Panel offers ways to ease conservation easement woes More scrutiny of real estate appraisers, sharing of information between state agencies, and using expert review panels might help curb problems occurring under Colorado's nationally recognized conservation easement program, according to a new task force. Land conservation groups have used the easements widely to protect scenic Colorado landscapes and ranches that would otherwise be sold for development. But the practice has come under fire by the Internal Revenue Service, the Colorado Department of Revenue, and, most recently, the Colorado Division of Real Estate. State and federal tax credits and deductions can be claimed by landowners and others who agree to donate or sell their lands for conservation easement purposes. At issue is whether appraisers are overvaluing land in conservation deals, whether deals are protecting appropriate lands and whether the state and federal governments have handed over too much money in tax benefits....
Dems drop drilling restrictions from energy bill Provisions to more closely regulate oil and gas drilling on federal lands have been stripped out of the energy bill that the House will vote on today. The measures would have raised the fee for permits to drill on public lands, given surface owners more rights on so-called "split estates," boosted the dollar amount of bonds for development on public lands and increased water regulations for energy developers. The original House-passed energy bill included the provisions, but the Senate version did not. Senate Democratic leaders pushed to have them removed from the final compromise in hope of securing support for the bill from Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., according to David Alberswerth of The Wilderness Society. Domenici, the top Republican on the Senate Energy Committee, has also vowed to fight the bill's requirement that utilities generate 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. The oil and gas industry also lobbied vigorously against the drilling provisions....
Colo. Drilling Rules Nixed From Bill Restrictions on developing oil shale and drilling for gas on western Colorado's Roan Plateau have been removed from a federal energy bill, drawing praise from industry officials and vows by Democratic lawmakers to keep the measures alive. Those provisions and others dealing with management of oil and gas development on public lands were dumped from a compromise energy bill announced by House Democrats over the weekend. The House was expected to vote on the bill this week. While happy with measures promoting vehicle fuel economy, biofuels and renewable energy, Rep. Mark Udall and Sen. Ken Salazar, both Colorado Democrats, expressed disappointment Wednesday that the measures on the Roan Plateau and oil shale didn't make it....
US House OKs Major Energy Efficiency, Renewable, Biofuels Bill Despite a veto threat from the White House, the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday passed a comprehensive energy bill that will fundamentally change the way the country is fueled, impacting nearly every sector in the industry. The 1,055-page Energy Independence and Security Act - which passed on a 235 to 181 vote - will now head to the Senate for approval though its chances in that chamber are less sure as several controversial measures may mean it won't be able to muster enough votes. The bill would raise fuel economy standards for the first time in three decades to 35 miles per gallon by 2020; establish a nationwide renewable energy mandate; and boost biofuel production to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022. Under a $21 billion tax provision, more than $13 billion in tax breaks to oil companies would be repealed to help fund renewable energy, biofuels and energy efficiency. The two items that are likely to face the biggest opposition in the Senate are the renewable mandate and tax titles in the bill. The Renewable Electricity Standard would establish a mandate for utilities to raise the portion of power that comes from renewable energy sources such as wind, geothermal, biowastes and solar to 15% by 2022....
Group rips cash-strapped Forest Service for purchasing Tasers The U.S. Forest Service recently bought $600,000 worth of Tasers with no training program or written explanation for why it needed them, an organization of state and federal employees charged Tuesday. According to documents acquired by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and posted on its Web site, the Forest Service acquired 700 of the electronic control devices for $857 each from a subsidiary of Taser International, enough to arm each of the agency's law enforcement officers. The group criticized the September purchase, saying its recent Freedom of Information Act request shows the agency lacks a written justification for buying the devices and does not have rules governing their use. The weapons, which use electric currents to subdue violent or belligerent people, have become controversial in recent months because of widely publicized Taser-related deaths in Canada and the United States. Agencies with surplus funds often buy equipment near the year's end, fearing they will otherwise face a budget cut. The purchase comes as the Forest Service faces a large deficit because of a heavy fire season, causing it to cut back activities....
Environmentalists worry border fence-building will threaten Arizona river Before sealing off the border became the priority it is today, a visitor would have gotten a different picture of this area where the last free-flowing river in the Southwest trickles between tree-lined banks. The San Pedro River still moves lazily northward below a canopy of willows and cottonwoods. But on a recent day, a bulldozer mounding dirt only 50 yards from its elevated eastern bank in preparation for the advance of a border fence presented a stark contrast to its serenity. The federal government contends the fence is needed to stem the flow of illegal immigrants and drug-runners through the area. Environmentalists say it may slow some illegal crossers but will have a devastating impact on wildlife and the environment in the riparian area that encompasses the river. Mountain lions, jaguars, white-tailed deer, black bears and some ground birds will be among wildlife especially affected by the fence, which is just some 400 yards from the river at this point, said Matt Clark, a spokesman for Defenders of Wildlife....
Companies squeeze power from California deserts Vincent Signorotti's power plant sits on the edge of the Salton Sea, surrounded by irrigated cropland in the middle of a scorched desert. Beyond the lake, beyond the patch of green fields, the desert seems empty. But it holds all the energy Signorotti's plant will ever need -energy that could play a key role in California's fight against global warming. The plant runs on hot water, pumped from deep underground and flashed into steam to turn turbines. With 10 generators near the lakeshore, the facility produces enough electricity for 255,000 homes, and the company that owns it wants to expand. Other companies are drilling nearby, hoping to build their own geothermal plants. A renewable-energy boom is under way in the Southern California desert. The region's open, empty spaces have room for big projects -- such as vast solar energy farms -- that can generate energy on a grand scale while producing few, if any, greenhouse gases. Dozens of new solar and geothermal generating stations have been proposed, from Lancaster to the Arizona and Mexico borders. They won't be cheap to build, possibly raising the costs Californians pay for power. But with the state's utilities scrambling to find more renewable energy, the projects are moving forward....
Baucus, Crapo Introduce RAT Repeal As promised in an April interview with NewWest.Net, U.S. Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) will introduce a bill on Monday to repeal the Federal Lands Recreational Enhancement Act (FLREA), called the Recreational Access Tax (RAT) by its many detractors. Joining him as co-sponsor will be U.S. Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID), making the repeal a true bipartisan effort. So, Monday morning could be panic time in the offices of the U.S. Forest Service (FS) and other federal agencies currently involved in aggressive fee policy and widespread closure of recreational sites on public lands. The Baucus-Crapo bill is entitled, Fee Repeal and Expanded Access Act of 2007. It will receive its number when introduced on Monday. A summary of the bill obtained by outlines its for major objectives: * Repeal the FLREA * Reinstate the fee authorities established by the Land and Water Conservation Act * Reinstate the National Parks Pass system * Cap the amount that can be charged for entrance to national parks....
Yellowstone Doubles Its Cell Phone Use Amid Tower Struggles Even as Yellowstone National Park officials finalize a plan to chart the future for cell towers in the nation's most famous park, more and more park employees are being given government-paid cell phones, according to internal documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Yellowstone's growing reliance on official cell phones appears to ignore National Park Service policy limiting issuance of phones only when absolutely necessary. Park records obtained by PEER under the Freedom of Information Act indicate employees were issued 70 cell phones in 2004 but by August 2006 that number had grown to 188 employee cell phones. As of November 14, 2007, the park counts 155 employee phones but this number reflects off-season usage and may grow again this spring. In 2005, Yellowstone spent $92,000 in cell phone charges and nearly $94,000 in 2006. Thus far in 2007, the park has spent $63,000. Prior to 2005, the park was illegally receiving free phones and minutes while improperly depositing lease fees in its own accounts rather than the U.S. Treasury as required....
Feds Name Candidates for Endangered Species Protection The New Mexico meadow jumping mouse is among a handful of species from the Southwest that is being considered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as candidates for protection under the Endangered Species Act. The agency released a list of the latest candidates Thursday. They include the mouse, a snail and a frog from Arizona, a fish from Tennessee and a variety of buckwheat found in Nevada. The list names 280 plants and animals in all. As for the mouse, agency officials in New Mexico say it once was found in about 100 locations from the Jemez Mountains in the north, down through the Rio Grande Valley to the Sacramento Mountains in the south. Now, the mouse can be found in about 10 places. ``It's literally on the brink of extinction,'' said Nicole Rosmarino, the conservation director of Forest Guardians, a Santa Fe-based environmental group that has been monitoring the mouse. Local Fish and Wildlife officials and Rosmarino agree that the biggest threats for the fury rodent are grazing and the loss of habitat. The mouse depends on moist meadows along streams and rivers to make its homes, find food and reproduce....
Rebels with a Lost Cause If the logic of the Tulare rulings spread, enforcement of many environmental laws might cost the government billions. And if the government preferred not to pay, the laws would be castrated. More striking, Marzulla & Marzulla stood among a battalion of lawfirms dedicated to challenging environmental laws. The movement had its roots in the West and appeared to be making progress on many fronts, firing a barrage of lawsuits and claiming a run of important victories in the late 1990s and early 2000s. They’d rolled back regulations covering not only endangered species, but also cattle grazing, commercial development and many other activities. They even seemed to be on the brink of redefining government employees as criminal "racketeers." "I think this fight is going to get a lot meaner ..." predicted Andrew Lloyd, a lawyer for Pacific Legal Foundation, another firm leading the charge, in California’s West County Times in January 2005. He and others envisioned more lawsuits and more big victories. These days, the anti-regulation lawyers still portray themselves as wizards, shooting bolts of legal lightning at the government agencies and power-hungry environmentalists who oppress them and their clients. In press releases, news and opinion articles and speeches, they boast about carrying out a crucial role. To get a better sense of their role, I explored the legal battlefields and visited some of the movement’s key Western lawfirms....
Hot Air Emitted by Climate Summit Equals 20,000 Cars Government officials and activists flying to Bali, Indonesia, for the United Nations meeting on climate change will cause as much pollution as 20,000 cars in a year. The delegates each will produce an average 4.07 metric tons of carbon dioxide, or CO2, to reach the resort island 950 kilometers (600 miles) from Jakarta, according to estimates e- mailed to Bloomberg by the UN agency holding the conference. Some of the 187 nations participating in the two-week forum promised to offset their so-called carbon footprint by planting trees or buying emission credits. The symbolic actions won't help stop global warming, some scientists say. ``It's very hard for the public to understand that you come together with so many people to a very distant place and cause a lot of emissions, and at the same time talk about emission reductions,'' Artur Runge-Metzger, head of climate strategy for the European Commission, said yesterday in an interview in Bali, adding that he had offset his own emissions....
House Passed Energy Bill Doubling Grain Ethanol Mandate The U.S. House of Representatives passed its energy bill that, if enacted into law, will double the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) from the current 7.5 billion gallons per year to a 15 billion gallon grain ethanol mandate. The bill, H.R.6, passed by a vote of 234-181. The American Meat Institute (AMI) called the passage of the bill counter-productive, noting that it will further drive up food prices as more corn is diverted from animal feed to use as fuel. "We support efforts to increase U.S. energy security, but this bill takes a myopic approach by mandating grain-based ethanol increasing demand for corn even further than the record levels we've seen in the last 12 months," AMI President Patrick Boyle said. "The net effect of this bill will be to increase the cost of meat and poultry to consumers." According to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), meat, poultry and egg spending comprise 60 percent of the average consumer's food dollar....

Court stricter on fire control In a decision that affects all national forests, a federal appellate court ruled Wednesday that the U.S. Forest Service cannot cut brush and use controlled burns to reduce the risk of wildfires in and near urban areas unless it first performs a detailed assessment of the environmental impact. The ruling, which reversed a 2005 decision by U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. of Sacramento, comes after a devastating fire season that included the destruction of more than 250 homes in the South Lake Tahoe area and a series of Southern California firestorms that displaced hundreds of thousands of residents. Environmentalists hailed the ruling, saying it halts part of the Bush administration's "Healthy Forests" initiative and what they see as unchecked logging in national forests. But even one of the federal judges who concurred with the ruling questioned whether the net result would be years of delay before real efforts can be made to protect residents near national forests from wildland fires. The decision requires Burrell to issue an injunction against the Forest Service that will apply to all 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands halting much of the efforts to use controlled burns and brush clearing to prevent future wildfires....
Forest Service sued over how it develops fire management plans in Southwest An environmental group sued the U.S. Forest Service on Wednesday, claiming the agency's fire management plans for certain forests in the Southwest are inadequate and produced without enough public input. Forest Guardians accused the agency of developing fire plans for a pair of forests in New Mexico and two others in Arizona without studying the potential impact on the environment as required by the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. The group filed its lawsuit in federal court in Phoenix. It wants the court to order the Forest Service to open its plans to public and scientific review. "The system is broken as it is and it's not working," said Bryan Bird, public lands director for Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians. "... We need to get out our pencils and erasers and work at it."....
Lawsuit says Montana logging project threatens grizzlies A Forest Service plan to move forward with a timber sale in northwestern Montana jeopardizes grizzly bears and should be blocked, an environmental group contends in a lawsuit filed Wednesday. The suit the Alliance for the Wild Rockies filed in U.S. District Court in Missoula says the Forest Service arbitrarily advanced the Northeast Yaak timber project, calling for removal of trees on 1,777 acres north of Libby. The suit names both that agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which the alliance says should not have agreed with the Forest Service that the logging and related road construction would not harm grizzlies. The bears are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. The area in dispute is part of the federally designated Cabinet-Yaak Grizzly Bear Recovery Zone about 30 miles north of Libby. The zone covering 2,600 square miles has 30-40 grizzlies, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service....
Small fish to be returned to original location The Gila topminnow, a small species of endangered fish native to Arnett Creek in eastern Pinal County, may be reintroduced this fall as the Arizona Game and Fish Department works with various groups to restore the 6-inch mosquito eater to one of its homes. Arnett Creek and Telegraph Canyon near Picket Post Mountain and Boyce Thompson Arboretum State Park will be the site of the reintroduction of the fish in a renovated stream where a fish barrier has been constructed to keep out non-native predatory fish, said Tony Robinson, a wildlife specialist supervisor for the Arizona Game and Fish Department. Thompson is working with Superior rancher Frank Heron, who has grazing allotments in Tonto National Forest. He also is assisted by Forest Service officials as well as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in bringing the fish back to their native swimming holes. The Gila topminnow now are enjoying the algae in Ayer Lake at Boyce Thompson Arboretum, which has helped raise threatened and endangered species of fish since 1971, Thompson said....
Deal Reached on Timber Payments Payments to rural counties that once depended on federal timber money to pay for schools and libraries would continue for four more years under an energy bill being considered by Congress. A deal reached Wednesday would set aside more than $1.5 billion to compensate 700 rural counties in 39 states, mostly in the South and West, that were hurt by federal logging cutbacks imposed in the 1990s. The counties lost money when the federal government imposed restrictions on logging in national forests to help preserve the spotted owl and other endangered species. Lawmakers and staff stressed that the timber deal was tentative, but said it was included in energy legislation that could come up for a vote in the House as soon as Thursday. A Senate Democratic aide said the plan would authorize $554 million for the timber program in the budget year that starts in October, with payments decreasing each year until they reach $202 million in 2012. Another $350 million would be directed to rural states through a program that reimburses state and local governments for federally owned property....Notice how if a Federal policy has a negative impact on state or local governments, they will compensate them. Yet, if the same policy has a negative impact on private companies or individuals, no compensation is forthcoming. Government will compensate government, but not people.
Bringing Down the Grouse The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must reconsider its decision not to list the greater sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act, a federal judge ruled this week. The judge said that the FWS ignored the best available science on the species when deciding whether to list it in 2005; he also expressed doubts about the efficacy of the agency's entire decision-making process. The sage grouse decision, he said, was also heavily and improperly influenced by Julie MacDonald, a former political appointee who resigned last May. "Her tactics included everything from editing scientific conclusions to intimidating [FWS] staffers," the judge wrote. "Her extensive involvement in the sage grouse listing decision process taints the ... decision and requires a reconsideration without her involvement." The ruling is a victory for species advocates who have said that all kinds of species and habitat decisions should be reconsidered due to MacDonald's role, not just the seven cases the FWS has said are the only ones in need of review....
Anti-wolf group responds to state management plan Wolves are on the minds of many Idahoans following this week's unveiling of the state's plan to manage the species if it's delisted from federal protection early next year. But wolves are in the hearts of the Idaho Anti-wolf Coalition, a group that passionately wants all wolves removed from Idaho. The group, led by Stanley outfitter Ron Gillette, doesn't trust the federal or state government to manage wolves, which they say are wiping out elk populations. The coalition is circulating a petition to back Idaho out of the recently released management plan and to refuse cooperation with the federal government. "This is a crisis that's going on," said Twin Falls hunter Tony Mayer at a meeting hosted by the group Tuesday night at the Turf Club in Twin Falls. "This is a despicable situation. It's an epidemic. It's a problem." The group says any number of wolves in Idaho are too many, and they blame the government for what they call a wildlife crisis....
Tragedy of the Commons II And sharing can't be a basis for production -- you can't share what hasn't been produced. My point is that production and prosperity require property rights. Property rights associate effort with benefits. Where benefits are unrelated to effort, people do the least amount necessary to get by while taking the most they can get. Economists have a pithy way of summing up this truth: No one washes a rental car. It's called the "tragedy of the commons." The idea is as old as ancient Greece, but ecologist Garrett Hardin popularized the phrase in a 1968 Science magazine article. Hardin described a common pasture on which anyone may graze his livestock. Each person will benefit from a larger herd but will suffer only a tiny fraction of the negative effects of overgrazing. Public Choice economists call this "concentrated benefits and dispersed costs." That's a recipe for depleting the resource. If a herdsman were to leave a portion of the commons ungrazed, someone else would gain the benefit, so why leave it ungrazed? Soon, all the grass is gone, and the livestock die. That's the tragedy of the commons. There are two possible solutions. One is to put someone in charge. But that someone would have arbitrary power over the rest -- he may give his friends better terms -- and one individual can't possibly know how to plan the village economy. The second solution, as the pilgrims learned the hard way, is private property. Property rights unite costs and benefits. If a herdsman owns part of the pasture, he reaps not only 100 percent of the benefits of enlarging his herd but also 100 percent of the costs. Under those conditions, he behaves differently. If he undergrazes, uses fewer pesticides, etc., to make sure that the pasture flourishes next year, he can anticipate the future benefits. So, he has a strong incentive to be a good steward of the land....
Conservation group sues to stop coastal wind farms The dispute over construction of two wind farms adjacent to the famed King Ranch in south Texas entered the courts Tuesday when an alliance of conservation and related groups filed lawsuits to stop the projects. The Coastal Habitat Alliance, which includes King Ranch, filed separate lawsuits in state and federal court in Austin. The federal lawsuit claims the state has not done a thorough analysis of the impact the farms and their massive turbines will have on wetlands, habitat, endangered species and migratory birds. It seeks a declaratory judgment and, if needed, an injunction against the developers, whose combined initial investments are expected to top $1 billion. The state lawsuit claims the Texas Public Utility Commission illegally denied the alliance a chance to intervene in the PUC's hearings on transmission lines for the wind farms. The PUC late last month approved plans for a $60 million transmission-line project to be built by AEP Texas, division of Ohio-based American Electric Power. Both wind farms and the transmission line are going up on the sprawling Kenedy Ranch, the smaller neighbor of King Ranch, which covers 825,000 acres on the Texas Gulf Coast....
GOCo grant to protect land along Rio Grande Great Outdoors Colorado's second-largest grant of nearly $7.4 million will help aid preservation efforts along the Rio Grande in the San Luis Valley. With Monday's award, the Rio Grande Headwaters Land Trust will be able to preserve 5,630 acres along the river in four valley counties. Through the use of voluntary conservation easements, the group hopes to keep the ranches and farms along the river in operation, preserve open space and maintain wildlife habitat. The grant was the biggest contribution the group has received since it was formed in 1999 and began working with other conservation groups in the area....
USGS Study Finds Ash from Southern California Fires May Pose Problems Ash from last month's southern California fires may pose problems to health and the environment, according to preliminary results from a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study released to the Multi-Agency State and Federal Task Force. Samples collected from two residential areas burned by the Grass Valley and Harris wildfires indicate that the ash contains caustic alkali materials and can contain somewhat elevated levels of metals such as arsenic, lead, zinc and copper. Ash from burned wildlands can also contain caustic alkali materials, though at lower levels than the residential ash. "These findings are consistent with the scientific knowledge about wildfire ash that has led counties in California to issue advisories regarding appropriate precautionary measures to avoid health problems associated with exposure to the ash," said Dr. Geoffrey Plumlee, a USGS lead author of the study. "The study results also indicate that rain-water runoff from burned areas may adversely affect ecosystems and the quality of surface drinking water supplies," said Deborah Martin, a USGS wildfire ash specialist and study co-author. Additionally, critical habitat for some aquatic species may be affected by spikes in alkalinity as rainwater mixes with ash to form surface runoff....
Two horses die after roundup in Carson forest The U.S. Forest Service says two wild horses captured during a roundup in the Carson National Forest have died. An agency spokeswoman, Kathy DeLucas, says one horse died November 26th after running head-first into a metal corral panel and breaking its neck. The corral was at the capture site on Jarita Mesa in the El Rito Ranger District. DeLucas says the other horse was euthanized because of an infected wound it suffered after a fall. The Forest Service says 22 other wild horses captured in the district are healthy and available for adoption. The agency has determined the district can support 20 to 70 horses. DeLucas says staff members estimate 60 to 100 horses still roam the district.
Utah's wild and scenic rivers Utah is on the way to having perhaps hundreds of miles of the state's most beautiful rivers and streams added to the national Wild and Scenic River system. In a move that would launch the Beehive State into the national mainstream, the U.S. Forest Service has deemed 24 river and stream segments totaling 212 miles suitable for the federal designation that would provide extra layers of protection to special waterways. That's only about a quarter of the waterways the agency previously found eligible. But any Utah river designated wild and scenic would be a significant accomplishment, said Utah Rivers Council spokesman Mark Danenhauer. The council has been pushing for all 840 miles of waterways in 86 eligible rivers and streams to be put on the list. Many other conservation groups and individuals likely will be disappointed in the preferred alternative detailed in the Forest Service's recently released draft environmental impact statement, Danenhauer said....
US Senate Panel Approves Bill To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions A U.S. Senate committee has passed landmark legislation aimed at combating global warming by limiting carbon dioxide emissions. The vote was timed to coincide with the U.N. conference on climate change taking place in Bali, Indonesia. VOA's Deborah Tate reports from Capitol Hill. The bill would set caps on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from electric utility, transportation and manufacturing industries beginning in 2012 with the goal of cutting emissions 60 percent by 2050. It would create an incentive system that would give credits to industries that cut pollution. Industries that failed to reduce emissions would be forced to buy credits from others. The Democratic-led Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted 11 to eight, largely along party lines, to send the measure to the full Senate for what supporters hope will be action early next year....
From Mad Cow to Cash Cow Russia's appetite for beef products has grown substantially and gone sharply upscale since it banned U.S. exports four years ago. Before Russia banned U.S. beef in reaction to the discovery of a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad-cow disease, it was the fifth-largest market for U.S. exports. But where citizens bought mostly cheaper meat products like livers, hearts and kidneys, they are now moving up the food chain to cuts like tenderloin. Now the U.S. and Russia have nearly finished a new deal that domestic producers are counting on to generate millions of dollars in sales. Richard Crowder, former chief agriculture negotiator for the U.S. trade representative, said: "We've got this down to a minimal number of issues. We're going to get this done." Mr. Crowder is now a consultant and negotiator for the USTR. U.S. exporters can legally export beef to Russia, but only under a November 2006 agreement that applies burdensome restrictions on what can be sent. No shipments to Russia have been made under that deal, but at least one sale was recently struck, according to U.S. government and industry officials. The new deal would lift the restrictions, making trade flow much less onerous....
Cattle rancher gives folks Cracker Cowboy Experience tour in Okeechobee Cattle rancher and Florida native John Glenn wants to share the Okeechobee Cracker Cowboy Experience. He opened his ranch Wednesday to visitors to tour the life of Florida cattle ranchers and cowboys from long ago to modern day life. Kathy Scott with the Tourist Development Coucil, along with Glenn, resident George Sweat, and cowboy Bill Owens, have teamed up to create the tour, which takes visitors through the ranch showing them what life was like when the first American cowboy in Florida made cattle ranching a distinct way of life. "The Cracker Cowboy Experience is an exciting addition to the Okeechobee County tourism industry," Scott said. "Visitors to Florida are looking for unique, natural, historical and family oriented entertainment." Glenn said he's dedicated "the experience" to displaying the rich and authentic history of the Florida cowboy's way of life....

The internet is s-l-o-w here tonight. Will try to catch up on the rest of the news tomorrow.

Australia urges US to ratify the Kyoto accord on global warming Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd urged the United States on Wednesday to follow his country's lead and ratify the Kyoto Protocol, as divisions emerged over what a future international climate change pact should look like. Rudd signed documents this week to formally adopt the Kyoto accord, reversing a decade of resistance and leaving the United States as the only industrialized country to refuse its binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions. "Our position vis-a-vis Kyoto is clear cut, and that is that all developed and developing countries need to be part of the global solution," the newly elected prime minister told the Southern Cross Broadcasting radio network in Australia. "And therefore we do need to see the United States as a full ratification state." His comments further put the United States on the defensive at the Bali Climate Change conference, where nearly 190 nations aim to launch two years of serious negotiations on a future regime to head off dangerous climate change....
Not Enough Parking for Private Jets Going to UN Climate Conference As climate alarmists from all over the world head to Bali to talk about the sacrifices regular folks have to make to save the planet from global warming, it seems certain media will ignore all the private jets clogging the tiny airport. As if it’s not enough that the United Nations Climate Change Conference is being held at what NewsBusters reported as "a truly beautiful tropical island paradise," the management of the nearby airport has issued a warning to attendees that they are going to have to park their private jets somewhere else. Tempo Interaktif reports that Angkasa Pura - the management of Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport are concerned that the large number of additional private charter flights expected in Bali during the UN Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC) December 3-15, 2007, will exceed the carrying capacity of apron areas. To meet the added demand for aircraft storage officials are allocating "parking space" at other airports in Indonesia. The operational manager for Bali's Airport, Azjar Effendi, says his 3 parking areas can only accommodate 15 planes, which means that some of the jets used by VIP delegations will only be allowed to disembark and embark their planes in Bali with parking provided at airports in Surabaya, Lombok, Jakarta and Makassar....
Western Colo. Congress stays green after 27 years hen the "founding humans" of the Western Colorado Congress first crowded into a farmhouse near Montrose in the spring of 1980, they brought plenty of potluck dishes. But they were short on political clout. They included schoolteachers, carpenters, a plumber, an attorney, a social worker and a wildlife agency spokesman. Local power players bent on development quickly dismissed these questioning environmentalists as tree-hugging kooks, and even communists. Last month, that same group — now boasting 3,100 members — drew Gov. Bill Ritter's presence and praise at its annual meeting. And last week, WCC members were invited to the table when the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission met with stakeholders about proposed rules for energy development. The rules are being changed thanks in large part to more than eight years of lobbying work by WCC and its affiliate members....
Spending ban on Pinon Canyon has 'refocused' Army planning Federal lawmakers who thought they had stopped the Army from doing any planning next year on expanding the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site might be surprised how little Army planners feel constrained by the congressional ban. For example, the Army currently has a $500,000-a-year contract with Booz Allen Hamilton, an international consulting firm, to help persuade the public, and Southern Colorado ranchers in particular, that the Army needs to nearly triple the size of the 238,000-acre training area northeast of Trinidad. That contract has been in existence for several years now. Ranchers trying to stop the expansion, however, persuaded the House and Senate last summer to adopt an amendment to the 2008 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act that bans the Army from spending any money next year on the planned expansion. Lt. Col. Jim Rice, the operations officer for Fort Carson's senior mission command, said he has directed the Booz Allen staffers working on Pinon Canyon to help prepare a lengthy Army report on why more ground is needed at Pinon Canyon. That report was ordered by Sens. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., and Wayne Allard, R-Colo., as part of the 2008 Defense Authorization Act, which lawmakers finished last month and the president has already signed. "I think we've been refocused (by the Musgrave-Salazar legislation), but not constrained," Rice said in a telephone interview Monday. "And that's what I believe Congress intended by approving this one-year 'time out' in the process."....
Wyoming hopes efforts keep sage grouse off endanger list If the federal government reconsiders special protections for the greater sage grouse, a state wildlife official says he hopes the work Wyoming and other states are doing to help the bird will lead to the conclusion that it's not endangered. However, a representative of an environmental group said the efforts to help sage grouse may be futile if the Bureau of Land Management continues to issue oil and gas leases in prime sagebrush habitat. A federal judge in Idaho on Tuesday ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider whether sage grouse should be listed as an endangered species. The agency in 2005 rejected petitions by environmental groups to list the greater sage grouse, saying special protections were not warranted because of local and state conservation efforts. States, fearing federal protections would shut off millions of acres to livestock grazing and energy development, have undertaken initiatives to study the bird and how to improve its habitat. John Emmerich, deputy director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, said Wyoming has vast areas of sage grouse habitat and the bird is widely distributed across the state. "If a species like that gets listed, it'll have huge ramifications," he said....
Otero Co. chair supports outlawing wolf releases The chairman of the Otero County Commission says he supports a county ordinance that makes it illegal to release Mexican gray wolves and other predators within county limits. Otero County is the second New Mexico county after Catron County to pass an ordinance designed to protect its citizens, pets and livestock from the endangered Mexican gray wolves. Commission Chairman Doug Moore says even if the president released a wolf in Otero County, he would advocate arresting him. The comments came at a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service meeting Monday about proposed changes to its wolf reintroduction program. John Slown a Mexican wolf planner with Fish and Wildlife, says if a wolf is released on federal land, the federal government has the final say on the release.
Critics charge ex-official uses influence to drive alternative energy policy Pacific Ethanol was still a fledgling business in 2005 when its founder, former Secretary of State Bill Jones, persuaded state officials to give him the small but exclusive fuel deal that established his company as a player in California's burgeoning alternative fuel market. Two years later, that company is an ethanol empire. And Jones is the fuel's most influential champion in the state, using his political connections and 21 years of Sacramento experience to shape policies that are dramatically boosting California's thirst for ethanol - stemming the state's dependence on gasoline, but at a cost of millions in taxpayer subsidies. The story of how this third-generation Central Valley farmer and former lawmaker has turned corn into cash shows the way politics and the push for profit are combining to drive California's fuel future. "Bill Jones is like a hurricane moving through the state of California," said University of California-Berkeley Professor Tad W. Patzek, a civil engineer and national ethanol expert. "It's actually amazing that he has pushed so many things through, and made so many gains with ethanol. He can say anything to promote his business - and people believe him." That's a concern, Patzek and other experts agree, because what to believe about ethanol, particularly corn ethanol, is a matter of much debate....

Water shortages are likely to be trigger for wars, says UN chief Ban Ki Moon A struggle by nations to secure sources of clean water will be “potent fuel” for war, the first Asia-Pacific Water Summit heard yesterday. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon, told delegates from across the region that the planet faced a water crisis that was especially troubling for Asia. High population growth, rising consumption, pollution and poor water management posed significant threats, he said, adding that climate change was also making “a bad situation worse”. Mr Ban went on to condemn the lack of heed paid by governments to these warning signs: “Throughout the world, water resources continue to be spoiled, wasted and degraded. “The consequences for humanity are grave. Water scarcity threatens economic and social gains and is a potent fuel for wars and conflict.”....
Ecologists Study Efficiency of Divorce Divorce can be bad for the environment. In countries around the world divorce rates have been rising, and each time a family dissolves the result is two new households. "A married household actually uses resources more efficiently than a divorced household," said Jianguo Liu, an ecologist at Michigan State University whose analysis of the environmental impact of divorce appears in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. More households means more use of land, water and energy, three critical resources, Liu explained in a telephone interview. Households with fewer people are simply not as efficient as those with more people sharing, he explained. A household uses the same amount of heat or air conditioning whether there are two or four people living there. A refrigerator used the same power whether there is one person home or several. Two people living apart run two dishwashers, instead of just one....
Alamo wolf meeting packed The wolf scoping forum held Monday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service drew a mixed bag of opinions from among the 169 people who attended the event at the Tays Center. Many in attendance were overheard expressing their discontent over the fact this was not a stand-and-deliver meeting where opinions could be heard. Instead, a number of tables, each staffed by a biologist, were set up to answer questions from those who attended. Signs on three sides of the room provided educational information about the Mexican wolf recovery program. "I am wondering how this issue is going to play out in light of the ordinance in Otero County prohibiting the release of wolves," said Karan Berry, a resident of High Rolls. Doug Moore, commission chair for Otero County, answered that question just minutes later. "We submitted a three-page letter reminding these folks that we have an ordinance against the release of wolves and other species in our county," Moore said. "We believe these folks have not done their due diligence with respect to the National Environmental Policy Act and environmental impact statement."....
Wolf plan unveiled Hunters who stalk Idaho's newest big game animal could soon be setting their sights on Idaho's most controversial predators. Wolves are expected to be removed from the federal endangered-species list in February, when states could assume management over wolves and end a 34-year hunting ban. Idaho unveiled its management proposal Monday at a public meeting attended by about 50 people at the Idaho Department of Fish and Game's office near Jerome. The plan calls for curbing conflicts between wolves and humans by cutting wolf populations through controlled hunts - a strategy applauded by ranchers and hunters but loathed by environmentalists. "It's really an interesting process because we've never been given a new big game animal to manage," said Dave Parrish, head of Fish and Game's Magic Valley office. Under the plan, wolves would be categorized the same as elk, deer and bears - a far cry from how the public perceived wolves decades ago....
Judge won't halt drilling A federal judge has decided to not delay at this time a massive natural gas drilling project proposed for the Atlantic Rim area of south-central Wyoming, according to Bureau of Land Management officials. In his decision, the judge said development of domestic energy resources is a "paramount public interest" that could be harmed to some extent if the development of the Atlantic Rim is delayed. The lawsuit -- filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and four other conservation groups -- over the federally approved Atlantic Rim coal-bed methane project sought to halt development in the area until the environmental impacts of the drilling could be studied further. BLM spokeswoman Cindy Wertz said the court decision was issued Friday. The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership -- representing hunting and fishing interests in the area -- also filed suit in August against the U.S. Department of the Interior over the authorization of the 2,000 new oil and gas wells in the Atlantic Rim area. The lawsuit is still pending....
El Paso plans massive natural gas pipeline Another major natural gas pipeline from the Rocky Mountains to other markets was announced Monday, when El Paso Corp. said it wants to build a pipeline from southwestern Wyoming to Oregon. El Paso (NYSE: EP) is based in Houston. It's one of several pipeline projects announced recently to expand the Industry's capacity to ship natural gas out of the Rocky Mountains. El Paso said it's filed a right-of-way application with the Bureau of Land Management for the "Ruby Pipeline" project -- a 680-mile, 42-inch pipeline to carry natural gas from the Opal Hub in Wyoming to another hub in Malin, Ore., near California's northern border. An El Paso spokesman said the company wasn't releasing a cost estimate on the project. The pipeline will have an initial capacity of 1.2 billion cubic feet per day -- similar to the $4.4 billion Rockies Express pipeline that will carry natural gas from Colorado's Western Slope 1,678 miles to eastern Ohio. El Paso said the Ruby pipeline will be expandable to 2 billion cubic feet per day....
It's All Trew: It's a wonder the Panhandle was ever settled From 1850 to 1900, new settlers flocking to the Panhandle and West Texas prairies faced almost insurmountable odds in establishing a legal homestead. Most had few resources at hand or the time to waste as they searched and settled. The entire area was not surveyed, with only the outside boundaries identified as the 100th and 103rd meridians on the east and west and No Man's Land on the north. Even these boundaries changed with each new government survey. Although the Texas Legislature's "checker-board" scheme of land identification was ingenious in design, it placed all the efforts of locating, surveying boundaries and registration of claims onto the settlers, many of whom were illiterate or unfamiliar with complicated claim requirements. Communication at the time was slow and inefficient with only a minimum of state offices and officials available to serve the public. In addition to these problems, the big ranchers who had filed on hundreds of sections of grass made every effort to forestall and discourage settlement on the open sections within their ranch boundaries....

FLE

Feds admit smuggler lied in Ramos-Compean case The U.S. government admitted today in federal court that the prosecution's star witness in the criminal trial of Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean – confessed drug dealer Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila – lied under oath. "He told some lies on the stand," Mark Stelmach, the assistant U.S. attorney representing prosecutor U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton said under questioning by a three-judge 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel in New Orleans. Ramos and Compean are appealing prison sentences of 11- and 12-years respectively for a 2005 incident in which they fired on Aldrete-Davila as he fled back into Mexico after smuggling 750 pounds of marijuana into the U.S. near Fabens, Texas. "Today the justice system worked the way it is supposed to," Tara Setmayer, communications director for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., told WND immediately following the hearing. Setmeyer, who attended the hearing, said, "I feel cautiously optimistic the judges will make a ruling quickly." "Based on the nature of the questions from the judges, it seems as though the government made their own bed and now they have to lie in it," she said. According to Setmayer, Judge Patrick Errol Higginbotham questioned Stelmach closely about why the prosecution had sought to seal from the jury information about a second smuggling attempt by Aldrete-Davila after Sutton's office gave him immunity and a border pass....
Another win for border agent who struck illegal Border Patrol Agent David Sipe scored another victory in his effort to prevent the U.S. Border Patrol from blocking his reinstatement with back pay to 2001. A top-level panel of three U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board administrative law judges, including Chairman Neil A. G. McPhie, rejected a government petition Friday to review the panel's June decision in favor of Sipe. As WND reported in June, Anna Love, an administrative judge with the Dallas Region of the Merit Systems Protection Board, ordered Sipe reinstated to his former Border Patrol position, with full back salary paid to April 21, 2001, the date the Border Patrol removed Sipe from his position and suspended his pay. The decision Friday gave the Border Patrol 60 days to pay Sipe his back pay, interest, and benefits due. Sipe was convicted in 2001 of criminal felony charges for striking illegal alien coyote Jose Guevara on the back of his head after Guevara struggled and resisted arrest. Sipe was prosecuted for abusing the civil rights of a human smuggler, or coyote, in an incident in which the government defended the coyote's civil rights. In April 2003, the federal district court agreed with Sipe's appeal and granted him a new trial based on assertions that federal prosecutors made misrepresentations and failed to disclose exculpatory evidence. On Jan. 26 this year, at his retrial, Sipe was acquitted after a jury reached a verdict in less than one hour. In Sipe's case, the government made a "sweetheart" deal with Guevara, giving him travel expenses, witness fees, free telephone use and a border crossing permit. Guevara also received a Social Security card and a driver's license, all in return for his testimony against Sipe. As reported by television and radio talk show host Glen Beck, Guevara ended up with an $80,000 government settlement and he reportedly used the proceeds to buy a ranch in Mexico....
Listen to Reason: The Bill of Rights Is a Package Deal The Supreme Court's decision to hear District of Columbia v. Heller (formerly known as the Parker case), provides a welcome opportunity to air out a subject that has grown musty from malign neglect. The case asks whether the District's ban on owning handguns, and its requirement that long guns be disassembled or stored with trigger locks, violates the Second Amendment. Any reasonable reading must conclude yes. (For the record, the Second Amendment reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.") But reasonable interpretations of the Constitution are rare in certain circles, so in the coming months the public will be told that the second item in a Bill of Rights written explicitly to pro tect individual liberties does not apply to individuals. In the reading of gun-control advocates, the Founders wrote the First Amendment to protect individual rights -- then took a wide detour exempting individual rights in order to preserve only a collective right to state militias . . . then doubled back to the protection of individual rights for the rest of the amendments. In this reading, "the people" means one thing in the First Amendment, something entirely different in the Second, and in the Fourth and Ninth Amendments reverts to the meaning used in the First. Even more oddly, in this reading the Founders used the term "the people" to refer to "the states" in the Second Amendment -- but took pains in the Tenth Amendment to draw an explicit distinction between the powers "reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." (Why'd they do that? It's a complete mystery!)....
Carefully Plotted Course Propels Gun Case to Top Robert A. Levy, a rich libertarian lawyer who has never owned a gun, helped create and single-handedly financed the case that may finally resolve the meaning of the Second Amendment. Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, District of Columbia v. Heller. Persuading the court to take its first look at the scope of the right to bear arms in almost 70 years is the culmination of a meticulous litigation strategy that was consciously modeled on the civil rights era and strenuously opposed by the gun lobby. “This is far bigger than — I won’t say than we ever imagined,” Mr. Levy said over coffee in a conference room at the Cardozo Law School in New York. “But it is as big as it can get.” Mr. Levy, 66, is a small man with a bald head, big ears and an impish smile. He talks very fast, but he is methodical in his logic and disarming in his candor. He was in town for a series of lectures and debates, and he explained how he and two other lawyers had constructed the case, which challenges Washington’s ban on handgun ownership, one of the strictest gun laws in the nation....

Dubois hunters split on losses to wolves The growing number of gray wolves and the increasing territory they roam have raised concern from many local hunters and outfitter guides that wolves are eating into their hunting experience and their business profits. Wolf advocates argue there's no evidence wolves are chewing through big game populations, calling them a victim of an underlying hostility in the West. Where one side holds the literary legend of the big, bad wolf, the other sees the Hollywood icon from the film "Dances with Wolves." In Dubois, a town of about 1,000, where many residents hunt as a way of putting meat on the table, both sides provide mostly anecdotal information to bolster their arguments on whether wolves have affected the local elk herds. Budd Betts Jr. runs a guest ranch and hunting guide operation that depends heavily on income from the fall elk hunting season. The ranch is located in a scenic mountain valley outside of Dubois where elk roam and wolves are heard howling. He said the area was known for plentiful elk that were easy to hunt. "That tradition has basically gone away," Betts said. "And for that I blame the wolf. I blame the wolf on the fact that we hardly have any late-season elk hunting anymore."....
Gray wolves face challenges in wild Nearly a decade after the federal government began its plan to bring back the Mexican gray wolf, a mere 59 are believed to be living in the wild. Though the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reintroduced more than 90 of the endangered wolves, the complex balance of placing the animals into areas with livestock has made their comeback problematic. Fish and Wildlife is giving the public a chance to revisit its policy governing wolf reintroduction over two weeks of hearings that began Monday. A local hearing is scheduled for 5 p.m. Friday at the University of Arizona. Passions on both sides of the issue run high. Many ranchers are upset that the wolves kill their cattle and other livestock and want the wolves removed, while some environmentalists are adamant that having the wolves in the wild is necessary to maintain a balanced ecosystem. Critics say the population of Mexican gray wolves — a rare gray-wolf subspecies — has failed to thrive because of poor policy....
Wolf-Proof Shelters Go Up for School Kids Catron County parents say they're just concerned about the safety of their children. Animal activists say it's an overreaction. Reserve Independent Schools is building wolf-proof shelters for school bus stops in southwest New Mexico, where the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reintroduced the Mexican gray wolf. The decision to create coop-like bus stops in this mostly rural school district stems from "numerous reports of wolf sightings and wolf activity in close proximity to our children," Superintendent Loren Cushman said in an Oct. 30 memo on the project. Enclosed wooden shelters will have wire-mesh covered windows on the front and sides. The goal is to install the first of about 20 shelters by late December, Cushman said. "Whether a person is pro or con wolf, we think it's a deterrent to build these shelters," Cushman told the Journal. "We need to do everything we can to protect our children." Cushman's memo cited two children from the Reserve area who on the last day of school in May reported they were followed by a wolf during their half-mile walk home from a school bus stop. "The situation could have become tragic very quickly," he wrote. Cushman has a 6-year-old daughter and said he worries about her when she is outside their Reserve-area home. The May report, along with other wolf sightings and attacks on livestock and pets, led the district to "take further steps in protecting our children," Cushman said. Brenda McCarty, mother of the 13-year-old boy and 11-year-old girl who reported being followed by a wolf, said her children no longer walk to or from the bus stop and are afraid to go anywhere outside the house by themselves. McCarty said she has seen wolves in the area three miles north of Reserve, and her family regularly hears a wolf howling near their home. She said her children are not as spooked as they were immediately after the May wolf sighting, but "They are very cautious. They don't go anywhere by themselves. ... Once it's dusk, nobody goes outside anymore."....Also see Glenwood School In Lockdown - Wolf At Playgound
The Grizzly and the Future of the Rocky Mountain West The one true symbol of wilderness today is the grizzly bear--ursus arctos horribilis. Grizzlies and humans (Doug Peacock, excepted) just don't get along. More humans, less bears; less bears, less wilderness. And since the larger part of American history has been that of humans subduing wilderness, the great bears have not fared well. Thirty years ago, the mighty grizzly bear of the American Rocky Mountains landed on the Endangered Species list. It was one of the first animals honored with this dubious citation. By 1973, the giant bears, which once ruled the great plains and Rocky Mountains from the Dakotas to California and struck terror into the Lewis and Clark expedition and many who followed, existed only in a few patches of isolated and still wild land in Montana and Wyoming: greater Yellowstone, Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness, the Cabinet Mountains, the Selkirks and the Swan Range. Even in these last remote refuges, the bear was hardly thriving. Perhaps 350 bears remained in Yellowstone. Then the Park Service closed the open dump, a stable source of food, and the population dropped. The Cabinet-Yaak, Selkirk and Swan populations totaled less than 200 bears combined....
Spray vs. gun bear deterrent debate rages Long ago, grizzly bears thrived in Montana as did tales - some tall, some true - told by frontiersmen of a man-eater even more fearsome than the other two bogeymen of the forest, wolves and mountain lions. By the late 1800s, one of Vic Workman's great-grandfathers was among the legions of homesteaders who trapped and shot the giant bears by the thousands in an effort to make the area safe for fellow settlers. Today, the reputation of Ursus arctos horribilis - along with other major predators - is no longer that of a brutish killer, but of a keystone species decimated by overhunting and habitat loss, a symbol of America's misunderstanding of how nature works. Also changed is how people can handle encounters with grizzlies, using a chemical spray rather than guns to improve the odds that both humans and bears will escape the encounters unharmed. But Workman believes that if a bullet was good enough for his great-grandfather more than a century ago, then it's good enough for him when confronted by a charging grizzly, especially since he's wielding a modern, high-powered rifle....
UN: US Key to Any New Climate Pact Delegates and scientists from around the world opened the biggest ever climate change conference Monday, aiming to build a new international pact by 2009 to combat global warming or risk economic and environmental disaster caused by rising temperatures. Some 10,000 conferees, activists and journalists from nearly 190 countries gathered on the resort island of Bali for two weeks of U.N.-led talks that follow a series of scientific reports this year concluding that the world has the technology to slow global warming, but must act immediately. The Bali meeting will be the first major climate change conference since former Vice President Al Gore due in Bali next week and a U.N. scientific council won the Nobel Peace Prize in October for their environmental work, fueling the growing sense of urgency as ice-caps melt, oceans rise and extreme weather increases. Attendees won't be able to craft a meaningful plan to address global warming without cooperation from the United States, the top emitter of greenhouse gases, the U.N.'s climate chief said Sunday....
Turner becomes largest private landowner in US Ted Turner gave the world CNN, but the legacy he intends to leave America is not the incessant drumbeat of television news, but millions of acres of wide-open spaces teeming with wildlife and protected endangered species. Formerly known as the Mouth from the South, the patriarch of cable news is no longer in the media business, having left Time Warner in 2003. Today, he is America's biggest conservationist as well as its largest private landowner. Like many American outdoorsmen he is both a committed hunter and environmentalist, except that he has managed to turn his passion into a profit-making business. Over the past few years, Ted Turner has used his $2.3bn (£1.1bn) wealth to create wildlife sanctuaries across many of the two million acres he owns in 12 states as well as in the southern tip of the Americas, Patagonia. His mostly western lands are filled with bison, native cut-throat trout and cougars in habitat that he manages in an environmentally sensitive way....
Cactus cops struggling to keep up with saguaro thefts It took decades for these three saguaros, now shriveled skeletons, to reach 7 feet tall. Thieves ripped the cactuses from the ground, probably hoping to sell them for use in landscaping, before a rancher forced them to leave empty-handed. As a so-called "cactus cop," Mike Reimer investigates such thefts for the Arizona Department of Agriculture. But with millions of acres to patrol and strong demand for saguaros and other desert plants, it's tough for Reimer and the agency's one other native plant officer to keep up with those wanting to pinch cactuses from state land. "It's so rare to run across them lifting saguaros out of the ground," Reimer said. The Agriculture Department wants more investigators to protect native plants, but there isn't money for it, and even the money that covers Reimer's salary is drying up, officials say. Investigators face a lucrative market for stolen saguaros, which can fetch hundreds of dollars from homeowners who often don't know the cactuses are illegal, Reimer said....
Trails group, ranchers pleased with ski deal The Beartooth Recreational Trails Association, headed up by President Grant Barnard, runs the Red Lodge Nordic Center, which is located on the Aspen Ridge Ranch, privately owned by Kathy Loo and her brother Bruce Haughey. The partnership, which has lasted for several years, has benefits for both the BRTA and the Aspen Ridge Ranch. "It's horse property, so we have trails for hiking and riding," Haughey said. "In the winter, Grant and his people will be using those trails. Those people are great. They help keep the trails clean." He added, "We love working with them. It's a great service they provide because it's really family-oriented." But he doesn't downplay the Aspen Ridge Ranch's role. "Without a private landowner giving them access to some skiable, fairly flat land, they wouldn't be there," Haughey said. The Nordic Center, home for a trail system of more than nine miles, is located a couple miles west of Red Lodge, and is the perfect spot to start out on a cross-country ski trip....
Denton's wild pig problem is nothing to snort at A few bloodstains dotted the back of Robert Stalbaum's pickup. The blood belonged to the feral hogs he trapped the night before. "Feral hogs have become a huge problem throughout the state," said Mr. Stalbaum, a wildlife biologist for the Texas Cooperative Extension Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "We'll never get rid of pigs; they breed too fast. But we want to alleviate the problems they are causing for farmers and ranchers." But feral hogs aren't just wild animals out in the country anymore, he said. They're starting to move into the city, too. In the last month, Mr. Stalbaum trapped 16 inside the city limits in the Lakeview Estates subdivision on the south side of U.S. Highway 380 in east Denton....
Ranch sale will allow park near Morgan Hill An 868-acre cattle ranch in the hills on San Jose's southern edges will become a new public park under a deal between a Palo Alto land preservation group and a longtime Santa Clara County farming and ranching family. The Peninsula Open Space Trust has signed an agreement to pay $8.68 million to the Blair family to purchase Blair Ranch, a rolling expanse of grasslands, oak trees and rocky outcroppings along Uvas Road near Calero Reservoir. The deal blocks future construction in a part of Santa Clara County where ranchettes and large homes have spread in recent years. It also brings open space groups closer to a long-held dream of building a trail that would connect up to 10 parks from Lexington Reservoir near Los Gatos to the Coyote Valley area in south San Jose - a distance of about 15 miles. "Looking forward, more linkages are going to occur. The stars are going to align," said Audrey Rust, president of the Peninsula Open Space Trust....
Climate change predicted to drive trees northward The most extensive and detailed study to date of 130 North American tree species concludes that expected climate change this century could shift their ranges northward by hundreds of kilometers and shrink the ranges by more than half. The study, by Daniel W. McKenney of the Canadian Forest Service and his colleagues, is reported in the December issue of BioScience. McKenney’s study is based on an extensive data-gathering effort and thus more comprehensive than studies based on published range maps. It includes data from Canada as well as from the United States. Observations of where trees are found are used to define the “climate envelope” of each species. If the trees were assumed to respond to climate change by dispersing their progeny to more favorable locations, McKenney and colleagues found, ranges of the studied species would move northward by some 700 kilometers and decrease in size by an average of 12 percent (with some increasing while others decreased). If the species were assumed unable to disperse, the average expected range shift was 320 kilometers, and “drastic” range reductions of 58 percent were projected. The authors believe that most species will probably fall somewhere between these two extremes of ability to disperse. The climate measures studied were chosen to represent important gradients for plants: heat and moisture....
Groups battle over Bitterroot forest timber The subject of U.S. Forest Service appeals on the Bitterroot National Forest has become a hot topic on Internet blogs, mass e-mails and guest editorials in newspapers over the last month or so. The controversy flared following statements made by a brand new Bitterroot Valley-based group calling itself the Big Sky Coalition: Environmentalists with Common Sense. The group contends that appeals and litigation are keeping the Forest Service from accomplishing fuel reduction work in the woods. Their critics, led by Matthew Koehler, executive director of Missoula's WildWest Institute, and fueled by a report by Friends of the Bitterroot, say relatively few timber sales on the Bitterroot National Forest have been appealed in relation to what's been offered. As for litigation, Koehler said there had only been two cases filed against timber sales on the Bitterroot National Forest from 1985 to present. Bitterroot National Forest Service officials say the figures Koehler uses are flawed. "This stuff is very complicated because the rules are continually changing," said Sue Heald, the Bitterroot National Forest's planning and recreation staff officer. "It's easy to play games with the numbers." For instance, the two lawsuits filed against the Bitterroot National Forest weren't over individual timber sales, Heald said. Instead, environmental groups, including Koehler's, filed suits against projects that included more than one timber sale....
American Indians Given Veto Power Over Federal Land This month, the entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will hear arguments in its reconsideration of a three-judge panel’s ruling in favor of American Indian religious practitioners. On March 12, 2007, in Navajo Nation v. U.S. Forest Service, the panel ruled that a plan by a ski resort located on federal land to make snow using reclaimed water, thus offending the religious sensitivities of American Indians who believe the resort is situated on sacred land, violated federal law. On June 21, 2007, the ski resort and the U.S. Forest Service urged the Ninth Circuit to rehear the case, petitions that were granted on October 17, 2007. The Arizona federal district court rejected the challenge and thus upheld the decision by the Forest Service to approve the plan. After all, similar objections by American Indian religious practitioners, under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, to a 1977 plan to expand the Arizona Snowbowl were denied by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1983. Moreover, in 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected demands by American Indians “to exclude all human activity but their own from sacred areas of [a California national forest].” “Whatever rights the Indians may have to the use of the area,” wrote the Court, “those rights do not divest the Government of its right to use what is, after all, its land.” The Ninth Circuit panel, relying on the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), reversed the district court and invalidated the Forest Service’s decision. After a lengthy discussion of the religious beliefs of various American Indian tribes, the panel held that, by adopting RLUIPA, Congress had expanded the Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause and implicitly overturned earlier court rulings that had rejected similar demands by American Indian religious practitioners. In the panel’s view, using federal land as proposed by Snowbowl and approved by the Forest Service is tantamount to a government edict that Christian “baptisms be carried out with ‘reclaimed water.’”....
Rules Bring Worries on Southwest Logging Changes in Forest Service rules designed to protect an endangered bird and its prey have brought objections from conservationists worried they may lead to increased logging, but federal officials say the concerns are overblown. Critics of the new regional rules say more aggressive thinning in the southwest's national forests could result, leaving more open ground and fewer shaded areas needed for the northern goshawk and its prey to nest. The complaints have delayed one forest-thinning project. Such logging projects are common across the West, aimed at lessening the risks of devastating wildfires by cutting small trees to reduce dense stands. But the new guidelines have wildlife advocates worried that larger stands may be targeted. "Our concern is that the new regionwide guidelines are going to result in a sharp increase in mature and old growth forest logging," said Taylor McKinnon, a Center for Biological Diversity spokesman in Flagstaff....
Nevada Learns to Cash in on Sales of Federal Land When it opens in 2009, the Clark County Shooting Park will be something to behold, through a scope or otherwise: hundreds of acres devoted to all things gun and bow, complete with a rifle range, a skeet center and an R.V. “host area.” The coming Craig Ranch Regional Park, due in 2010, should be impressive too, with plans calling for an amphitheater, an aquatics center and sand volleyball courts, all wound around native gardens and wetlands. Much of the financing for the projects has not come from familiar sources, like local taxes, bond issues or private donations. Instead, they are being paid for through the sales of public lands owned by the federal government. Tens of thousands of acres of federal lands in the Las Vegas area have been sold under an unusual law pushed through Congress nearly a decade ago by the Nevada delegation. The sales have grossed nearly $3 billion and counting. Because of a stipulation created by the Nevada legislators, the money has not been deposited into the general federal Treasury, but rather put in a special Treasury account to be spent almost exclusively in Nevada on a something-for-everyone collection of projects....
Companies squeezing power from sun, deserts in Southern California Vincent Signorotti's power plant sits on the edge of the Salton Sea, surrounded by irrigated cropland in the middle of a scorched desert. Beyond the lake, beyond the patch of green fields, the desert seems empty. But it holds all the energy Signorotti's plant will ever need - energy that could play a key role in California's fight against global warming. The plant runs on hot water, pumped from deep underground and flashed into steam to turn turbines. With 10 generators near the lakeshore, the facility produces enough electricity for 255,000 homes, and the company that owns it wants to expand. Other companies are drilling nearby, hoping to build their own geothermal plants. "We're very lucky," said Signorotti, a vice president with CalEnergy Operating Corp., as he considered all the energy beneath his feet. "This is really the crown jewel of undeveloped renewable resources." A renewable-energy boom is under way in the Southern California desert. The region's open, empty spaces have room for big projects - such as vast solar energy farms - that can generate energy on a grand scale while producing few, if any, greenhouse gases....
Endangered Species: Political assault Even as it admits inappropriate political influence ruined seven endangered species decisions, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is resolutely endeavoring to ignore the skewing of science, law and policy in decisions involving Northwest species. The public deserves a wider review of tainted decision-making. To its credit, the agency last week said it would reconsider findings in the seven cases where a former top official, Julie MacDonald, twisted the science. Congress can help with additional money. But the seven are a pitifully small sampling of the cases where the ideologically driven MacDonald set up industry to ravage wildlife habitat. The Earthjustice law firm, the Union of Concerned Scientists and various members of Congress have complained about the agency's absurd narrowing of what decisions to review. The scientists' group suggests the agency establish a hot line to hear from employees about improper practices. In addition to requesting a report from the congressional Government Accountability Office on improper influence on several other species decisions, U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee has asked the Interior Department for a new spotted owl recovery plan. Scientists have denounced the plan....
Wyden pushes expanded species probe Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is continuing to hunt big game at the Department of the Interior. He and other congressional Democrats have been hounding the agency for months over the manipulation of endangered species decisions by Julie MacDonald, a Bush administration appointee (who has since been pushed out of the department). Earlier this week, the agency announced it was reconsidering seven decisions involving the protection of six endangered species. Wyden said he thought that was just the tip of the iceberg - his thinking being that the agency offered up reversals on the small cases in hopes it would appease critics. So Wyden, who chairs a Senate subcommittee on public lands and forests, quickly requested that the department's inspector general, Earl Devaney, investigate further. On Friday, Devaney said he'd examine whether "improper political influence" also affected 18 other endangered species - including the northern spotted owl, marbled murrelet and bull trout in the Northwest....
Treat me like a Delta smelt We who live in Los Angeles know we live on the edge of the desert. Our city could not exist if we did not import huge volumes of water every day. Yet in August, U.S District Judge Oliver Wanger ordered state and federal water managers to reduce pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a move that could cut the supply of water flowing from Northern to Southern California by 30%. Why? To protect the Delta smelt, a thin, almost translucent fish threatened with extinction. His Honor ruled that the gigantic pumps of the California Water Project were trapping and disorienting the poor little fish. Cutting back our water supply will give the 3-inch fish a chance to recover, as required under the Endangered Species Act. It may be good for the fish, but what about the people who need that water? Don't we have any rights? For that matter, consider the people of drought-stricken Atlanta, where, in order to protect the Gulf sturgeon and three mussel species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service requires the Army Corps of Engineers to spill 5,000 cubic feet of water per second from a dam on Lake Lanier on the Chattahoochee River -- a man-made reservoir that provides water for the city. Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue calls that a "nonsensical action" that favors "mussel and sturgeon species over Georgia citizens."....
Rio Grande silvery minnow population growing The endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow is making a comeback. Jennifer Parody is the Middle Rio Grande Endangered Species Act coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She says there's many indications that silvery minnow populations are growing and healthy. She says long-term monitoring shows that fish are appearing in new sites along the river. A century ago, the tiny fish was abundant in the Rio Grande and some of its tributaries. Today, it survives only from Cochiti Dam to Elephant Butte. The plummeting population prompted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the minnow as endangered in 1994. But Interstate Stream Commission hydrogeologist Grace Haggerty says the fish still lives in only about 7% of its historical habitat and continued drought could put it at risk.
Kill the Cat That Kills the Bird? I had come to find out why Jim Stevenson had become the most notorious cat killer in America. The story went something like this: On the evening of Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2006, Stevenson took a break from watching the election returns to look at some birds at San Luis Pass, a ripply channel connecting Galveston Bay to the gulf. Stevenson parked his white Dodge van with “Galveston Ornithological Society” bannered on its side, near the end of the San Luis Pass bridge, a tollway that connects Galveston Island to Follets Island. He found a spot in the low grass-speckled dunes and waited. Soon enough, he saw a handful of piping plovers, a federally listed endangered species. Then he saw something else: a scraggly cat stalking the plovers. A colony of about a dozen feral cats had been sleeping under the bridge. The cats liked to wander into the dunes for the same reason Stevenson did: the birds. “Piping plovers are tame, abiding little creatures,” Stevenson told me. “They roost in the dunes and can’t see or hear a cat creep up on them.” With one shot of his rifle, Stevenson found himself cast as the Bernhard Goetz of birders. His cat slaying became a national flash point in the strange Sylvester-and-Tweety feud between birders and cat fanciers, which the resolution of Stevenson’s case last month has done little to pacify. For more than 20 years, the two sides have exchanged accusations and insults over the issue of cats killing birds. Depending on whom you talk to, cats are either rhinestone-collared mass murderers or victims of a smear campaign waged by lowdown cat haters....
The experts agree on an equivalent of the IPCC for biodiversity The specialists are hoping such a structure can be set up by the end of 2008. In November, almost 80 of them met in Montpellier and agreed on the remit for such a panel: to provide both independent and credible expertise, build regional and local scientific capacity, make knowledge more accessible and improve the interface between science and policy. These conclusions are the fruit of two and a half years of international and regional deliberations, organized on all five continents by the Steering Committee for an IMoSEB (International Mechanism of Scientific Expertise on Biodiversity)*. The specialists are planning to organize an intergovernmental conference in 2008, in conjunction with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which should serve to determine how the structure could be set up. One idea is to set up a panel of experts drawn from the range of existing networks. International bodies and NGOs need to be involved in the process. All the multilateral agreements are also concerned: the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), the World Heritage Convention, the Ramsar Convention on wetlands, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), that on Migratory Species (CMS), and regional agreements, not forgetting the conventions on climate change and desertification. Everyone needs to realize the merits of setting up a heavyweight federative structure to ensure that nobody - politicians, scientists, economic players or public opinion - can say in future "we didn't know". The French government is backing the initiative....
Glacier National park officials: Howitzer ban in limbo Glacier National Park officials want to deny a railroad's request to bomb the park's avalanche alleys with howitzers, but that denial is on hold and many blame political interference from Washington, D.C. The railroad - Burlington Northern Sante Fe - asked park officials for authority to shell Glacier's southern boundary, to protect commercial rails in the U.S. Highway 2 corridor. The park, after conducting an exhaustive environmental review, concluded howitzers were a bad idea, and ruled the railroad would be better served by building snow sheds, or roofs, over the tracks at key spots.
The railroad, however, didn't like that relatively expensive answer, and now the public process has been stalled for months without explanation. “We've made requests to Washington, asking why the decision is being delayed,” said Mary Riddle. “So far, we've not had any response to our inquiries.” Riddle is Glacier Park's environmental protection and compliance specialist, and it's her job to make sure public processes stay on track. When she couldn't get an answer from Washington, she bumped the issue up to the National Park Service's regional office in Denver, “but they haven't received a response either.”....
High court considers access suit Papa Pilgrim may be going to prison, but his lawsuit is going to the Supreme Court. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court will discuss whether to hear the case brought by the family of Robert Hale over access to their remote homesite inside Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. A decision on whether the case will be accepted is due Dec. 10. The Hale family, who used to call themselves the Pilgrims, first drew attention with a 2003 battle against the national park over their right to use a bulldozer on an overgrown mining road to their land. The case attracted the support of national land-rights activists, with one organization vowing to make the Pilgrims their "poster child." Papa Pilgrim's unmasking as a child-abusing religious fanatic has not exactly helped the cause, which once inspired a volunteer-run airlift to beat a park service blockade. In court last week, his children said their father encouraged them to lie, steal and defy government authority. "Public relations-wise, it couldn't be worse," said Paula Easley, who chairs the Alaska Land Rights Coalition. But none of that should detract from the principles at stake, property rights advocates say. The lawsuit, which is now in the names of the three older Hale children, was handled for free by the nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation. Their claims have been rejected by a federal district judge and several times by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The courts have said that while the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act guarantees access to private land in Alaska's national parks, that access is subject to reasonable regulation. The Supreme Court challenge raises questions about ANILCA and the National Environmental Protection Act....
Fair makes premise ID mandatory Exhibitors at the 2008 Colorado State Fair will be required to register the location where the animal was raised with the controversial National Animal Identification System. The Fair's board of commissioners voted 8-1 to stand by the policy it set forth last year, which drew controversy. Future Farmers of America and 4-H members will have to register with the NAIS their premise identification or the physical location to show in the Junior Livestock Sale. The board's decision came here Friday at its monthly meeting, held at the state Department of Agriculture....
Evolution of a brand Family historians in some parts of the United States might be programmed to look for an ancient crest when trying to find something distinctive about their clans. But in the West, it is more likely that families can identify their place in history by looking for ancestral brands, going back to the days when running horses, cattle or sheep was more lucrative than designing a fancy shield. This fall, the Utah State Archives posted online the popular, historic Utah livestock brand books from about 1849 to 1930. The archives' Digital Collections also has a free, full-text search and name index link to the newly available images. Aside from their historical significance, brands still play an important role in modern-day agriculture. Although that industry makes up much less of Utah's economy than it once did, today's operations dwarf those of early farms and ranches, and they rely on brands for many uses. In 1867, when the Utah Territory took its first livestock inventory, 225,000 cattle and sheep were listed, compared 140 years later with the total of 1.2 million head. Utah ranchers today have registered more than 20,000 brands and earmarks....

The last generation of cowboys
Cowgirl Sass And Savvy

Julie Carter

His bright blue eyes sparkled while a hint of a grin teased at the corners of his mouth. An inner spark, reminiscent of the fire that once fueled his very life, forced a flood of memories to come forth in a moment of reflection on those good old days.

Bruce Reeves isn't the last cowboy, but he is one of the last cowboys of a generation we won't ever see the likes of again. He represents an era of the cowboy way that is now found only in the memories of the "old timers" that lived it, documented by faded photographs on the wall.

Spend a little time with someone of that epoch generation and, like me, you will be saddened by having missed living it and saddened, even more, by the loss of it.

Those cowboys will fade into a background of muted memories because they are quiet men who didn't ever once think they were doing anything special, let alone historical. They were cowboys doing what they knew how to do.

They only speak of it when asked and, even then, a story might have to be jarred from them with a photograph or a direct request for specifics.

Bruce talked about ranches he worked for, many of them outfits of notoriety and reputation. There was no differential for him. No brag, just fact. He cowboyed on the Matador (the Mats, as the cowboys call it), the Quien Sabe, the Buckle L, the Scarborough's and northern New Mexico's historical Baca Ranch, now a national preserve.

A tour through photo albums, collected and created by his wife Joyce over decades of hard living, walked me through the mountain beauty of the Baca to the dust, mesquite and branding smoke in West Texas.

In those pictorial memories, cowboys branded calves, cooked over open fires in cast iron pots and slept in bedrolls near the wagon. A photo of the wagon headed out, loaded high with bedrolls and pulled by a team of big, long-gaited mules, drove home the fact I was looking at a fading history.

Given the time, Bruce would have told me any story I wanted to hear. All I had to do was ask. Like most cowboys, he remembered the horses better than he remembered the people. He jammed a whole lot of cowboy living into a few decades that included ranch cowboying, training and riding cutting horses.

He raised a family and made cowboys of them all, even his daughter.

Each of them, in their own way, hold on to a piece of that heritage while making their way in a new world. And each gives honor to the man who is the very foundation of their cowboy blood.

I'm kin to a few cowboys like Bruce and have met a few more along the way. What I know is this:

There are less of them than there used to be and they are more alike than they are different. There are none like them to be found in the current generation of cowboys. Not a fault of today's cowboy, it is just how it is.

Looking beyond the physical ravages of a hard-living life, seeing behind those twinkling eyes and the ornery grin waiting for an invitation, revealed a treasure.

Each time one of those fine cowboys tells me a little bit about their era, I feel richer for it.