooke has worked for the Forest Service for nearly 40 years.
In a letter to employees announcing his retirement, Tooke touted his dedication to the agency and deflected blame for his actions. “Each employee deserves a leader who can maintain the proper moral authority to steer the Forest Service along this important and challenging course,” Tooke wrote.
“In some of these news reports, you may have seen references to my own behavior in the past. This naturally raised questions about my record and prompted an investigation, which I requested and fully support, and with which I have cooperated,” Tooke wrote. “I have been forthright during the review, but I cannot combat every inaccuracy that is reported in the news media.”
Tooke did not specify what reports he labelled inaccurate.
“There’s so much work to do in the field of sexual harassment and elsewhere that it was the right thing for him to do to resign so the agency can get back to work,” said Sharon Friedman, the editor of the New Century of Forest Planning blog, a hub for discussion of public land issues.
Federal land management agencies have been slow to take action in recent years, as evidence of a widespread culture of harassment came to light. Agencies like the Forest Service and National Park Service, which have predominantly male workforces, have long standing issues of harassment and sexism and a history of not holding workers accused of harassment accountable. Reporting has found that agencies swept complaints under the rug by rotating employees and in some cases even promoted staff accused of sexual harassment.
We need to find a fix for the unhealthy populations of non-native, domestic cattle and sheep on public lands.
Imagine a proposal to introduce privately owned livestock onto the public lands of the American West. The owners of the privately owned livestock would successfully gain use of 229 million acres of public lands in the West. The livestock would be owned by a politically powerful industry that attracted a passionate following — people who love using public lands for their private profit so much that they influence the federal management of their privately owned animals so that they would rarely, if ever, be restricted by law. Some of them would be so passionate that they would take over and occupy government buildings for 41 days, and end up costing taxpayers at least $9 million, including $2.3 million on federal law enforcement and $1.7 million to replace damaged or stolen property.
The downside of these privately owned livestock would be that they destroy native vegetation, damage soils and stream banks, and contaminate waterways with fecal waste. After decades of livestock grazing, once-lush streams and riparian forests have been reduced to flat, dry wastelands; once-rich topsoil has been turned to dust, causing soil erosion, stream sedimentation and wholesale elimination of some aquatic habitats; overgrazing of native fire-carrying grasses has starved some western forests of fire, making them overly dense and prone to unnaturally severe fires. Not to mention that predators like the grizzly and Mexican gray wolf were driven extinct in southwestern ecosystems by “predator control” programs designed to protect the livestock industry. More
Public lands ranchers, in their effort to convince Forest Service and others that the wild horses need to be removed from the Sitgreaves National Forest, often fall back on their old propaganda spiel that the horses guard the waterholes and won’t let the cattle drink. So we uploaded this little video showing what really takes place at a waterhole on a regular basis when cattle and wild horses wind up at the same waterhole at the same time. Observe the drama unfold as you watch this action packed video of wild horses picking on poor little cows…see the terrified looks on the faces of the cattle as the horses plot against them! LOL
Whistleblowers is presented in coordination with Marcel Reid and the Whistleblowers Summit July 27-29, 2016 in Washington D.C.
Our Guests: Lesa Donnelly and Darlene Hall
Lesa Donnelly lives in Anderson, California. She is a California native.
She worked for USDA, Forest Service, in California (Region 5) in administrative and collateral fire positions from 1978 to 2002, retiring in 2002 under a settlement agreement.
Lesa currently works as a paralegal, representing Federal employees in civil rights matters ad federal employment matters. She and her brother, Robert Donnelly have represented employees before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Merit Systems Protection Board for twenty years. In 2002 they founded Donnelly and Donnelly Alternative Dispute Resolutions and have represented federal employees at the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Interior, the Postal Service, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Veterans Administration.
While working for the US Forest Service, Lesa filed a sex discrimination class action lawsuit in 1995 (Donnelly v. Glickman; Donnelly v. Veneman) on behalf of 6000 Forest Service women in California. The issues were sexual harassment, hostile work environment and reprisal. The federal court certified the class in 1996. Working with a team of attorneys, Lesa was part of the Settlement Negotiation Team. The Federal Court approved a Consent Decree in 2000 that provided injunctive relief and individual settlements to class members. The Federal Court appointed Lesa as a Monitor for oversight and implementation of the “Donnelly Settlement Agreement.” The Consent Decree ended in 2006.
Since 1998 Lesa has been Vice President of the USDA Coalition of Minority Employees and the Women’s Issues advisor to Coalition Presidents Ron Cotton and Lawrence Lucas. The Coalition addresses civil rights issues that affect USDA and other Federal employees by working with agency officials, congress, the White House, other civil rights organizations, and the media. Since 1998 Lesa has worked on civil rights policy issues with the House and Senate. She is considered an expert on issues of sexual harassment and work place violence in the Federal sector.
In 2008, Lesa testified before the House Committee on Government Reform on sexual harassment and workplace violence against federally employed women. She has been invited to the White House three times to discuss civil rights issues.
Lesa currently represents a class action complaint filed in August 2014, on behalf of USDA, Forest Service female firefighters in Region 5, California. There are seven class agents representing the north, central and southern forests of California.
Lesa has participated in civil rights panel discussions in conjunction with the NAAPC, The Coalition 4 Change, and the National Whistleblowers Conference, to name a few. She has given interviews to the New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, the Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, National Public Radio, Pacifica Radio, and other national/local radio and TV media.
Darlene Hall lives in Lancaster, California.
Born in Massachusetts, moved to California in 1980.
Employed by USDA – Forest Service, Angeles National Forest
Current Position: Forest Fire Aviation Officer
Darlene started working for the US Forest Service in 1980 at a Young Adult Conservation Corp. (YACC) on the Los Padres National Forest, Region 5, California. This was a Recreation Trails/Fire Crew. She quickly moved into being a crew supervisor and worked until 1984.
In spring of 1987 Darlene was asked to come back to the Forest Service and be the Youth Conservation Corp Crew Leader (YCC) for the program between the Los Padres National Forest and Santa Barbara County Schools. In August of that year after the program, she was asked if she would go into the Fire organization, and work on the Pine Canyon Engine and assist in the driving. (This was due to her experience working with heavy equipment when she lived on the East coast.)
Darlene has worked in Fire since 1987 – all in California, Region 5. Throughout her career, starting on the Los Padres National Forest she has endured Job Discrimination, Sexual Harassment, Bullying, Name Calling, Work Place Violence, and blatant Reprisal for reporting it.
In 1990 Darlene joined the Local Union as a Steward to help clean up blatant violations against the employees and their negotiated rights, and to address unequal treatment from management and others toward the employees. In 1995 she became the Local Union president and held that position until 2002 when she left the Los Padres National Forest. Darlene’s goal was to create an all-inclusive and positive working environment for all employees. This is still her goal.
While working for the US Forest Service, Darlene was one of the 6000 Forest Service active class members in the 1995 California class action lawsuit (Donnelly v. Glickman; Donnelly v. Veneman). Prior to this class action Darlene had filed an EEO complaint on sexual harassment and discrimination on hiring practice (non-selection) for only promoting male employees in fire. For example, a local Fire Management Officer told her that he would let her know when, where, and how she would promote when he felt like it. It was widely known that he only promoted men past the GS-5 level. Since the Donnelly class action (and Consent Decree) Darlene has filed numerous other EEO Complaints for Reprisal, discrimination, sexual harassment, and discriminatory hiring practices.
During Darlene’s 27+ years Fire career in the Forest Service – Region 5 she has endured dead, rotten, and road kill animals placed in her fire pack and on her driving seat on the engine. She has been called derogatory and profane names and comments, to her face and in front of male peers. She has been denied promotions while male peers received them. Often she was expected to perform those duties without the promotion. Numerous times Darlene was denied promotions for which she was clearly the higher qualified candidate, but males that were hired. She was held to a different process than male peers for fire qualification upgrades. She was denied developmental training that would enhance her career and make her competitive to male peers. Darlene was denied fire assignments she needed to stay current in fire qualifications, while only males were ordered to fill those positions. She was selected for a promotion but the Regional Human Resources Office delayed it, and after 7 months pulled and improperly disqualified her from the position. Darlene has endured wide spread defamation of her character, work ethic, knowledge and abilities due to male managers in the region and at the Regional Office purposely discrediting her.
In 2013, three months after her former male supervisor of six years retired, she received her first of two promotions. He had been providing potential employers false information about her performance when contacted as a reference check. During that time Darlene worked for him she applied for over 50 job promotions with no success until the supervisor retired.
On several occasions Darlene traveled to Washington, D.C. and talked personally with Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell about the discriminatory practices against female firefighters and others. She also met with other assigned personnel from the Department of Agriculture and Forest Service to discuss these matters. She met with members of the House and Senate. To date nothing has been done to clean up the widespread, blatant discrimination and reprisal.
Darlene is a lead Class Agent in the Region 5 Female Firefighter Class action complaint filed August 29, 2014.
Darlene has talked with news reporters and spoken on national radio stations regarding the civil rights violations against female firefighters.
Tate township has lost 75000 trees since the 2011 discovery of the Asian Longhorned Beetle in this small farming community. The USDA preferred treatment for this infestation is to remove the infested trees and treat and/or monitor the uninfested healthy trees. Instead, they insist on spending tax $$ and valuable time killing healthy trees that might have a beetle in them some day, and bypassing the known infested trees. Of those 75000 trees killed by the USDA, only 16000 of them actually had infestation. They have been in Worcester since 2008, and are hardly any closer to a declaration of eradication.
They will be here in S/W Ohio for ten years, and most likely still have not taken down enough trees to please themselves. They are convincing these property owners to allow full host removal (all 13 tree genera) by offering them deals that they can’t pass up, like additional culvert pipes into the fields, removal of fencerows, new driveways, total land clearing for further development, and anything else they can bargain to get property owners’ permission to kill the healthy trees.
Pictured above is a typical example of the USDA work. There were 24 known infested trees on this 69 acre parcel of land previously known as H– Woods. The USDA spent 3 months and hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to destroy 2400 trees on this property. They wasted this valuable time while thousands of known infested trees were bypassed on other properties. They could have accomplished the removal of those 24 known infested trees in less than 2 days, saving not only 2300 plus healthy trees, but also those hundreds of thousands of tax dollars that were spent stretching this abomination into a 3 month ordeal.
There are dozens of other similar examples. The current USDA focus on destroying healthy trees while ignoring infested trees needs to stop.
Report analyzes taxpayer bailout of U.S. public lands ranching [Part II of a series on ranchers]
by Vickery Eckhoff
Public lands livestock operators each cost taxpayers nearly a quarter of a million dollars in subsidies over the last decade. (AP Photo/Las Vegas Review-Journal, John Locher)
Five hundred million dollars[1]. That’s what 21,000[2] ranchers who graze their livestock on America’s iconic western rangelands are estimated to have cost US taxpayers in 2014 — and every year for the past decade. This averages out to an annual taxpayer subsidy of $23,809 per rancher — approximately a quarter of a million dollars each since 2005. So why does this small subset, representing just 2.7% of US livestock producers, protest the “welfare rancher” label?
The public lands grazing program is welfare.
That $23,809 — and it’s a lowball figure — is a form of public assistance similar to other welfare programs. The only difference is, it doesn’t arrive as a check in the mail. It instead represents a loss covered by taxpayers: the very large difference between what public lands ranchers pay in fees to the US government and what public lands grazing costs taxpayers every year. But it’s still a subsidy, as a newly updated economic analysis, Costs and Consequences: The Real Price of Livestock Grazing on America’s Public Lands, makes clear. And the recipients aren’t low income; a large number are millionaires and some are billionaires and multi-billion dollar corporations. Cattle barons, if you will.
Public lands ranching costs western ecosystems, wildlife and taxpayers.
“Several federal agencies permit livestock grazing on public lands in the United States, the largest being the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Department of Agriculture’s United States Forest Service (USFS).
The vast majority of livestock grazing on BLM and USFS rangelands occurs in the 11 western states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
Rangelands are non-irrigated and generally have vegetation that consists mostly of grasses, herbs and/or shrubs. They are different from pastureland, which may periodically be planted, fertilized, mowed or irrigated.”
The Southwest is the area where Canadian and Mexican wolves mostly likely will meet and crossbreed. According to USFWS documents, the Mexican wolf’s inbreeding contributes to small litter sizes and low pup-survival rates. Cross-breeding with the non-native Canadian wolves would “solve” the Mexican wolf’s gene pool problem. Call it a “nonessential experimental Mexican wolf subspecies.” Or call it what it is—a bigger crossbred “Mexican” gray wolf.
Matt Cronin, a University of Alaska, Fairbanks and research professor of animal genetics, addressed USFWS officials at their Public Hearing Concerning Mexican Wolves in Arizona on December 3, 2013. He told the panel:
“. . . Mexican wolves went through a very large bottleneck. They don’t represent the original population. They came from a small Canis population. Assessing the subspecies is somewhat futile in that respect.
“. . . subspecies, in general, are basically a subjective category. They are not a hard scientifically blank category.
“. . . this phenomenon of naming species and subspecies has been termed by the broad scientific community as inflation, splitting things into groups with the intent of granting conservation, again. The entire scientific community outside of the wildlife is recognizing this. And it’s very important that we realize that subspecies as a scientific category is subjective. It’s not definitive. The scientific community agrees on it.
“ . . . I suggest you use the entire body of science and the recent discrediting of subspecies that have been listed and reconsider the science. . .” More
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is delisting and relinquishing management of gray wolves back to state wildlife officials while simultaneously proposing “new rules”1 to “save” the Mexican gray wolf. The proposals include:
► Keeping the Mexican gray wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) on the endangered list as a subspecies. A conundrum. The Mexican wolf is a gray wolf that breeds with other gray wolves and is not a subspecies. A grizzly and a black bear are subspecies. A horse and donkey are subspecies that produce sterile offspring.
►Issuing permits to private landowners to kill wolves killing livestock on their property based on the number of Mexican gray wolves that exist in the wild, not immediate or continuing wolf depredations.
►Handling Mexican wolves killing livestock on private lands are not included in the USFWS’s new ‘problem’ wolf proposals. Mexican wolves killing livestock on private land are problem wolves. More
Editor’s note: The slaughter of wild horses and burros is expanded to include bison, wolves, sandhill cranes, and any other wild animal or bird that might get in the way of fracking and drilling. While government agencies claim they are there to protect the animals from public abuse, the fact is, they kill intentionally, anything that walks or breathes. The decimation of numerous wildlife species is being perpetrated by federal and state agencies. Below is the video of one man who stood between the slaughter of the bison from Yellowstone, and the government agents who were salivating at the thought of the killing field that lay on the other side.
Tonight’s guest is R.T. Fitch, President of Wild Horse Freedom Federation and author of the much acclaimed book “Straight from the Horse’s Heart: A Spiritual Ride through Love, Loss and Hope.” R.T. also runs the blog “Straight from the Horse’s Heart,” which posts current news and information and gives a comprehensive education to the public on issues in connection with wild horses & burros, public lands and the activities of the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service.
Wild Horse Wednesdays is co-hosted by Debbie Coffey, Director of Wild Horse Affairs at Wild Horse Freedom Federation and Marti Oakley, PPJ Gazette. This series of radio shows on Wednesday nights will feature upcoming guests including Elizabeth Lovegrove of Wild Horses Kimberly in Australia and Ginger Kathrens of The Cloud Foundation. _______________________________________________________________________________ To contact us: ppj1@hush.com, or call 320-281-0585
LISTEN TO ARCHIVED WILD HORSE WEDNESDAYS SHOWS:
11/6/13 – John Holland, President of Equine Welfare Alliance discussing the latest in horse slaughter issues. Click HERE.
11/13/13 – Marjorie Farabee, Director of Wild Burro Affairs for Wild Horse Freedom Federation and founder of Wild Burro Protection League (under Todd Mission Rescue) and Carl Mrozak, videographer (Eagle Eye Media), with work appearing on CBS, PBS, the Discovery Channel, the Weather Channel and other networks. Click HERE.
11/20/13 – Simone Netherlands, Natural Horsemanship Trainer, founder of respect 4 horses Organization, and director & producer of the documentary “America’s Wild Horses.” Listen HERE.
While we have been diverted with the governments plan to disarm us, that fine collection of corporatists, new world order advocates and United Nations servants have been busy using the federal register to implement United Nations Bio-regions within the United States. While these land and resource thefts will be accompanied by some fluffy scripts about how they are saving the planet for future generations and how the federal government and the United Nations are the only ones able and willing to protect these vast resource rich areas, the fact is, the plans they have for these areas are have nothing to do with preservation or protection. This is all about money and stealing from the states and their communities any and all resources that can be sold to corporations for massive profits.
Operating under the direction of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Forestry Service has begun to establish bio-regions in accordance with United Nations demands, focused now on vast areas of forests in the Pacific Southwest. These are forests that the government has made off-limits to local timber industry’s except for favored contractors, including timber stands located on private property, decimating many local communities and economies. It has also initiated the closing off of public access roads.
All of this was done supposedly to protect natural resources and prevent exploitation of the forests. Yet if you read the Federal Land Management policy, you can clearly see that preserving the forests or the land is not even an issue. This is land and resource theft from the states themselves, to profit a federally created and unlawful agency that has no real authority to do any of the things it does do.
Exchanges permit great flexibility to trade anything that is an interest in real property. The Forest Service can trade land, timber, oil, gas, minerals, road rights-of-way, scenic easements or development rights, buildings, power line rights-of-way, and/or other real property rights, including leasehold interests. More
About every 15-20 years, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rewrites a Resource Management Plan for areas that include not only rural areas, but big cities like Los Angeles.
Then, for the next 15-20 years, every proposed project, plan and Environmental Assessment is based on this Resource Management Plan (RMP).
HOW BLM CLOSES PUBLIC ROADS
With these RMPs, the BLM (along with the Forest Service) has ramped up limiting & closing off public access to public roads and lands. In RMPs (Route of Travel Designations), the BLM designates publicroads as “open,” “limited use” or “closed” to Off-Highway Vehicles (OHVs). This can include 4 wheel drive pickup trucks, not just All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) and dirt bikes. Public lands can also be designated as “open,” “limited” or “closed.” Designations can change from “limited” to “closed.”
For instance, at the Tavaputs Plateau in Utah, the BLM has been trying to close roads that lead to some of the most popular routes and scenic vistas in that county. It’s also the area where Bill Barrett Corp. is conducting a massive natural gas field development The BLM intends to close the roads for 30 years.
If these road closures are really about protecting habitat, then how can BLM possibly justify how your 4 wheel drive truck could cause more harm to the environment than a massive extraction project that has about 488 well pads (with 20 well pads in Wilderness Study Areas and 218 well pads in areas with Wilderness Characteristics), 164 miles of new roads, 3,390 acres of initial disturbance (before reclamation) and 1,705 acres of long term disturbance?
RMPs used to be about 160 pages or less. Now, the new RMPs can be over a thousand pages (with an additional CD of Route of Travel Inventory Maps). The old RMPs had straightforward topics in the table of contents like land use allocations, livestock grazing, land tenure adjustments, oil and gas lease stipulations, and areas of critical environmental concern. More
To begin with, the National Association of Conservation Districts (the “mother” of all Conservation Districts) is partnering in a way that promotes IUCN and ICLEI USA, thus pushing Agenda 21, the UN’s action plan that will do away with your private property rights and Constitutional rights.
The Bureau of Land Management’s Wild Horse & Burro Advisory Board meeting (April 2012), was the first meeting including Sec. of Interior Ken Salazar’s new appointee, Callie Hendrickson. Hendrickson has served as an Executive Board member of the National Association of Conservation Districts, and works for the White River and Douglas Creek Conservation District in Colorado.
Several other representatives from state Associations of Conservation Districts were also at this meeting.
They looked like real Americans in their cowboy hats, but the influence they peddled was Agenda 21. Agenda 21 was disguised behind their words about rangeland health and pushing for the removal of, and for the unlimited sale (slaughter) of wild horses.
They were in Reno gambling with your Constitutional rights.
The National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD)
Mr. Chris Freeman was at this meeting representing the National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD). NACD is actively partnering with the Forest Service, which is a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). On the IUCN website, it states: “IUCN links its Mission to the paramount goals of the international community on environment and sustainable development, in particular Agenda 21…”
The objective of Agenda 21 is “communally and collectively owned and managed land.”
Neil Brennan and Gary Moyer, who work with Callie Hendrickson, were at the meeting representing the White River Conservation District in Colorado and pushing for the removal of wild horses. Gary Moyer is also listed as the Colorado Association of Conservation Districts’ representative to the NACD.
NACD publishes a newsletter “Forestry Notes,” funded by the Forest Service that contains stories supporting things like the Sustainable Urban Forestry Coalition, whose membership includes The Nature Conservancy and the International City/County Management Association. I’m all for more trees in cities, but let’s take a closer look at this.
The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy (TNC), is also a member of IUCN and participates in and promotes many UN programs, which ALL promote Agenda 21. TNC is a “non-profit” that pulled in over $925 million in just one year (2010 tax form). Their contractors include Tetra Tech, the huge environmental company that prepares Resource Management Plans and Environmental Assessments for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The public is led to believe that The Nature Conservancy buys land with private money and sets up nature reserves to help the environment. More
“Mack cited a Supreme Court case in which Justice Scalia wrote a ruling for the majority that stated “The Federal Government may not compel the states to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program.”
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Where?
COLORADO – (3/27/11, Denverpost.com)
“Montezuma County Sheriff Dennis Spruell is waiting for his conscience to tell him: Should he start handing out tickets this week to U.S. Forest Service agents who are closing backcountry roads? Should he cut locks on gates that shut off access to public lands?
The fact that a county sheriff is considering such actions against the federal government is a good indication that more than a run-of-the-mill dustup over road and trail closures on public lands is erupting in the far southwest corner of the state…
In recent weeks, protesters have marched on the local Forest Service and BLM office located between Cortez and Dolores, calling Forest Service officials “government pukes.”
OREGON – (3/2/11, by Sara Foster, NewsWithViews.com) “Josephine County, Oregon -When Gil Gilbertson was sworn in as Sheriff of Josephine County, a rural county in southwest Oregon, in 2007, he had 30 years of law enforcement experience behind him, both in the United States and with various military missions overseas. More
The Forestry Service works hand in hand with the Bureau of Land Management. All over the western states both agencies are working to industrialize actual monument areas and areas seized by theft for industrailized purposes; in this case the Sequoia Forest. More
The PPJ Gazette 