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Broad Coalition Of Agriculture, Business, Environmental, Forestry Leaders Call On Gov. Newsom, Legislature For “Urgent Action” On Wildfires
December 17, 2020 GMT
SACRAMENTO, Calif., Dec. 16, 2020 /PRNewswire/ A new coalition of forestry, agricultural, business and environmental groups today called on Governor Gavin Newsom and the Legislature to provide stable and sustainable financial resources of more than $1.5 billion in the Governor’s upcoming budget designed to thwart wildfires that will provide multiple benefits to wildlife, water quality and security, as well as climate mitigation and resilience.
The renewed push for action comes after California experienced more than 9,600 fires in 2020, with more than 4.1 million total acres burned, 31 fatalities, and over 10,400 structures damaged or destroyed.
COLUMN: No easy answers for fire-weary western ranchers tahlequahdailypress.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tahlequahdailypress.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Noah Berger/AP
I got a call recently from one of my oldest friends, a retired rancher in Montana. As iconoclasts go, Ansel set the curve. We became friends during graduate school at the University of Virginia. One time he was delivering a seminar paper on William Faulkner’s narrative techniques when he paused, dug in his thick, black hair and yanked. “Tick,” he announced calmly, before tossing it in a wastebasket and finishing his talk. Later, he explained that he’d been squirrel hunting, not an everyday pastime for a Ph.D. candidate.
Opinion So it wasn’t a big surprise when he left academia to raise sheep in remote Highland County, Virginia. Over time, he kept moving farther from civilization until he ended up 17 miles from a town of 300 overlooking the Crazy Mountains in Montana by then a world-class breeder of Suffolk sheep.
USDA ARS
Cattle graze on sagebrush in southeastern Oregon near Little Juniper Mountain. A federal fuels reduction plan in the West’s Great Basin recognizes the value of grazing. Plan seeks to conserve, restore sagebrush communities imperiled by Western wildfires.
Ranchers’ groups are sidling up to a U.S. Bureau of Land Management plan that seeks to conserve and restore sagebrush communities within a 223 million-acre area in parts of six Western states that are imperiled by wildfire.
The agency on Nov. 27 unveiled its final environmental statement for fuels reduction and rangeland restoration in the Great Basin, which includes portions of California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada and Utah. The move initiated a 30-day public review before a final record of decision is issued.