Britain cuts down forests to keep ‘green’ power stations burning

Britain is set to plunder the lungs of the world to feed its growing hunger for wood to burn in power stations. A series of biomass-fired plants are being built in the UK that will trigger a 150 per cent surge in timber imports from 20 million tonnes today to 50 million tonnes by 2015, according to the Forestry Commission. British power plants are already shipping wood from Canada, Brazil, Scandinavia and South Korea. Just one of the new biomass plants at Port Talbot, South Wales, will consume three million tonnes of wood per year — equivalent to 30 per cent of the UK’s domestic annual wood harvest of ten million tonnes. But the plant, which is due to open in 2012, will generate only 300 megawatt hours of electricity, or about 0.4 per cent of the UK's current power-generating capacity...environmental campaigners have raised concerns about the carbon emissions involved in shipping the wood such large distances, while to meet UK pest control laws the timber will need to be baked before it can be shipped to the UK...read more

Groups file suit to stop Grand Canyon uranium mine

Environmental groups are suing the federal Bureau of Land Management over its decision to allow a uranium mine to reopen north of the Grand Canyon. Canadian mining firm Denison Mines Corp. received the final state permit needed to move forward on its Arizona 1 Mine in September. The BLM says Denison has an approved mine plan and should be allowed to resume operations. The Center for Biological Diversity, Grand Canyon Trust and the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit Monday. They argue that the mine plan has expired, an environmental analysis is outdated and Denison has not proven its claims...read more

Feds to buy 5,000 acres for conservation

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced Monday their agencies are buying seven parcels totaling 5,026 acres in Colorado, Montana and Nevada - including 4,573 in Canyon of the Ancients National Monument - as high-value conservation land. The acquisitions, private holdings surrounded by or adjacent to federal land, were authorized by the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act of 2000. The act provides funds to buy land in Western states from willing sellers. The government paid $11.7 million for the seven parcels, it was announced Monday...read more

Mustang roundup moratorium rejected

Wild horse advocates say they have no recourse but the courts after federal land managers rejected their request for an immediate moratorium on mustang roundups. The Bureau of Land Management plans to remove more than 30,000 horses from Western rangelands over the next three years to deal with soaring numbers of the animals and the cost to manage them. The Equine Welfare Alliance, which represents more than 60 organizations, is considering its legal options after the BLM rejected its request to halt the roundups, said John Holland, its president. The Chicago-based coalition opposes Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's proposal to move thousands of mustangs to preserves in the Midwest and East to protect horse herds and the rangelands that support them. Salazar has said his plan unveiled last month would avoid the slaughter of some of the 69,000 wild horses and burros under federal control to halt the rising cost of maintaining them...read more

Food summit turns down UN funding appeal

Pope Benedict XVI decried the steadily worsening tragedy of world hunger on Monday after a global summit rebuffed a U.N. call to commit billions of dollars a year for a new strategy to help poor countries feed themselves. The meeting at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization did unite nearly 200 countries behind a pledge to increase aid to farmers in poor countries to help the developing world lessen its dependence on foreign food aid. Only hours after the three-day summit began, some 60 heads of state and dozens of ministers rejected the U.N.'s call to commit $44 billion annually for agricultural development in these nations. The final declaration also omitted a pledge, sought by the United Nations, to eradicate hunger by 2025...read more

Boy,11, shoots bear on family's porch

An 11-year-old boy killed a bear at point-blank range last Wednesday night after it wouldn’t leave his family’s porch. The boy was at home with his younger sisters and after seeing the bear on the front porch and not being able to get it to leave, the boy retrieved a gun and killed the animal. Fish and Game Conservation Officer Doug Peterson said the black bear had been a problem in the area near the county transfer station, and he and Fish and Game Officer Lauren Wednt had set up a trap earlier in the week. The boy and his family are not in any trouble, and Peterson said he issued them a permit to keep the bear. Usually when a bear is put down by Fish and Game they sell the hide at a state auction, Peterson said...read more

HT: Outdoor Pressroom

Turkey on turnpike causes havoc

Authorities have stopped trying to capture a wild turkey that calls Interchange 14B on the New Jersey Turnpike home. The bird has been causing havoc for toll collectors and motorists as it runs across toll booths, plays in traffic, and sits atop toll collectors' parked cars. Turnpike Authority spokesman Joe Orlando said efforts over the weekend to catch the turkey were unsuccessful, and for the time being, the bird will be left alone. Collectors will have to continue putting cones on their parked cars because the turkey likes to jump on the cars, and motorists will continue dodging the bird. [link]

Building community in Two Dot

After 82 years, residents of Two Dot still chuckle over the March 29, 1927, fire that destroyed the Congregational Church and parsonage. Not that it was particularly funny at the time. Loss of the church undoubtedly resonated as a tragedy in the little ranching town within viewing distance of the Crazy, Snowy and Belt mountains. But over time, the community developed a sense of humor about the disaster and the small boys who ignited it. Now it’s everyone’s favorite piece of Two Dot lore. It was branding time and all the adults were busy with hot irons and terrified calves, the story goes. Little boys were shooed out of the way as the adults concentrated on the serious business at hand. Nobody paid much attention to the children, who had been busily capturing gophers all morning for a branding party of their own. They’d sneaked upstairs to a room in the empty parsonage and started a fire in a collection plate aiming to mark their captives with irons they’d made out of wire...read more

I'll bet there were some Ewings at that gopher brandin'.

Two Dot (population: 76) hangs on long after heyday

Not much remains of Two Dot, one of the many Montana pioneering communities that thrived in the homestead years in the early 1900s and then faltered in the farm crisis of the 1920s and the Depression of the 1930s. The census in 2000 put the number of residents at 76, and locals say the population seems to have stabilized. Almost everyone is involved in ranching — the reason most settlers found their way to Wheatland County in the early years. “A lot were displaced Southerners who came after the Civil War,” said rancher and local historian John Whelan. “There were a lot of family groups that came from Missouri.” Two Dot took its name from George “Two Dot” Wilson, Whelan said, who got his nickname from his brand — two horizontal dots. Wilson fashioned his brand from the only thing handy, a king pin out of a trail wagon. (A two-wheeled trail wagon was attached behind a four-wheeled wagon with the king pin.)...read more

Boot communication

Hey, Answer Girl -- Why do some fence posts around Casper have old cowboy boots on them? -- Liz Much like with shoefiti (the art of throwing tied-together shoes over light poles), a few rumors exist as to why cowboys would put boots on their fence posts. 1. In the time before cell phones, ranchers used a cowboy boot sitting on top of a fence post at the end of the driveway to signal that the rancher/homeowner was at home. That way, visitors didn't have to drive all the way up the driveway (which could be miles long) just to find out if the rancher was home. 2. In a variation on the first rumor, a boot is always left at the end of the driveway. If the boot faces outward, toward the open road, the rancher has gone to town for the day. If the boot faces inward, up the drive, toward home, the rancher is home. That sounds a little complicated to me, and an easy way to accidentally leave false signals. 3. It's a sign that a well-respected rancher died. Trying to verify any one of these rumors, I called the only real cowboy I know -- Rob Hendry, chairman of the Natrona County Board of Commissioners and a ranch owner in rural Natrona County. He had no idea...read more

On the edge of common sense: Using swine to eradicate waste is a 'no-brainer' idea

I had deja vu when I saw a photo of goats walking through garbage on an Egyptian street. The headline read: "A Little Late, Egypt discovers the Flaw in Killing all its Pigs." Apparently, swine were a major factor in Egypt's garbage disposal industry. Goats were a poor substitute. The whole mess is the result of the government's decision to eradicate all the nation's pigs to protect people from the swine flu. It must have seemed like a "no-brainer" for the "no-brains" in charge. There are plenty of examples of "no-brains" enacting "no-brainers." Hawaiians importing mongooses to kill the rats and ending up wreaking havoc on the native birds. Nobody looked to see that mongooses were diurnal and rats were nocturnal. Or how 'bout the "no-brains" who imported kudzu and starlings? Or the "no-brains" trying to protect some endangered plant or insect or snail, not caring if it eviscerated whole towns and communities. But who knew that pigs were a part of Egypt's ecosystem? What a wonderful example of the recycling cycle! People eat pigs ... pigs eat garbage ... people eat pigs! I'm wondering if this is something we could incorporate into our own "green movement."...read more

Song Of The Day #182

Ranch Radio brings you Eddy Arnold this morning, and his 1953 recording of The Missouri Waltz.

It's available on his 5 disc box set The Tennessee Plowboy & His Guitar.

Deal on Mexican Gray Wolf

The federal Fish and Wildlife Service and environmentalists reached an agreement Friday that scraps a rule the agency had used to kill or permanently remove any wolf that killed three head of livestock in a year. A spokesman for the agency, Tom Buckley, said the three-strikes rule would “no longer stand.” The agency has other ways to deal with livestock kills “and remains committed to assisting the local livestock operators in any negative impacts they may have related to wolves,” Mr. Buckley said. Environmentalists argued that the rule favored the ranching industry and was a major roadblock to the population recovery effort for the Mexican gray wolf, a subspecies of the gray wolf. Ranchers said the policy was aimed at wolves that grow accustomed to preying on cattle. Several environmental groups sued in May 2008, asking a federal court in Arizona to stop the removal policy. Mr. Buckley said agency officials hoped a judge would sign the settlement this week...read more

The Center For Biological Diversity press release is here and the Arizona Game & Fish Department's response says:

The press release sent by the plaintiff organizations is misleading in that AMOC is not and never has been the deciding authority on whether or not a wolf stays in the wild. AMOC reviews situations in which management response is needed and when removal is one of the options considered makes recommendations based on an approved procedure and forwards those recommendations to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Prior to 2008 the USFWS Mexican Wolf Recovery Coordinator, per the 1998 final rule, made the final decision on removal. Since then, the Region 2 director of the USFWS has consulted on such recommendations with the directors of the other five lead agencies participating in AMOC, but ultimately is the sole deciding authority on wolf removal.

Obama, world leaders back delay to final climate deal

U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders on Sunday supported delaying a legally binding climate pact until 2010 or even later, but European negotiators said the move did not imply weaker action. Some argued that legal technicalities might otherwise distract the talks in Copenhagen and it was better to focus on the core issue of cutting climate-warming emissions. "Given the time factor and the situation of individual countries we must, in the coming weeks, focus on what is possible and not let ourselves be distracted by what is not possible," Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told the leaders. Rasmussen said the December 7-18 talks should still agree key elements such as cuts in greenhouse gases for industrialised nations and funds to help developing nations. Copenhagen would also set a deadline for writing them into a legal text...read more

Netherlands to levy "green" road tax by the kilometer

The Dutch government plans to bring the polluter-pays principle into the home garage. Rather than an annual road tax for their cars, drivers will soon pay a few cents for every kilometer (mile) on the road, in a plan aimed at breaking chronic traffic jams and cutting carbon emissions, the Cabinet decided Friday. The GPS monitoring system could be a test case for other countries weighing options for easing crowded roads. Some cities like London have created congestion charges to control traffic in downtown areas, but only Singapore has a similar scheme for charging according to the amount of travel. When the plan takes effect in 2012, new car prices will drop as much as 25 percent with the abolition of a purchase tax and the road tax, which now totals more than euro600 ($900) per year for a mid-sized car. Instead, an average passenger car will pay euro0.03 per 1 kilometer ($0.07 per mile), with higher charges levied during rush hour and for traveling on congested roads. Trucks, commercial vehicles and bigger cars emitting more carbon dioxide will be assessed at a higher rate, the Transport Ministry said. The GPS devices installed in cars will track the time, hour and place each car moves and send the data to a billing agency...read more

Soon to be coming our way...

Report: Terrain, brush to blame in huge wildfire

The largest wildfire in Los Angeles County history raged out of control because it jumped into inaccessible terrain, not because the U.S. Forest Service scaled back firefighters and aircraft attacking the flames, a federal review found Friday. The U.S. Forest Service study of decision-making during the Station Fire's first three days concluded that commanders used "best professional practices" while trying to knock down the fire that began Aug. 26 in Angeles National Forest. Forest Service Chief Thomas Tidwell ordered the review in September after residents and other critics said firefighters bungled the initial response. Government documents show the number of firefighters had been reduced on the first night of the fire, opening questions about whether commanders misread the threat of a blaze that ultimately killed two firefighters, destroyed 89 homes and blackened 250 square miles on the edge of Los Angeles. But a five-member review group said the challenge corralling the fire was its location - steep, rugged slopes thick with highly flammable brush - not decisions made by firefighters. As the blaze jumped into inaccessible areas, using aircraft to dump water or retardant without ground crews to help out would have been ineffective, the report found. "Additional resources during the evening of Aug. 26 and morning of Aug. 27 would not have improved the effectiveness of operations during that operational period and would have resulted in needless exposure of firefighters to the hazards of wildland fire," the report said. Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich challenged the findings, insisting the Forest Service erred by not calling in more aircraft to drop water and fire retardant in the early hours of the fire. Had more aircraft been used, "the fire would not have spread," Antonovich said in a statement Friday...read more

Clean Water Act 'fix' has major ramifications for state

Can Nevada water wars get any worse? Unfortunately, yes. We don't have endless streams, rivers and estuaries across the desert plain, so our water wars are legendary. At least, though, the fights are within our own borders given that Nevada is the sole authority over how our water is managed, allocated and distributed. But that may not last. The Clean Water Restoration Act pending in Congress right now would institute sweeping new changes to the federal Clean Water Act. Proponents say the changes are needed to "clarify the intent" of the law, but in removing just a single word from the text of the act, advocates of this plan will effectively force the Environmental Protection Agency to claim jurisdiction over every pond, tributary and ditch (that's dry ditches to us) nationwide. As we know, controlling water is controlling land in Nevada. The act has already been introduced and passed through committee on the fast track to the president's desk. If signed into law, the Clean Water Act would be amended to exclude the term "navigable" from the line of the law that gives the EPA regulatory authority over all "navigable waters." Take away that word and what is left is the EPA beginning to regulate all waters of the United States...read more

Surprise: biz group sues to Upgrade a species listing

It’s not every day that a group run by former Bush Administration Interior Department honcho Craig Manson files suit to get the status of a threatened species upgraded to endangered. It’s also not every day that such a group piggybacks on an earlier petition filed by the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity. But that’s what’s transpiring in the fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region in northern California in the ongoing drama over the tiny, threatened Delta smelt. A federal judge in that area has been turning the screws on water pumping in the Delta by farmers to insure more reliable water for the smelt, which has suffered significant declines in recent years. The limits on pumping have reduced supplies by 30 to 50 percent to farmers and also threatened higher water rates for some consumers living in that area. The cutbacks have also pared state water deliveries to already parched Southern California. Now, a group calling itself the Council for Endangered Species Act Reliability has filed a suit to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the smelt as endangered instead of threatened. So why the litigation? Manson said in interviews that he would like to see the service go beyond what he calls its “Casablanca approach: Round up the usual suspects” — i.e. — water pumping — in fingering blame for the smelt’s declines. If the smelt is uplisted, the service will have to a new analysis of five factors listed in the ESA, and the analysis must be based on new rather than old data, Manson said...read more

New national park could save high plains in Kansas

In 1987, two Rutgers’ University researchers ignited a prairie fire by suggesting much of the high plains, including a large swath of Kansas farmland, should be returned to its natural state — what they called a Buffalo Commons. The idea, which envisioned parts of 10 prairie states being transformed into a massive short-grass prairie national park, was derided as impractical, impossible and un-American. It was called city-logic. Farmers questioned why the Easterners hadn’t suggested returning New York City to its wild roots. “The idea offended me,” said former Kansas Governor Mike Hayden, once a harsh Buffalo Commons critic. But in the decades since, the population decline that spurred the plan not only continued, but accelerated. The already-stressed Ogallala Aquifer, the sole source of water for much of the region, has dried up faster than anticipated. Irrigated farmland has become dry, low-production farmland. Local economies of the high plains have dwindled. Today, Buffalo Commons — far from threatening an iconic American lifestyle — may instead be a savior to the region. “How do we bring a vital economy to life in northwest Kansas?” Hayden asked recently from his office as Kansas Secretary of Wildlife and Parks. “The model we’re now following has failed. Buffalo Commons makes more sense every year.”...read more

Adapting to Climate Change - A Short Course for Land Managers

The U.S. Forest Service’s western research stations have released an interactive short course that presents current scientific knowledge on adapting to climate variability in wildland management. Titled “Adapting to Climate Change: A Short Course for Land Managers,” the course is available as a DVD or online at the Climate Change Resource Center (http://www.fs.fed.us/ccrc). “It seems especially appropriate that a course on climate change is offered as a Web-based, distance-learning package, which minimizes the carbon costs of connecting scientists and experts with managers,” said Michael Furniss, a PNW Research Station hydrologist who produced and directed the course along with colleagues from the Pacific Southwest and Rocky Mountain Research Stations.