The California Department of Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Forest Service, and Society for Conservation of Bighorn Sheep (SCBS) are looking for volunteers to assist biologists with a bighorn sheep count in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties at the end of February (February 29 through March 1st). It’s the last weekend of the month, and the event will go on Saturday evening and all day Sunday.
Tag Archives: USFS
The Barry Hance Memorial Award is Park’s Highest Honor
Yosemite National Park is proud to announce that Park Ranger Sharon Miyako is the recipient of the 2016 Barry Hance Memorial Award. This ceremony was attended by approximately 300 people, including several past Barry Hance Award recipients.
The Barry Hance Memorial Award is a peer-nominated award that is named in honor of Barry Hance, a long-time employee of Yosemite National Park who died in an avalanche while plowing the Tioga Road in 1995. Recipients of this prestigious award are employees who exemplify the qualities and attributes of Barry Hance. These include team work, a positive attitude, concern for the public and fellow employees, public service, and a deep love for Yosemite National Park.
Avenza Systems has developed a mobile app for iOS and Android. The app itself is free … the maps are a reasonable $.99 for a national forest atlas, or $4.99 for a forest visitor map.
From the press release:
The U.S. Forest Service now offers access to a variety of visitor maps for people using Android and iOS devices.
“This mobile app makes it easier than ever to plan your visit to a national forest or grassland,” said U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell. “By putting important forest information right at your fingertips, it will encourage more Americans to get outside and explore their forests.”
The Pacific Southwest Region of the US Forest Service has released a statement of its Leadership Intent for Ecological Restoration, which laid out the Region’s guiding vision and goals for its stewardship of wildland and forests for the next 15-20 years. The following draft document reflects the Regional leadership’s current thinking on how the Leadership Intent will be implemented. This draft is a beginning point for discussions with employees, partners, tribes, agencies, communities of place and interest and those who care about the future of their National Forests.
Like the Leadership Intent the Implementation Plan is fluid and we expect that adjustments will be made over time as the Region continues to collaborate; follow new science; and seek out and form new alliances. These ongoing processes will reveal new and smarter ways to increase the pace and scale of restoration work while balancing the ecological, social and economic benefits of our restoration actions. Regional leadership has committed to editing and improving this document following these discussions and then reviewing and updating it at least annually in the future years. Hence we invite discussion, input and insight to ensure that the Implementation Plan reflects and is responsive to new information, partnerships, and conditions.
When the United States Department of Agriculture released its Visual Standards Guide back in January, it contained the ominous phrase ‘agency logos are being phased out and replaced with a standardized signature model to be adopted by all USDA agencies.’
This reminded me of the Borg’s ‘you will be assimilated’ phrase from Star Trek the Next Generation. And, given that the USDA is the same department that oversees things like the homogenization of milk, it makes absolute sense that they’d want to make sure that their employees, vehicles, websites, uniforms, etc. would all be … ‘assimilated.’
But here’s the thing. The U.S. FOREST Service is all about forests and forestry. The USDA’s logo is described – by the USDA themselves – as “a graphic representation of the land — the foundation of all agriculture — and the Department’s initials. The symbol’s colors — dark green and dark blue — represent the essential elements of earth, air, and water. Together these elements comprise the symbol.”
Falling back on my Southern California roots and lingo: “Dude. Really?“