It’s easy to forget all the amazing things forests do for us. Take a few minutes to discover why the trees in America’s National Forests play such a vital role in our world. The following infographic was provided by the National Forest Foundation. The NFF works with the U.S. Forest Service to care for 193 million acres of National Forests in 42 states +...
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A late-1960s Atomic Energy Commission plan to extract Wyoming natural gas with five underground nuclear explosions won strong initial support from the oil and gas industry and the federal government. Finally, however, the idea stalled, thanks to the emergence of more information on possible dangers, to Washington politics, and especially to intense local...
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Many of our iconic places are suffering from neglect. From deteriorating roads, bridges and buildings to threatened environmental resources, these natural and historic treasures have fallen into disrepair. Conditions at most of the 412 National Parks, Battlefields, Monuments and Seashores have worsened in recent years because administrations and Congress have continually...
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Did the fires hurt wildlife? The impact will unlikely be large enough to affect overall populations, and long-term the fires will result in a flush of green in the understory that will ultimately benefit wildlife. Will the fires increase the chance of flooding and landslides? With more than a month elapsed since the report’s Dec. 12 completion and multiple heavy rains in...
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It’s safe to say that Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) is no friend of environmentalists. He boycotted Pope Francis’s speech to Congress in 2015 because the pontiff addressed climate change. He received a score of 3 percent that year from the League of Conservation Voters, significantly below the House average of 41 percent. But his latest move came as a surprise to many....
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As president of the nonprofit Friends of Panthertown, Margaret Carton has worked for years to protect her beloved Panthertown Valley in Jackson County. As the “feet on the ground,” the group has worked since 2005 to maintain trails, install steps around waterfalls to create safe footing, and give educational programs. With a deal underway with Mainspring Conservation...
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I am disgusted… for dozens of reasons, but let’s talk about the Stream Protection Rule. The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) of the Department of the Interior studied the effects of mountaintop removal coal mining for nearly the entire length of the Obama Administration, fielding more than 100,000 requests for comment....
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The People’s Climate March will descend on D.C. with an intersectional coalition of green and environmental-justice groups, indigenous and civil-rights organizations, students and labor unions. The march will take place on Saturday, April 29, 2017, exactly 100 days into Trump’s presidency. In January, the Women’s March gathered half a million demonstrators in D.C. alone....
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On January 25, 2017, the Bureau of Land Management leased nearly 850 acres of land for drilling in northwest New Mexico, netting close to $3 million. The agency offers leases on millions of acres of public land per year, but this latest sale was unusual. Not only was it the first time that the BLM has conducted a lease sale online rather than live in the New Mexico...
Learn MoreA team of scientists has been studying the plant and animal life as regrowth happens following the November 2016 Chimney Tops 2 fire in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The team has investigated 100 different areas and developed detailed maps of the impact by the fire. “The thing that stands out is the red areas. This is around the Bull Head trail area that a...
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“I have been watching the Trump administration trying unsuccessfully to suppress the National Park Service with a mix of pride and amusement. The NPS is the steward of America’s most important places and the narrator of our most powerful stories, told authentically, accurately, and built upon scientific and scholarly research. The Park Ranger is a...
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Thru-hikers discover how environmentally degrading backpacking can be. They find countless coolers and campsites full of trash, and eating individually wrapped packets of ramen and Pop-Tarts generates an uncomfortable amount of waste. Hikers have ideas for making long-distance backpacking more environmentally sound. Though it’s nearly impossible to avoid creating some...
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The evolution of historic Elkmont soon should be taking another step forward. The historic former logging/resort community in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has been in an evolving state since 2009 when the National Park Service announced a plan to preserve part of the community after conducting an environmental impact study from 1992 through 2008. The plan has...
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If anyone should know that it is, as a practical matter, impossible to force a willful individual to stop tweeting, it’s President Donald J. Trump. So perhaps he was least shocked of all to see that, this week, a new handle popped up on Twitter after the president placed a gag order on his own National Park Service: @AltNatParkSer. By way of...
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It was a year into his life alone in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains when Billy Barr began his recordings. It started as a curiosity, a task to busy his mind during the winter. By no means did he set out to make a vital database for climate change scientists. “Hell no!” he said. “I didn’t know anything about climate change at the time.” In 1973 Barr had dropped out of college...
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As 2017 is the sesquicentennial year for John Muir’s thousand-mile walk across the southeastern U.S. (1867-68), it is likely that many people will be attempting to trace his path. Chuck Roe, founding manager of the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program, founding director of the Conservation Trust for North Carolina, and Southeast U.S. Region program director for the...
Learn MorePrescribed fire is an important and widely used management tool, but the smoke produced can cause air quality issues and health problems. Before conducting prescribed fires, managers typically model the amount of smoke a fire will produce, which is directly related to the amount of fuel available. “Most fire-effects models were developed in the western U.S.,” says U.S....
Learn MoreWhen Congress passed the act creating the National Park Service in the summer of 1916, it instructed the agency to leave park scenery and wildlife “unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” The law did not define “unimpaired.” To Stephen Mather, the charismatic borax magnate who served as the first director of the Park Service, it meant simply “undeveloped.”...
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The devastating spruce beetle infestation in the San Juan Mountains has crossed the Continental Divide, and within the next few years, will spread into the high country around Durango and Silverton, leaving in its wake an expanse of dead trees. “I tell people all the time: you need to get up there before it starts to look different,” said Kent Grant, a Durango-based...
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U.S. national parks remain what American author Wallace Stegner once called America’s Best Idea. Our parks enjoy bi- partisan support and are a model for park systems around the globe. By any measure, the idea is a success. But, as we transition to a new administration, it is timely to ask this question: will the System continue to serve its intended purpose in a new...
Learn MoreThree men accused of going on a vandalism spree across several western United States National Parks have pleaded guilty and will be banned from all public lands for the next five years. Before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Carman at the Yellowstone Justice Center in Mammoth Hot Springs the three Canadian men affiliated with the group “High On Life” admitted to breaking the...
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Environmental experts will present information about the long-term effects of the Party Rock Fire on the natural environment in Hickory Nut Gorge on Tuesday, January 31, 2017 at 6 p.m. in the Community Hall at the Lake Lure Municipal Building. Experts include Clint Calhoun with the Town of Lake Lure, Marshall Ellis with NC State Parks, and Michael Cheek with the NC...
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Arborists from the National Park Service Incident Response Team resumed clearing overgrown vistas on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Roanoke area December 4th through December 15, restoring 25 vistas so far with this stretch of the project. The project is a continuation of the vista restoration work launched in the fall of 2014 with the support of Friends of the Blue Ridge...
Learn MoreA rock slide has closed about two miles of a scenic drive inside Zion National Park in southern Utah. Nobody was injured, but officials say Zion Scenic Drive is impassable just north of Zion Lodge and will remain closed until further notice. Park officials say the slide occurred late January 13, 2017, covering both lanes of the road with about 200 tons of massive...
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The National Park Service is waiving entrance fees on Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Monday, January 16, 2017. As part of the park service’s centennial, national sites will be free to the public 10 days in 2017. The waiver includes entrance fees, commercial tour fees, and transportation entrance fees. Reservation, camping, and tour fees will still be collected. If you’re...
Learn MoreA 70-year-old Grand Rapids, Michigan man has admitted to stealing thousands of black spruce tree tops from the Chippewa National Forest. Black spruce is a North American pine species. It is widespread across Canada and the northern United States, including the Great Lakes region. The popularity of black spruce tops and other forest products that are used in the seasonal...
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This week, as John Murray drove north from his home on the Badger-Two Medicine River to his job as the historic preservation officer for the Blackfeet Tribe, the mountains glowed red. His wife, who drove with him, commented on their beauty. Murray, 69, noted with deep satisfaction, that for the first time in more than 30 years, there are no more oil and gas leases up...
Learn MoreExxonMobil has lost a key battle in an investigation into whether the oil giant misled the public about the dangers of climate change. A Massachusetts judge ordered Exxon to hand over more than four decades of the company’s climate change research. The court rejected Exxon’s emergency motion to kill the demand from Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey,...
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I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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