Conservation Ease Mike Strugar has witnessed some sketchy land deals go down in the name of earth-friendliness—such as landowners donating acres of development rights to the state of Colorado at hyperinflated prices in return for generous tax credits. Laurie Lenfestey Strugar, a Boulder-based lawyer, is in Santa Fe this week to discuss changes to New Mexico’s law governing such conservation easements. Conservation easements allow landowners to donate the development rights of their property, preserving land from future subdivisions and the like. The changes to the state’s conservation easement law, sponsored by state Rep. Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, increase the tax credits for such easements from $100,000 to $250,000. And, significantly, those tax credits are now transferable so that land owners can sell them for 80 cents on the dollar. “What’s really exciting,” Wirth says, “is that it really broadens the benefits that come along with this tool and offers it to folks who otherwise wouldn’t have an opportunity to take advantage of the easement.” The changes went into effect this month and already have prompted increased interest....
Rural West Going to the Dogs Jeff Villepique usually carries bear spray when he goes into the mountains. But the California Department of Fish and Game biologist isn't worried about bears as he walks to the edge of a steep, rocky wash near the Mount Baldy Ski Lifts resort in Southern California. o­n this bone-chilling, misty morning, he's worried about dogs. Villepique recalls the macabre scene he recently investigated here: the tracks of three or four dogs in the snow, tufts of hair marking where a bighorn ewe was dragged down the talus slope, and the carcass itself -- mangled and missing a leg and a horn. The prime suspects: a Labrador retriever mix Villepique found still gnawing o­n the evidence, and its partner in crime, a German shepherd mix that watched menacingly from the top of the wash. "It's a great loss," Villepique says. State and federal agencies in California have spent three decades and a lot of money trying to recover local bighorn populations. But encroaching development and its encroaching pets -- some abandoned and others simply allowed to run free -- are complicating efforts. Officials have captured hundreds of feral and free-roaming dogs in the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains in recent years, especially around Mount Baldy and Lytle Creek. In addition to bighorn sheep, the dogs are hammering rabbits, quail, mule deer and other wildlife. The story is similar across much of the West, as swelling ranks of rogue canines increasingly harass wildlife, livestock, even people. But most federal efforts to protect big game and livestock are focused o­n killing wild predators. With limited funds for trapping dogs, local officials like Villepique can do little but try to educate the public....
Court gives feds 'road map' for future logging A federal appeals court has upheld the U.S. Forest Service's authority to decide whether a tree is likely to die soon after a forest fire. But it ordered the agency to take a closer look at whether they should log at all after fires in small roadless areas -- parts of forests that have never been logged. The ruling Wednesday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came in a challenge of salvage logging on the Malheur National Forest in Eastern Oregon following a 2005 fire. Forest Service spokesman Tom Knappenberger said the agency is glad to get a good road map from the court for analyzing future salvage logging. Doug Heiken of the conservation group Oregon Wild says the ruling was important for recognizing that even small roadless areas merit a higher level of protection....
Feds boot Boy Scouts for Rainbow Family About 1,000 members of the honor society for the Boy Scouts of America have been booted from a long-planned national service project in Wyoming by federal officials in favor of a gathering by the "Rainbow Family," an unorganized annual assembly of "free spirits" who commune with nature and each other. The action has left local leaders infuriated. "It's a matter of intimidation," Sublette, Wyo., County commissioner Joel Bousman told WND. "It appears the Rainbow group has managed to intimidate an entire federal agency." As WND has reported, the honor society for the Scouts, the Order of the Arrow, has been working for several years to put together this year's public service project called ArrowCorps5. The plans include about 5,000 top Boy Scouts from across the country donating an estimated 250,000 hours of time to restore, repair, rebuild, reclaim and refurbish miles of trails, acres and glens in the nation's forests. "ArrowCorps5 is the largest, most complex, most challenging conservation project ever conceived by the Order of the Arrow and Boy Scouts of America," said Brad Haddock, chairman of the National Order of the Arrow Committee. "This project provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for each participant to set an example of leadership in service to those who treasure our national forests." But the conflict arose with the Wyoming location and dates, because Rainbow Family participants announced they would meet in the same general location as the Scouting work was to take place. The Rainbow Family events are not organized, there is no official website, and the makeup of the assemblage varies. Their activities grow to a peak over the July 4th weekend and then taper off, but the cleanup from the estimated 25,000 people expected to invade Wyoming's Sublette County, population 6,000, is expected to take the time the Scouts otherwise would have been doing repairs. Bousman said it's fairly simple: The Scouts applied for permission for their project, filled out forms, went through red tape, and got permission. Then came the announcement from Rainbow members they've chosen the same location. Mark Rey, the federal undersecretary supervising the U.S. Forest Service, met with Rainbow Family members recently in Pinedale, and urged them to move their gathering, the Star-Tribune said. They refused. Rey told WND he thought the decision to move the Scouts to somewhere else and leave the Rainbow Family alone was the best under the circumstances. He said the government allows the Rainbow Family to bypass its regular permit requirements in favor of an "operating plan" but the bottom line was that the government didn't want to be arresting hundreds or thousands of people....I guess we should form the Mad Ranchers Liberation Front and go take over a forest each summer.
Rainbow Family should show respect for others Give the U.S. Forest Service credit for trying to work with the Rainbow Family on a site for the group's gathering in the Bridger-Teton National Forest next month. But the federal agency would probably have better luck herding cats than reaching a workable agreement with a group that has no official leaders. Every summer, the Rainbow Family of Living Light assembles on public lands somewhere in the United States, sometimes drawing as many as 25,000 participants. Members gather to promote peace, play music, dance and trade crafts, but varying degrees of nudity and drug use are also always part of the event. In an unprecedented move, the Forest Service this year tried to cooperate with this group, whose members are often described as "free spirits." The agency identified four possible sites in the Bridger-Teton for the gathering, but the Rainbow Family instead decided to gather at a different location near Big Sandy in Sublette County. That's unfortunate, because it creates a problem for the Boy Scouts, who were scheduled to begin a large service project in the area at the same time the Rainbow Family will be cleaning up. The Boy Scouts -- who did everything they could to work with the Forest Service -- may now have to alter their plans, as it appears the Rainbow Family won't give up the site. That's not fair. The situation could have easily been avoided if the group had cooperated with the feds....
Baby aspens help foil future fires High up a hillside near Vail’s Matternhorn neighborhood, Tom Talbot stood among baby aspen trees. He was quite excited to see them. “These are two seasons,” said Talbot, wildland fire coordinator for the Vail Fire Department. “You see how they’ve come up? Farther up the hill, a few of them have come up even taller. This is what we’re after, the regeneration. That was the goal. And it’s happened.” Two years ago, he and other firefighters were cutting down hundreds of aspen trees there. The goal was to allow some of the hillside’s aspen stand to regrow, preventing them from falling to the ground, where they could be fuel for wildfire. “Aspen, when it’s alive, is a wonderful ‘fuel break’ because it has so much water in it,” Talbot said. “When it’s dead, as well all know, in the fireplace, boy, does it burn hot. And fast.” Aspen stands can act as walls that stop lodgepole-pine fires from spreading. And more and more lodgepole pines here are dying....
Race called off because of air quality Simon Mtuy came from Tanzania to compete in this weekend's Western States Endurance Run, an event he has finished six years in a row. This race was going to be special, with his wife and 5-month-old son on hand to watch him on the 100.2-mile journey from Squaw Valley to Auburn. But when Mtuy, 36, climbed the first four miles of the course to Emigrant Pass on Wednesday afternoon, he didn't like what he saw: smoke. "It looked like a big fog is coming up the other side of the mountain," Mtuy said. "It seemed a little hard for breathing." With fires keeping air quality at unhealthy levels and at least one blaze burning near the Western States Trail, race officials decided to cancel the run for the first time since the event began in 1974. Race director Greg Soderlund said he and other race officials consulted U.S. Forest Service and Placer County air quality personnel before reaching a decision. "The air quality is a thousand percent above what is considered unsafe for outdoor activity," Soderlund said. "It's just flat-out not safe to put this event on....
White House Tried to Silence EPA Proposal on Car Emissions White House officials last December sought to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from submitting a proposed rule that would limit greenhouse-gas emissions from new vehicles, agency sources said yesterday. And upon learning that EPA had hit the "send" button just minutes earlier, the White House called again to demand that the e-mail be recalled. The EPA official who forwarded the e-mail, Associate Deputy Administrator Jason Burnett, refused, said the sources, who insisted on anonymity in order to discuss internal deliberations. The proposed rule was EPA's response to an April 2007 Supreme Court ruling that the agency had violated the Clean Air Act by refusing to take up the issue of regulating automobile emissions that contribute to global warming. Burnett, who resigned from the agency this month, sent the e-mail to the White House Office of Management and Budget at 2:17 p.m. Dec. 5 and received the call warning him to hold off at 2:25 p.m., the sources said. The EPA is expected to release a watered-down version of its original proposal within a week, highlighting the extent to which Bush administration officials continue to resist mandatory federal limits on emissions linked to global warming....
Spanish parliament to extend rights to apes Spain's parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans. Parliament's environmental committee approved resolutions urging Spain to comply with the Great Apes Project, devised by scientists and philosophers who say our closest genetic relatives deserve rights hitherto limited to humans. "This is a historic day in the struggle for animal rights and in defense of our evolutionary comrades, which will doubtless go down in the history of humanity," said Pedro Pozas, Spanish director of the Great Apes Project. Spain may be better known abroad for bull-fighting than animal rights but the new measures are the latest move turning once-conservative Spain into a liberal trailblazer....
Humane Society finds NM downer cattle abuse A video showing cattle being mistreated and tormented at a livestock auction in New Mexico was released on Wednesday by the Humane Society of the United States -- the latest evidence of what the organization claims is widespread abuse of livestock across the country. The video showed sick and injured cattle -- so-called downer animals -- at the Portales Livestock Auction being kicked and slapped and given shocks to get them to walk. In one instance, a cow with a hyper-extended leg is shown being dragged by a tractor. The footage was collected during visits in May. The HSUS said its investigator reported at least three of the downed cows were later sold. However, there is no evidence to show if the meat went into school lunch programs or any other part of the food supply. Randy Bouldin, owner of the Portales Livestock Auction, said he euthanizes downed animals and does not allow them to be sent to packing houses. The animals the HSUS alleges were sold could have become disabled or nonambulatory after the sale in which case the sale would have been reversed. "There were no downed cows that went into any packing house or into the food," said Bouldin. "I don't know where (HSUS) got their information. They are obviously misinformed."....