Tag Archives: Conservation

Activities, Conservation

Sportsmen’s Priorities Included in 2014 Farm Bill

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

After three long years of debate, the United States Senate passed the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act, also known as the 2014 Farm Bill. This bipartisan legislation enhances and strengthens vital polices important to sportsmen and women across the United States and has been a long time priority of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus (CSC).

The 2014 Farm Bill, which passed in the Senate with a vote of 68-32, includes critical provisions to enhance habitat for wildlife, increase access for hunters and anglers, encourage conservation stewardship and protect our forest health. This legislation includes the conservation and sportsmen’s community’s priorities of re-coupling conservation compliance to crop insurance and an important Sodsaver program.

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National Forests, National Parks, News

Environmentalism, Budget Cuts to blame for Rim Fire

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

As the Rim fire continues to burn closer and into Yosemite, nobody seems to want to point out why this fire is burning so well, or so fast.

The answer is environmentalism, and budget cuts that have prohibited proper forest conservation.

Environmentalism is the idiotic belief that man knows what’s best for the forest, and can bend mother nature to his will.  In this particular arm-wrestling match, nature will always win.  It was here before man, it will be here after man.  The current wave of environmentalism culminated in huge budget cuts, which has allowed undergrowth to grow unchecked.   Controlled burns were cut out of budgets, as was undergrowth removal.

Supposedly, this stupidity was to allow the forest to ‘return to the wild.’  Yet, in the wild, fires started by nature – by lightning strikes, for instance – occur regularly.  Man, compounding the errors of environmentalism, promptly stopped any wildfires. Not a bad plan, but one that runs contrary to the whole ‘return to the wild’ idea.  Environmentalists seem to think that they can have it both ways; control mother nature, and let mother nature run wild.

It doesn’t work that way.

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Conservation, News

Who Watches the Watchers at Mono Lake?

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

With their usual regard for conservation and the environment, the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP)continues to display their professional ineptitude and scandalous behavior.  All efforts to protect and restore Mono Lake have been undermined by the DWP since they made a unilateral power-grab of lake monitoring operations and started diverting $10,000,000 in water per year.    Everything the DWP is doing is directly in violation of the rules set in 1998 by the State Water Board.

Guess the DWP had to find SOME way to pay all those ridiculously high salaries, right?

From the post:

A May 13, 2013 report to the State Water Board revealed that the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) failed to keep its promise to monitor the health of Mono Lake. DWP unilaterally took over operations of the lake monitoring program in August 2012, displacing the independent expert scientists who had run the program for 30 years. Since then a litany of issues has ensued. As a result, critical data—such as the salinity of Mono Lake—are not being collected, and key portions of the data that are being gathered are not usable. These failures are violations of the rules set in 1998 by the State Water Board.

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Conservation, National Forests, National Parks, State Parks

Merced River Plan – Bad Idea. REALLY Bad Idea

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

The Mercury News published an article by Paul Rogers, titled “Yosemite National Park may ban horse, bike and raft rentals, and remove ice rink and pools.”  You can read it HERE.

It’s a good article, and Paul is a good writer, and he lays everything out really well.

Personally, I have issues with the plan; I don’t believe we should be destroying ice rinks or banning bicyclists.  I believe that we should, however, draw a line in the sand; take a snapshot of how Yosemite Valley is right now, and look at preserving what we have, and managing it for future generations.  Which makes it sound like I’m against the Merced River Plan as drafted by the National Park Service.  I kinda am, but I’m also kinda not.  I like the idea behind the plan, I just think that – after the years and years of lawsuits, the fake sequestration cuts, and the political posturing by both sides – the plan is too convoluted and open to interpretation to be workable.

What I DO take exception to, however, are the so-called ‘environmentalists’ who seem to think they know better than those that would seek to conserve the land.  More often than not, environmentalists are people who never visit the places they seek to ban humans from, never see the damage done to the environment by the invasive alien species of plant and animal life they seek to “protect,” and very rarely stray far from their parent’s basements – unless it’s to use the hybrid car (made with batteries that have destroyed more environment than every Hummer ever made and that will continue to degrade the planet for decades to come) to drive to the mall to pick up cosmetics or sundries tested on innocent animals so they can live a more comfortable, air-conditioned life that is far removed from the true outside world. Continue reading →