On October 18, 2011, The Wilderness Society sent a report titled Rural Jobs and America’s Public Lands: Putting Rural America Back to Work to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, urging them to consider the benefits of conservation and recreation to the American economy.
The following letter to co-chairs Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Jeb Hensarling accompanied the report:
Dear Senator Murray and Representative Hensarling:
The purpose of the stewardship contracting authority is to allow public land managers to achieve land management goals while meeting local rural community needs. The authority’s use is on the rise, and many regard stewardship contracting as a win–win mechanism for federal land management and a means of ending the ‘‘timber wars’’ on public land.
The Obama administration established America’s Great Outdoors to hear Americans’ best ideas for developing a new conservation strategy. The Wilderness Society offered comments to the administration in September 2010 that outline our vision for a successful America's Great Outdoors initiative.
March 2010 marked Massachusetts' highest unemployment rate in 34 years. In a state where jobs are needed now, protecting our natural resources from climate impacts can put people to work across multiple economic sectors. Increasing average temperatures and precipitation levels in Massachusetts are leading to more storms and flooding, rising sea levels, degraded wildlands, and threats to our health.
There is general consensus that ecological restoration of southwestern ponderosa pine systems is necessary and physically attainable. However, the pace of restoration has been slow and far from approaching a broader scale. This article is a review of published journal articles, book chapters, and proceedings on the restoration of ponderosa pine forests in the Southwest in order to identify and examine the main social and economic barriers that are impeding the progress of restoration in the region.
The degree to which human intervention has modified fire frequency, intensity, and severity varies greatly among different ecosystems, and must be considered when planning to alter fuel loads or implement restorative treatments.
