In mid-November, we asked our Wild Alert subscribers to let the Bush Administration know that its last-minute plan to sell off some of our last ancient forests in Oregon to the timber industry is unacceptable.

And the response was overwhelming!

Getting outside the beltway is always a pleasure for someone who makes a living protecting America’s wild and beautiful places. It’s doubly rewarding when you have a chance to share an award with a government official and meet all kinds of people committed to the cause of conservation.

The Wilderness Society agrees with Former Bureau of Land Management Chief Jim Baca that a series of six resource management plans for Utah wild lands fall severely short. The plans would open up a whopping 80 percent of these lands to oil and gas development. Drilling, along with off-road vehicle abuse, would pose serious threats to the land and cultural resources.

Patty Henetz of the Salt Lake Tribune discusses.

Stand at the edge of Island in the Sky in Canyonlands National Park near Moab, Utah, and be prepared to be swept away by a landscape of redrock badlands and canyon country.

This extraordinary national park, with its enormous views and unique geologic features, is largely managed by the Bureau of Land Management – and unfortunately the BLM is making some very disconcerting decisions about this precious part of south-eastern Utah.

It’s been called fool’s gold for a reason. For decades, energy companies have tried to extract oil from rock, but oil shale technology has never been developed to make large-scale production economically viable or environmentally sound.

Even the oil and gas industry admits that a viable oil shale technology is years, if not decades, away.

Yet, despite large public concern, Congress has given the go-ahead for oil shale development on public lands in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, three states that are home to major oil shale deposits.