On a warm July day in 2013, a 48-year-old Texan named Nancy Allen and her 18-year-old daughter, Sara, set out to climb Ìęfrom the . The five-mile hike to the 8,365-foot summit of this famous Washington State volcano, which became 1,300 feet shorter after it erupted in 1980, is a strenuous route up rough terrain. But the pair reached the top without incident, presumably gazing into the crater with wonder and a sense of accomplishment.

Unfortunately, the Allens got lost on the way down, and Nancy fell from a small outcropping, injuring her leg. At 8 P.M. she called 911, and the Skamania County sheriff’s office dispatched a well-trained crew of search and rescue volunteers called the Volcano Rescue Team. A few hours later, SAR specialists reached the Allens and assessed the situation. According to subsequent , the hikers were still high on the mountain, with temperatures already dipping into the low fifties. They were wearing shorts and T-shirts, and Nancy was unable to walk.

The rescuers decided to give the women extra clothing and blankets and called additional team members to hike up with a litter, so they could carry Nancy down the mountain. The trailhead was just a few miles away, but the physical rigors of hauling out an adult meant that the extraction would take anywhere from seven to fifteen hours. After a couple of hours of this, Nancy asked if it would be possible to call a helicopter.

It was: there was a private heli service in Oregon, based just over the state line. But the county sheriff’s office decided the situation didn’t warrant a lift. If she wanted a helicopter, she’d have to call one herself. “I have a credit card,” she reportedly said. By 6:30, the Texans were in a private bird. Now unburdened, the SAR team quickly descended. They wouldn’t say whether they cracked celebratory beers that night, having dodged a tough slog.

All in all, it was a happy ending—until the story made the news, with reporters taking aim at Nancy Allen’s choice to pay for the easy way out. “Rich Texas woman hires private helicopter to get her off 8,000-foot mountain after deciding rescuers lugging her down on stretcher are ‘too slow,’ ” the . Cue the social-media firestorm.

The derision was patently unfair. If Allen had been in similar circumstances 50 miles north in Mount Rainier National Park, the climbing rangers may very well have called in a helicopter that wouldn’t have cost her a dime, because Rainier has a contract that covers such expenses. Same goes if she’d been in Yosemite, Grand Teton, or a handful of other national parks that pay to have helicopters on call. Nancy’s problem wasn’t that she was too spoiled to tolerate a painful extraction from the wilderness. It was that she ran into trouble in a place where air support was limited.

SAR operations in the United States are a patchwork. Depending on where you are when bad luck strikes, you might be saved by a commando squad with a chopper on speed dial, carried out quickly by a talented group like the Volcano Rescue Team, or forced to wait for hours, even days, until well-meaning volunteers with limited resources reach you in the backcountry. Historically, this was a reasonable approach, with the level of rescue services available in a given area generally matching the demand. These days, though, demographic and cultural shifts have led , putting emergency operations in some places under enormous stress. Which is why it’s time to reevaluate our approach to SAR before things get worse.

With outdoor recreation surging, it’s no surprise that we’re in this pickle. The Forest Service Ìęthat in 2016, some five million more visitors hit the 193 million acres of public land it manages compared with a decade earlier. The fastest-growing residential areas in the country are in so-called Ìęzones, where locals have easy access to adventure. Outdoor tourism in places like Colorado’s Front RangeÌęis spiking as people seek out whitewater rivers and alpine peaks. Meanwhile, some SAR leaders report changes in the kinds of rescues they’re doing: there are more Instagramming adventurers getting in over their heads, more mushroom hunters in flip-flops losing their way in the woods, and more people navigating with their phones until the battery dies.

Responses vary by situation. In a handful of national parks, climbing rangers (or their equivalents) can call on contracted helicopters capable of short-hauling injured parties off hanging faces and out of glacial terrain. (That’s the dramatic stuff. The truth is that most rescues are far more mundane, usually involving lost or tired hikers.) In good weather during daylight, SAR can be on the scene in as little as 25 minutes on Mount Rainier’s trade routes or an hour on the West Buttress of Denali, the standard way up the Alaskan peak.

Public-land rescues outside national parks depend largely on volunteer teams under the command of a sheriff’s office, and some of these outfits are exceptionally skilled. Oregon’s Mount Hood, for example, is serviced by two famed volunteer groups: the Crag Rats to the north and Portland Mountain Rescue to the south, both packed with alpinists certified by the Mountain Rescue Association, a national organization that requires members to pass stringent field tests. Like other volunteer units across the country, these rescuers don’t have immediate access to a helicopter, so they turn to the military or private operators for air support, which can dramatically slow response times. Over the past three years, the fastest that Portland Mountain Rescue has gotten a helicopter to the scene is 45 minutes. Sometimes it can take four hours.

“The difference is that at Rainier, we have more of a limo with a driver parked in front of our house and ready to go. On Forest Service land, the sheriff’s office has to call a taxi,” says Glenn Kessler, Mount Rainier’s aviation manager.

In some of the nation’s most popular outdoor playgrounds, operations are becoming overwhelmed. The 70-member , in Boulder County, Colorado, is the most active volunteers outfit in the nation, and one of the most talented. But it’s now handling close to 250 missions a year, up from an average of 170 over the past decade. Jeff Sparhawk, a longtime team member who’s also president of the Colorado Search and Rescue Association—a nonprofit that helps coordinate and support the state’s many local teams—told me in the fall that 2019 was shaping up to be the group’s second busiest on record.

“People who work nine-to-five jobs are getting paged out of work at least 150 times a year,” he said. “That’s a tall ask.” Not surprisingly, the team can have problems getting members to join multiple missions.

In more rural and remote areas, SAR services tend to be limited. Again, this used to make sense. In the past, the relatively small number of adventurers who planned a climbing expedition to, say, a faraway mountain like Montana’s Granite Peak, the state’s highest summit at some 12,800 feet, were typically more capable of saving themselves, or at least of stabilizing their situation until help arrived. In Stillwater County, home to one of four sheriff’s offices that might get called to coordinate rescues on Granite Peak, the ten-person volunteer SAR team is now called for about 35 missions annually, a big jump from the ten or fewer the group used to do in the early 2000s. Helicopters are hard to come by—the closest available private-rescue option is 400 miles away in Whitefish. Rescuing someone on foot in the rugged Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness around Granite Peak can require a two-day walk just to reach the victim.

Other places simply lack capable personnel. Multiple sources told me that in some locations, volunteer teams just don’t have adequate skills for certain kinds of rescues. Economics can be a factor. SAR experts estimate that it costs volunteers anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000 a year—mostly for gear, gas, and meals connected to rescues and training—just to be part of a team. In rural communities where incomes are lower, that’s a huge sacrifice. “Ranchers, farmers, and foresters might not have the time or money available,” says Marcel Rodriguez, a board member with , an Oregon City volunteer group.

Unfortunately, there’s no easy fix for all this, and having rangers with helicopters on all our public lands isn’t realistic. Cost is one hurdle, though the price tag isn’t as insurmountable as you might think. In 2017, across all our national parks, we spent . Even if the cost to develop a nationwide approach to SAR was 100 times more, that’s only a fraction of the country’s $400 billion .

Still, the logistics of such a system are likely out of reach. The national parks that employ rangers with strong climbing skills and contract with helicopter services have centralized command centers that can handle the relatively manageable chunks of terrain under their watch. But covering, say, Colorado as a whole would require a network of stations and a massive staff of professional rescuers. Even then, response times would be relatively slow in remote wilderness areas.

șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű the U.S., there’s an enviable model to aspire to. In Switzerland, you can spend about $30 per year for a rescue card issued by the legendary nonprofit group , which was created after World War II. In many cases, the card covers the cost of extracting you from the mountains on a helicopter, with a doctor onboard, and delivering you to a hospital.

In 2018 alone, Rega orchestrated 12,500 missions with helicopters, and today it maintains a fleet of 18 helicopters and three ambulance jets, and it’s currently testing a reconnaissance drone. “My friends doing that work whine that they are only making $500 a day,” says veteran guide Martin Volken, a Swiss native who trained in Switzerland and founded the , an international company based in North Bend, Washington. “Meanwhile, in the U.S., the volunteers might get a deal on a Gore-Tex jacket.”

A nationwide Rega-style organization is unlikely in the U.S., mostly because of the same geographic realities that prevent us from expanding the Park Service ­climbing-ranger model. “Switzerland is a little country,” says Renny Jackson, a retired Grand Teton National Park rescue specialist. “Compared with the Alps, we have vast sections of terrain with very few people. Look at the Red Desert of Wyoming or the Beartooths in Montana. Connecting helicopters and professional rescuers to those places is inherently challenging.”

Besides the daunting logistics of the American landscape, there’s another issue: Americans still don’t require the sheer number of rescues needed to support a nonprofit like Rega or compel the federal government to deal with the problem. The French government, by contrast, runs excellent SAR operations because it desperately needs to. Every summer, the Chamonix Valley, France’s extreme-sports capital, is inundated by more than 100,000 tourists, including a large number of mountaineers, paragliders, and BASE jumpers. It’s been widely reported that . Even if that number is inflated by avalanches that took out villages, it’s still considered one of the world’s deadliest ranges. In comparison, the U.S. national park system sees an average of 150 to 170 accidental deaths annually.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do everything we can to improve our approach to SAR. The volunteer teams that serve as the backbone of operations in the U.S. need additional support. “Search and rescue at the community level is headed in the wrong direction,” Sparhawk says. If changes don’t happen in the next five to ten years, he warns, the Colorado SAR system will no longer be sustainable.

In an effort to turn things around, the Colorado Search and Rescue Association has been gathering data from the state’s teams and studying SAR models in numerous locations around the country. It’s investigating the possibility of getting more state and federal funding to cover the cost of rescues and mental-health support for volunteers. This would at least allow for the compensation of overtapped volunteers when they’re deployed on challenging multi-day missions. Sparhawk says they’ve also looked at adding full-time paid professionals to the busiest volunteer crews. As this story went to press, the board was preparing to present its preliminary findings to the state legislature, requesting more funding for a comprehensive study that could help inform fundamental changes in how Colorado pays for and manages SAR.

In the meantime, fee-based initiatives can at least help reimburse volunteers for gas, sandwiches, and gear. For well-intentioned reasons, people are only rarely charged for their rescues in the U.S. Emergency professionals have long argued that charging fees would lead to delayed calls for help and thus more urgent and dangerous rescues. But states shouldn’t shy from encouraging outdoor adventurers to drop some money in the hat. Starting in 2015, New Hampshire, one of a handful of states with laws enabling it to bill people for rescues in the event of negligence, has offered a $25 Ìęcard, with proceeds supporting state SAR operations. In 2018, the card brought in $134,000. A similar program in Colorado generates about $350,000 a year.

Eventually, the free market could play a role. Annual memberships with start at $329. For that, the company will take charge of orchestrating your evacuation from all kinds of dangerous locations around the planet. In the U.S., it typically coordinates rescues much like sheriff’s departments do: by working the phones. Mount Rainier’s Kessler says that creating private—and, like Rega, prepaid—SAR outfits, complete with helicopters, has been a frequent topic of conversation among rangers. And where the market won’t save the day, philanthropy might: in Whitefish, a wealthy benefactor named Mike Goguen launched , offering his helicopter to any SAR outfit in the region at no cost.

The most achievable short-term improvements in American search and rescue will probably come from smarter utilization of existing resources. A standout example exists in Teton County, Wyoming, where a partnership among the sheriff’s office, the Forest Service—which manages all the terrain on Teton Pass—and Grand Teton National ParkÌęallows the groups to share a helicopter during summer months that the Forest Service originally brought in for wildland firefighting.

Ultimately, America probably won’t get a major SAR overhaul until more people die in the outdoors. That’s a cynical take, but it’s the same gruesome calculus that motivates road crews to add guardrails only after enough drivers plummet to their deaths on dangerous mountain highways. On St. Helens, a unique agreement among three surrounding counties uses property-tax revenues to help fund emergency services, including salaries for the coordinators of the Volcano Rescue Team that respond to Nancy Allen. The inspiration for this setup? The 1980 eruption, which killed around 60 people.

The post America’s Search and Rescue Is in a State of Emergency appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

A couple years ago, I was talking to my dad on the phone and asked about his plans for the next weekend. He said Saturday he was going to go golfing, but he had to wait to pick up my mom and her friend Ann because they were going to try to bicycle 100 miles.

And then he said, “Whoops, shit, I probably wasn’t supposed to tell you that. I think she wanted to keep it a secret.”

The next Saturday evening, my mom texted me a photo of her bike computer: 109 miles. When I called her the next day, I asked her why she hadn’t told me about her plan to ride a century for the first time in her life at age 65. She said, “Well, I didn’t want to jinx it. I wasn’t sure we’d make it.”

This is not about my mom and Ann being badasses and for no reason just deciding to try something huge like pedaling a hybrid bike in the July humidity in Iowa for an entire day, although that is arguably pretty neat. It’s about planning to do big things, and not telling anyone until you’ve finished the big thing. (It also may be a story about my dad not being able to keep secrets that well.)

I don’t know if I get this from my mom or if she gets it from me, but I’m also a secret goal-planner. If I’m trying to do something big, like writing a book or climbing a mountain, I don’t say anything until it’s finished. Yes, you should positively affirm to yourself your intentions and definitely think “I can do this” instead of “maybe I can do this.” But if you, for example, intend to climb Mount Rainier for the first time ever, lots of things can happen up there before you get to the summit. Unexpected weather, for one, can make it impossible, even if you have done 100 percent of everything in your power to prepare beforehand. You can get horrible blisters, or a stomach virus the day before your climb. Hopefully none of these things happen to you, but let’s be honest: Until you have both feet on the summit of a mountain, you have not climbed that mountain—you are attempting to climb the mountain.Ìę

A couple of psychology studies have shown that telling your goals to people makes you less likely to achieve them (some takes on that , , and ), and others have argued against that idea (), saying we’re going to fail at 99 percent of our goals, whether we tell anyone or not.

Sure, privately telling someone close to you about your Big Idea can help you be held accountable to it, especially if they’re a good friend who won’t let you off the hook that easily. But that’s different than telling all your Twitter or Instagram followers about it because you’re excited about your idea—social media posts are pretty ephemeral, and most of us have too much noise in our lives to hold anyone we “follow” accountable to anything. When’s the last time you commented, “Hey @bobxyz, didn’t you tweet one time last year that you were going to write a book this year?” We have a million ways to communicate nowadays, and talk is becoming cheaper and cheaper.

One of my all-time favorite quotes is from artist Chuck Close, who spent hours and hours (but only a half-teaspoon of black paint) creating his nine-foot by seven-foot, mind-blowingly photorealistic Ìęin 1967. Close said: “Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.” He was talking about the process of making art, but I think that quote also captures how fleeting inspiration is—with big ideas, inspiration can only power you through a very small percentage of the work required to get something done. Drive is what gets you to the finish line, the final edit, or the summit.Ìę

For me, it all comes down to one thing: The joy is in actually doing the thing, not saying you’re going to do it.Ìę

The post Should You Keep Your Big Goals To Yourself? appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

On Tuesday, Patagonia sent shock waves through the outdoor industry when the if it was held in Salt Lake City. OR, as it’s known, has long been the outdoor industry’s largest core gathering—a place to show off the hottest new gear, build buzz, and codify trends. Each summer and winter, 20,000 people pour into Salt Lake City and the adjacent Wasatch Range for the show. Suddenly this week, however, that relationship is in jeopardy, as a growing number of brands are unhappy for one simple reason: Utah’s desire to remove public lands from federal management.

Utah is a leader in the movement to transfer federal lands to the states, which concerns adventurers and sportsmen who believe those lands will be compromised or sold off entirely to development. In late January, Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz introduced one bill that would and another directing the U.S. Department of the Interior to sell 3.37 million acres of federal land to the states. (Chaffetz agreed to withdraw the latter bill after considerable public outcry, though he has yet to do so.) Then, on Friday, February 3, Utah Governor Gary Herbert in southern Utah.

Patagonia’s response was unambiguous. “Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed a resolution urging the Trump administration to rescind the Bears Ears National Monument, making it clear that he and other Utah elected officials do not support public lands conservation nor do they value the economic benefits that the outdoor recreation industry brings to their state,” wrote , on Tuesday. “Because of the hostile environment they have created and their blatant disregard for Bears Ears National Monument and other public lands, the backbone of our business, Patagonia will no longer attend the Outdoor Retailer show in Utah and we are confident other outdoor manufacturers and retailers will join us in moving our investment to a state that values our industry and promotes public lands conservation.”

In January, mid-sized Utah-based apparel maker of the show if Utah didn't change its stance on public lands. Many expect Salt Lake–based Black Diamond to follow suit because of the strong public lands activism of former CEO Peter Metcalf. “Utah is the birther state of the most anti-stewardship, anti-public lands policy in the country,” Metcalf told the Denver Post last week before heading out on a backcountry vacation. “If we can’t affect policy by staying, then the next step is leaving.”

More surprising is the stance of the Outdoor Retailer show itself, which brings an estimated $45 million to the city each year. On Monday, Outdoor Retailer director Marisa Nicholson wrote, “We’ve been listening to the concerns from the industry and agree that it is . Salt Lake City has been an incredible home to Outdoor Retailer for the past 20 years, and we aren’t opposed to staying, but we need to do what’s best for the industry and for the business of outdoor retail.”

Note that word: business. Ìęis a corporation that owns Outdoor Retailer and more than 60 other trade shows in sectors including technology, health care, and military. That's the strength of Patagonia's announcement—the move doesn’t hurt Utah nearly as much as it does Emerald, to which Patagonia pays several hundred thousand dollars in booth fees each time it shows up.

Emerald's contract with the Salt Lake City Convention and Visitors Bureau runs out in 2018, and threatening to depart for a city like Denver could be used as leverage.ÌęEmerald,Ìęhowever, denies that itÌęwould exploit a sensitive political issue for financial gain. “We put political considerations ahead of our bottom line,” says Darrell Denny, who heads Emerald's sports trade shows, including OR, Surf Expo, and Interbike, the bicycle trade show, and who alsoÌęsits on the board of theÌę.Ìę“We have frequently made decisions that are detrimental to our company bottom line and, instead, put greater industry needs first.”

On the other hand, since 2010, eager to spread that $45 million economic impact over the Front Range. “Four years ago, we didn’t have the facilities to host Outdoor Retailer, but that has changed now,” says Luis Benitez, director of Colorado’s Outdoor Recreation Industry Office. (It doesn’t hurt that Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper has launched a and has said that the country needs more public land, not less.)

Denver already hosts OR’s primary competitor, the nonprofit (SIA) Snow Show. “It’s great to partner with a state that cares so much for recreation and the outdoors,” says SIA president Nick Sargent, who says that he’d even welcome negotiating a consolidation with OR, especially if it means doing the right thing by environmental and public lands policy. “We’d welcome a partnership with OR. Our entire industry needs to work together to make sure we thrive.”

The real test of Emerald’s commitment to the issue mayÌębe . The bicycle industry’s premiere trade show is held annually in Las Vegas. That contract expires in 2018 as well, and Emerald is considering moving it to a new location. The company says it is accepting proposals from several cities and has no leading candidates. But sources I talked to said that Emerald prefersÌęSalt Lake City for both OR and Interbike because it’s closer to the mountains and because it’s a right-to-work state, meaning it has lower labor costs, and therefore lower costs for exhibitors. (Denny was emphatic that lower labor costs would not improve Emerald's profit margins.)Ìę

The question: If Salt Lake City gives Emerald the best deal, will it chose Utah despite its policies? Companies hope not. “I’d have a hard time supporting Interbike in Utah with their current stance on public lands,” says Chris Conroy, president of . “The outdoor industry is a $646 billion industry, and public lands are an essential component of that. We should be fighting to maintain that.”

For now, Emerald isn't quite ready to leave the state over its policies. “IÌęretain some hope that Utah leaders will recognize that outdoor recreation in all its forms is more durable, repeatable, and bankable than other options,” says Denny.Ìę“We will see if they prove my optimism was illÌęplaced.”ÌęIf it is, it will be up toÌęcompanies to remember that money talks—and that a significant part of Emerald's revenues comes from the brands who pay to be there. On that front, Patagonia has already taken the lead by putting pressure on the company that ultimately decides where the trade show is held. It’s up to other brands to follow suit.

Update (February 9, 2017):ÌęSeveral other companies have nowÌęboycottedÌęthe Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City. Arc'teryxÌęis the largest company to in their boycott.Ìę“The Outdoor Industry has an obligation to protect the wild places that are important to our consumers,” wrote company president JonÌęHoerauf. “Since 2014, we’ve been part of the efforts to protect Bears Ears, supporting local grassroots organizations working on a legislated solution. Protecting public lands for future generations is a critical part of our brand values and we will use our influence in a way that is consistent with those values.”ÌęHe went on to say that he’d be joining 21 other Outdoor Alliance members in Washington, D.C. onÌęMarch 6Ìęto meet with Congress and the new administration, and will be donating $150,000 to the Conservation Alliance over the next three years. Earlier in the day,Ìępack makerÌęÌęand lighting makerÌę all announced they’d be joining the effort to pressure Utah away from hurtful policies towards public lands.

Update (February 17, 2017): On Thursday, February 16, Emerald Expositions said it from Utah to continue hosting Outdoor retailer. Utah governor Gary Herbert's office responded that the decision “smacks of gross ingratitude,” . It is not yet clear where the next OR will take place, or whether a new location will be selected in time for the previously scheduled summer version of the event, which typically takes place twice each year. Already organizations and politicians in Colorado, Washington, and New Mexico have been working to convince the trade show to move to their respective states.

The post Moving Outdoor Retailer Isn’t About Politics. It’s About Money. appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

In his first 11 days of office, Donald Trump issuedÌę, ranging from building a border wall to approving the Dakota Access and Keystone pipelines to ending new federal regulations. The half-dozen lawyers I talked with in recent weeks about environmental law under Trump all doubted the administration’s ability to undermine existing regulations solely with executive actions. But more than just political theater, Trump’s wet ink broadcast the administration’s big-league ambitions for the next four years. For already twitchy environmental groups, the five executive actions dealing directly with energy and environmental regulations raised the anxiety level from slightly concerned to full-on emergency.

A quick refresher on our three branches of government: Congress writes laws, the president enacts or vetoes them, and courts enforce them.ÌęWhat spooks environmental groups more than Trump’s executive orders is the threat of Congress pulling laws off the books. The Republican-controlled House has demonstrated its willingness to fast-track legislation, but the Republican majority in the Senate is slimmer, meaning that bills are more prone to filibustering or outright defeat. That could be especially true given Senator John McCain and Lindsay Graham’s of resisting Trump on the ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. William Snape, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity and a teacher at American University’s Washington College of Law, thinks the earliest we’ll see Congress try to rewrite the Endangered Species Act or the Clean Air Act is March 4, when the feds run out of money, and Congress members tend to attach environmental riders to necessary appropriations bills.

“Will Trump be able to get rid of key provisions in the Clean Water Act? The Endangered Species Act? It all boils down to the strength of the Democratic filibuster in the Senate,” says Ralph Bloemers, of Oregon’s CragÌęLaw Center, which recently won a case blocking a coal export terminal along the Columbia River. “We only go to court if there’s a dispute over laws on the books. If Congress changes that law, there’s no lawsuit.”

For the time being, all our existing protections remain on the books. That keeps the fight where environmental organizations are best equipped to defend or push policies: court. The Supreme Court earned its moniker because, unlike the 107 other lesser federal courts, its rulings set precedent for any and all cases involving federal law. But it's only one court. Each year the justices receive about 7,000 requests to field cases; just 130 make it through the door.ÌęThat leaves many thousands of very important environmental lawsuits—everything fromÌęagency overreach to the legality of an international pipeline—to be decided by courts that don't reign supreme.Ìę

Of those, the D.C. Circuit may be the most important. Housed in a classical courthouse on Constitution Avenue, the D.C. CircuitÌęplays an outsized role in shaping policies because it reviews the rules of all agencies based in the capitol.ÌęTheÌęcourt's eleven justices—conservative or liberal—share a reputation for extreme legal competence best personified byÌęMerrick Garland, the Obama Supreme Court nominee whom RepublicansÌę. That hasn’t historically translated to sympathy for environmental causes. Though Obama appointed four new justices to the court, giving Democratic-appointed judges a seven-to-four edge, Snape wouldn't describe any of the judges as liberal. “I’ve won before Garland, and I’ve lost before Garland,” he says. Garland has a deep respect for the system, and like John Roberts, chief justice of the Supreme Court, he views himself as a protector against extremism. “I expect you’ll see this court assert themselves if Trump goes too far,” Snape says.

Over the next four years, the D.C. Circuit is where environmental organizations will argue any potential challenges to the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service. It’s also where we’re likely to see Trump’s come to a head. Without money to enforce laws, citizens and environmental organizations will file suits against the EPA for failing to do its job. In a bit of irony that liberals will love, those cases could well end up on Merrick Garland’s desk.

A good case to watch for the temperament of the D.C. Circuit under the Trump administration is over the Clean Power Plan. The rule, an Obama-era interpretation of the Clean Air Act, gives the EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gases. It has never been on firm legal footing. After the Supreme Court stayed the rule in February 2016, a coalition of states and fossil-fuel businesses argued before the D.C. Circuit that the act gives the federal government too much power to enforce state laws. They’re expected to issue a judgment anytime in the next few months. Whatever they decide, Snape says it will have “massive political ramifications.”

For one thing, the case is a bellwether for the D.C. Circuit’s leaning on exactly the type of procedural case that tends to steer policy. “Whoever votes which way on the Clean Power Plan will be a good indication of how they’ll vote on a lot of cases,” says Snape. It could also tell us how the Trump administration reacts to a judicial blow.

Even if the court affirms the rule, Trump has said he intends to repeal it, along with of our government’s 90,000 federal regulations. Doing so won’t be easy. “Just as you tied the shoelace, you’ve got to untie it, following the same administrative processes that put the law there in the first place,” says Snape. The Clean Power Plan has been in court for more than a year now. In some cases, undoing the rules may not even be legal. When George W. Bush took the Oval Office, he tried to redirect many of the agencies by undoing former President Bill Clinton’s executive orders. “They had a terrible track record defending those changes in court,” says Seth Jaffe, a partner at Boston’s Foley Hoag law firm and an expert on the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. “Agencies can’t just change their minds and assume the courts will bless it.”

Of course, the lawyers’ comfort in checks and balances assumes Trump plays by the rule of law. The careful wording of the executive orders for theÌę and pipelinesÌęsuggests he will. So does the Supreme Court nomination of Neil Gorsuch, an originalist unlikely to blanch at checking executive power. But the carelessness of Trump’s immigration order, which a federal judge blocked parts of on Saturday and many conservatives have lambasted in the media, hints that our president is willing to test the law’s limits.

“We’re in a brave new world,” says Jaffe. He referenced , when the Supreme Court ruled that Georgia had no rights to enforce state laws on Cherokee lands. President Andrew Jackson mocked the court’s inability to enforce its own rules, and then sent the Cherokees marching down a route known as the Trail of Tears. “I have no idea if that’s the world we’re living in,” Jaffe says. “But presidents have ignored courts before.”

Barring that grim scenario, Congress and Trump’s wish to make their conservative agenda legally binding faces the same bureaucratic grind that slowed Obama’s progressive vision. Which, in the case of environmental regulations, may be a good thing.

The post The Court Standing Between Trump and Environmental Deregulation appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

A few weeks ago,Ìęa that the Chinese government was building a new mountaineering center and hotel near the north side of Everest. For foreign climbers, beginning with Sir Edmund Hillary, Everest’s Nepalese south side has always been the more popular destination because of its more direct, if more dangerous, Southeast Ridge route. But after the deadly avalanche in 2014 that killed 16 high altitude workers on the mountain, and the devastating Nepal earthquake of 2015, more climbers have been seriously looking to the north side of the mountain, which features an easy drive to base camp and a longer route up the mountain.

The mountaineering center will be located in Old Tingri, a town 40 miles northwest of Everest, and will house much of the infrastructure we currently associate with the French Alps: a heli base for rescue operations on the mountain, a mountaineering school for high altitude workers, and a fully stocked hotel. (The Beijing newspaper, China Daily, put the square footage of the building at 870,000 square feet, which sounds like a typo.) Add to the mountaineering center the modern all the way to Everest’s Tibetan base campÌęand you can start to see the future of the mountain as the Chinese see it: a well-run tourism attraction capable of shuttling hundreds of thousands of attitude-sick travelers right to the foot of Everest in order to take in its grandeur with their own eyes.

“The Chinese side of the Himalaya isn’t going to be like the wilderness in Alaska,” says Everest guide and outfitter Adrian Ballinger, a bullish supporter of the north side approach to climbing the mountain. “It’s going to be like the Alps, where you can take a train through the middle of the Eiger or ride a gondola halfway up Mont Blanc.”

It’s an aesthetic that runs counter to the mountaineering ethic, which favors a unencumbered and self-reliant style that’s not compatible with the large-scale guiding that’s the norm on Everest. But it will give the emerging Chinese middle class a way to become drive-by tourists like their American counterparts. Ballinger notes that it will also put Chinese mountaineering authorities closer to the mountain, which is one criticism that has recently been leveled against Nepal’s liaison officers: they govern from afar and rarely show up. As a result, disputes on Everest’s south side often require helicopter trips to and from Kathmandu for negotiations, as happened in the deadly 2014 avalanche.

Ballinger hopes that the Chinese won’t continue their construction projects further up the mountain, even if it’s easy to imagine. “What I hate to imagine is an oxygenated gondola going to the North Col one day,” he says. “That would take so much away.”

But of course, if you can imagine it, so can engineers.

For now, Everest’s two trade routes, the North Col route up from the Tibetan side, and the Southeast Ridge Route from Nepal, are functioning as sacrifices to commercialism so that other mountains can remain undeveloped. Beginning in the 1980s and accelerating in the mid-1990s, Everest became a commercial guiding destination for clients who could afford the $25,000-to-$90,000 price of a climb. But already the Everest model has spread to other of the world’s 14 8,000-meter peaks and even K2, which saw its first commercial ascents in 2015 despite being perhaps the most dangerous mountain on the planet.

The mountaineering center is scheduled to be completed by 2019, three years ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

The post China Wants to Build Hotels on Everest appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

The day after the 2016 presidential election, I felt like all of my thoughts were lost in a cloud. My mind felt like it was stuck in a maze and I couldn't concentrate. I could not understand how Donald Trump, who I thought of as a villain, could win. There was some hole in my gut where my confidence in humanity resides.Ìę

I was also upsetÌęthat 37 percent of millennials voted for Trump. I’m a part of that group and I amÌęshocked.Ìę

When I openly this last election, I received numerous comments like, “crawl under a rock,” “stay out of politics,” and “focus on climbing, sweetie.”ÌęI felt like these comments were jabs at my awareness of the world beyond rock climbing and evidence of the misogyny that exists in our country. ThoseÌęremarksÌęimply that my sole purpose in life is to scale cliffs. It’s not.Ìę

Performing at an elite level as a professional athlete is my job. Though, as athletes, part of our job is also to serve as ambassadors for our sports—to encourage people to test their limits and to understand the value in what we do. Athletes and celebrities have a civil responsibility to share our privileges with people who don’t have the opportunities we do. And today, it’s easier to promote those values than ever before.

In total, I have over half a million people following me on my social media accounts. When I realized that people who I’d never met were paying attention to my life and curious about what I had to say, I knew that I could use this platform to affect change beyond my niche sport. There’s nothing wrong with just showing photos of people dangling from cliffs around the world, but I also feel a responsibility to integrate a level of social consciousness and awareness to causes that I believe in. Social media can be a catalyst for sharing ideas and shaping opinions. Taking a stand against climate change, gender gaps, and discrimination is not political; it’s logical and fair. Ìę

Travel, sports, and entertainment provide a lens into all kinds of journeys and experiences, and the vast horizons and mountain landscapes that I get to enjoy enable me to see how small we are as individuals. Together, though, we have a huge impact—for better and for worse. Earlier this month I wore a tank top while climbing in Rocky Mountain National Park, where I’d normally have to wear a down jacket. I see firsthand the diminishing snow coverage that is a testament to the change we see on an annual basis. Global warming is real.

Now more than ever it’s important that we use our voices to be global ambassadors for what we believe in. For me, that means working toward creating equal gender opportunities in sports programs nationally and changing the discrepancies in language that we associate between female and male athletes as a board member of the Women's Sports Foundation.ÌęI also serve as a global ambassador for and , which promote sports as transformative vessels in the lives of children around the world. Ìę

I believe in the power sport has to change the world and connectÌęcommunities. I have worked with UN Women and been recognized by publications and Congress for . Achieving gender equality in pay, opportunity, coverage, and respect is something that I feel very strongly about. Additionally, I am proud to serve as an advocate with organizations like the American Alpine Club and the Access Fund. Taking measures to slow climate change, practicing outdoor ethics, and working toward conservation directly affect our natural playgrounds for the better.Ìę

Instead of simply acknowledging that there are problems in our world, we all need to take on the responsibility to stand against them. Social media will never single handedly solve any issues, but raising awareness is a big step forward. If you have an informed opinion about something, stand up for it and contribute to making our global community more harmonious. We all have the power to work together and cultivate a greater outcome, whether we support our president-elect or not. I refuse to be a passive bystander.Ìę

The post If Athletes Are Mad About Trump, They Must Be Better Advocates appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Last month’s acquittal of seven membersÌęof the armed occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in OregonÌęcaused jaws to drop all over the country. Environmentalists, experts on extremism, legal scholars, and even the defense attorneys of the accused couldn’t believe it. “In no uncertain terms, the acquittal was tantamount to a disaster,” says Ryan Lenz, a senior writer for the , which monitors radical groups in the U.S. “The message that jury sent was, ‘You can take a bunch of heavily armed men, take over a federal building, make demands, and threaten violence if those demands are not met, and get away with it.’”

The question is: Could this set a precedent for more armed takeovers around the U.S.?

Legally, the answer's no. “Jury verdicts don’t provide a lot of precedents,” says Margaret Paris, a University of Oregon law professor who specializes in criminal law. Juries can ignore the law in their reasoning and verdicts. “They have a locked door between them and the rest of the world,” she says. Precedent-setting cases are typically those decided by a judge, whose rationale is then on record.

The verdict, of course, doesn’t change the government’s ability to own land—as many Malheur occupiers and their supporters have mistakenly argued. But it has galvanized the right-wing bloc of Americans who believe that the federal government can’t rightfully own land and it’sÌęemboldening the Bundys to threaten more armed occupations around the West.

Five days after the trial ended, Ryan Bundy that if the federal government moved forward with bestowing national-monument status on Nevada’s Gold Butte area—a 350,000-acre swath of desert filled with archeological sites adjacent toÌęhis father’s ranch—his supporters might initiate another Malheur-like display of force. “If the government won’t restrain itself, whatever happens is their own fault,” he said. “The government should be scared. They are in the wrong. The land does not belong to the government.”

In Oregon, that the Owyhee Canyonlands, which many call “Oregon’s Grand Canyon,” may be the Bundys’ next target. Since last year, groups like the Oregon Natural Desert Association (ONDA) andÌęKeen footwear haveÌębeen pushing President Obama to declare the area a national monument. But many ranchers in the state opposeÌęthat action. In May, they filledÌęthe capitol buildingÌęto tell legislators a monument could put them out of business. The idea of an Owyhee monument spooked some sheriffs in Oregon: in May, Ìęthat he was “concerned about people from outside the county who will come with their own agendas” if the federal land was protected there.Ìę

The not-so-subtle hints of potential aggression haveÌęsome public lands workers worried for their safety. “I’m deeply concerned about the political climate for people who work on national wildlife refuges,” says conservation director SteveÌęPedery. “I think that is the real danger out of this.”

U.S. Fish andÌęWildlife Service director Dan Ashe wrote in an email to șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű that he is “disappointed and concerned about the safety of the men and women we send out to provide American conservation.” He said his agency is “taking steps to enhance security and safety protocols at our facilities,” but wouldn’t share specific details.

In addition to the Bundy’s acquittal, the election of Donald Trump—a candidate supported by many PatriotÌęand militia groups, and oneÌę “to get rid of” the Environmental Protection Agency—further underscores the potential forÌęmore Malheur-like occupations. “There is a chunk of the population that [thinks] if they can’t get what they want, it’s acceptable to threaten violence,” Pedery says.

But despite what he calls a “worrisome” acquittal, Brent Fenty, executive director of ONDA, which supported the movement to turn the Owyhee CanyonlandsÌęinto a monument, says that environmentalists shouldn’t walk on eggshells just “because a few people tried to take over a wildlife refuge. This, if anything, has been a wake-up call to Americans—who clearly do love their public lands—that they can’t take their public lands for granted. They’d better stand up.”

The jury may have found the Bundys not guilty, but “Oregonians and Americans are outraged by what happened at the Malheur Refuge,” heÌęsays. “They don’t want intimidation or harassment to effect decision making.”

Fenty believes theÌęacquittal just proved that the government didn’t argue its case well. “I think to not make the decisions that need to be made because of the prospect of something like the Malheur occupation is unacceptable,” he says. “That’s not how democracy works. You do not reward bullies.”

The post Get Ready for More Armed Standoffs on Public Land appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

It feels wrong to have the words “franchise”Ìęand “national parks” in the same sentence. The pairing evokesÌęimages of the Golden Arches over the Grand Canyon and standing in line for a Frappuccino in the shadow of Half Dome. But with the National Park Service facing a decades-long maintenance backlog that has swelled to $12 billion, budget shortfalls, crowding complaints, and accusations of widespread sexual harassment, it might be time to considerÌęa free-market approach.

That’s the pitch from theÌęProperty and Environment Research Center, a conservative think tank in Montana that claims to have aÌęway to solve the budget woes: dissolve the Park Service in all but name and run each park as its own standalone business.

Adopting a free-market approach would free each park from adhering to a national agenda subject to bureaucratic procedures, says PERC founder Terry Anderson. Currently, most of the Park Service’s budget comes from yearly congressional appropriations ($2.9 million in 2016). Under PERC’s proposal, each franchise owner would have an economic incentive to protect a park’s natural resources and provide improved roads, easier access, and better facilities to draw in more customers—and they could do it without all the red tape.

Say Yellowstone National Park wants to build a new bathroom in Lamar Valley to cater to more visitorsÌęor the park needs a little extra money to cover its ever-increasing operating costs. It currently has to get the approval of Congress and the president. As a franchise, on the other hand, the park could address those problems immediately. “It would still be called Yellowstone National Park,” Anderson says, “but in the office upstairs the owner would ask: A, are we living up to the franchise agreement? And, B, can we find more efficient ways to manage the park? Are we really giving the consumer the product he or she wants?”

They’d have the money to do it, Anderson says. As he points out in , Yellowstone could cover its operating costs with an $11 daily fee for each visitor. (Currently, seven-day passes can be had for $30 per car.) The Great Smoky Mountains National Park—by far the nation’s most visited national park—currently has no entrance fees but could cover its operational costs by asking visitors to spend $2 each per day.

This isn’t the libertarian dream of privatizing the parks or transferring control of them to state governments that’s recently been tossed around by Tea Partiers and Charles Koch’s Cato Institute. “This is a serious strategy to add value to the NPS brand and protect new areas without spreading the NPS budget any thinner,” PERC research fellow and Montana State University adjunct instructor Holly Fretwell Ìęon the proposal published byÌęthe George Wright Society, an interdisciplinary non-profit dedicated to the parks and other protected places.

The theory goes that the Park Service, as we know it today, would take a backseat to each individual park owner. The government would still own the land and the name, Anderson says, and the Park Service could act as a sort of corporate office to maintain some broad,Ìęuniform operational standards.

“That franchise agreement [would say] you can charge prices and that you can run it for a profit,” Anderson says. “But there are certain things you can’t do. If you are a franchisee of McDonalds, you can’t tear down the Golden Arches and put up purple shooting stars.” But what about, say, installing a tramway over Old Faithful? “That would be an atrocity,” and, as such, outlawed by the corporate office, Anderson says.

Similar partnerships already exist. George Washington’s home has been maintained by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association for 150 yearsÌęand environmental organizations like the Nature Conservancy and the Audubon Society protect tens of thousands of acres,Ìęwhich the public can enjoy. But Anderson doesn’t want to stop at non-profit organizations. Free-market incentives would drive each park to double down on what works for it and toss the rest, he says.

In an email, a Park Service public affairs officer said the service doesn’t comment on outside policy proposalsÌęand reiterated that the parks belong the to the American people. But mainstream environmental economists are not ready to dismiss this brand of free-market environmentalism.

“I am not going to say that is a good idea,” says Matthew Kotchen, a professor of economics at Yale who focuses on the intersection of policy and public and environmental economics. “But I could see how you would think that would be an interesting thing to consider.”

Budget shortfalls may be just the sort of problem free-market environmentalism is capable of solving,Ìębecause of its comparably modest scale and number of parties involved. And as Kotchen points out, parts of the parks are already privatized. Over 500 Park Service concessioners have contracts to run food, lodging, and transportation services as well as tours and equipment rentals. But relying on the free market to address bigger environmental problems like air pollution in parks wouldn’t work, Kotchen says. “I can’t think of one example where it would work on a large-scale problem.”

There is more to be gained from our national parks than economics. The Park Service wasn’t formed to function as a revenue source, and the natural beauty and experience can’t be measured with any metric of economics.ÌęUnder PERC’s model, what’s to incentivizeÌęindividualÌęowners to encourageÌęoutdoor ethicsÌęor to fosterÌęappreciation for nature among a diverse demographicÌęof visitors? Doesn’t privatization undercut the guiding principal of the parks to protect our nation’s most spectacular places for future generations to enjoy? Anderson doesn’t think so.

“We can couch our arguments in the context of intrinsic values,” Anderson says, but in the end, it’s us with all our needs and desires that have to make these decisions. “The question is, where do we fight out those competing demands? Do we do it in a market placeÌęor do we do it in the halls of Congress?”

The post Is It Time to Franchise Our National Parks? appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Right now, there'sÌęa war raging over who should haveÌęcontrol of the 640 million acres of public landÌęin this country. Those lands—where we hike, hunt, and camp—areÌęhome toÌęmost of our country’s incredibleÌęnatural heritage. YetÌęthe energy and mineral extraction industries have convinced Republican lawmakers it's a good idea to transfer those lands to state control, in a thinly veiled attempt to ultimately force their sale. Meanwhile, well-meaning citizens have been lied to about the true impetus behind this movement, with corporate greed masquerading as a bid to increaseÌęstates’ rights.

IndefinitelyWild

IndefinitelyWild is a lifestyle column telling the story of adventure travel in the outdoors, the vehicles and gear that get us there, and the people we meet along the way. Follow us onÌę,Ìę, andÌę.

See the Archive

Here's the fundamental question: Is federal ownership and management of public lands the best policy for the people of this country? Well,ÌęWyoming’s (conservative)ÌęgovernmentÌęjust received the results of a massive study onÌęthat very subject. analyzes the financial and legal repercussions of transferring the management of 25 million acres of public land in that stateÌęfrom federal to state control.Ìę“In essence this is a feasibility and efficiency study examining federal land management practices, costs and the revenues generated from federal public lands versus how the state manages its own lands and to explore the potential of the state taking over management of certain federal lands,” the report states. Could the state generate more income by managing public lands itself? The study arrives at a pretty clear answer.Ìę

Public Land Is CrucialÌęto Wyoming’s Economy

Like other western states, public lands makeÌęup a huge portion of Wyoming real estate. That land doesn't just draw visitors, but is used for mineral and energy extraction, ranching, and countless other activities. The study says:Ìę

Over forty-eight percent (48%) of Wyoming is federal land.ÌęAccess to and the use of public lands is critical to Wyoming and other western states’ economies. Public lands support many uses from activities such as bird watching to energy development. Many species of wildlife, although owned by the state, spend a significant portion of their life cycle on federally-owned lands. Public lands provide extensive opportunities for recreation and a lifestyle that more and more people are seeking in our mobile economy.

Federal Management Isn’t Perfect

Management of public lands is split across multiple federal agencies, mired in bureaucracy, and to locals, it often feels like crucial decisions are made by people who don't share their priorities.Ìę

Management decisions on federal public lands that drastically affect western communities are heavily influenced at the national level sometimes without regard to local needs and concerns and without utilizing the special knowledge a local community possesses.ÌęFrustration has been expressed with current management of federal public lands, the impact of federal land management decisions on local economies, the length of time it takes for federal management decisions, lack of access to resources such as timber and recreation, and in some cases concerns for human health and safety. Whether it is oil and gas, grazing, hunting, or recreational uses—the lengthy and protracted permitting processes and layers of regulations have a discernible effect on the economy of local communities and the lives of citizens.

Transferring Ownership of Public LandsÌęIs aÌęLegal Nightmare

Utah is currently suing the federal government for ownership of public lands within its borders, an effort that couldÌętake years, costÌętaxpayers millions of dollars, and is already generating much controversy. Even if successful, it’s not clear how a transfer of ownership from multiple federal agencies to unknown state agencies would even take place. the annual budget to manage those landsÌęat $280 million, on potential revenues ofÌę$311 million. That’s if oil and gas prices remain steady, and all this assumes that the suit stands a realistic chance of succeeding. Earlier this month, The Salt Lake Tribune described the effort as “.”

There's a Difference Between State and Federal Management

Federal and state management policies are fundamentally different, and those differences are set in legal stone. Where state management dictates profit first, federal management prioritizes the needs of citizens, and the long term health of both the land and its resources.Ìę

The Wyoming State Constitution and the Wyoming State Legislature direct that [its] lands be managed for two key purposes: (1) long-term growth in value, and (2) optimum, sustainable revenue production.ÌęIn stark contrast, the two overarching mandates that dictate the management of federal ownedÌępublic lands administered by the BLM and USFS are multiple use and sustained yield (MUSY).Ìę“For this discussion, we define multiple use as the use of land for more than one purpose. For example, livestock grazing, recreation, and timber harvest could occur on the same parcel.

States Would Need Federal Money to Handle All This Land

With so many revenue sources, administration priorities, andÌęred tape, there would necessarily be an ongoing financial exchange between state and federal governments.Ìę

No matter the mechanism—whether a fee or a share of revenue generated—the state would have to be compensated for managing federal public lands.

Transferring Management of Public Lands Would Infringe on States’ Rights

One of the most surprising conclusions of the studyÌęis that taking over federal land would expose the state government to a vast,Ìęcomplicated array of existing federal laws, while subjecting it to the ups and downs of partisan politics in Congress. For instance, the Freedom of Information Act doesn't currently apply to state governments, but would create a burden ofÌęreporting if the state was to take over management of federally-owned land. And, just asÌę, revenue sharing or management fees of public land could be used toÌęreduce the freedom of states to manage land within their borders

These laws may require the state to develop additional administrative infrastructure to ensure compliance with federal labor law including developing affirmative action plans, diversity requirements and complex procurement and acquisition rules among others.ÌęFailure to fund mandates or the prohibition of the use of federal funds to fulfill existing mandates would hamper the state’s ability to successfully manage many aspects of federal lands.ÌęProhibitions such as these can be imposed suddenly and somewhat arbitrarily by Congress in response to the dictates of political movements and political pressure over particular issues which may arise and gain momentum and support in Washington, D.C.

State and Local Communities Already Profit from Federal Management

One criticism often leveled at federal management of our public land is that those revenues don’t benefit nearby communities. That's actually wrong. In addition to the visitors, businesses, and residents this land brings to these areas, there’s a significant,Ìędirect financial contribution. It’s just been forgotten.Ìę

Revenue received by the State of Wyoming and its political subdivisions in connection with the Lands includes the 48% of mineral revenue generated in the state that is distributed to the state, PILT payments, and Forest and SRS payment,” the study says. “The mineral revenue already being received by the state is a critical resource used to run the state and presumably none of it would be available for managing federal public lands contemplated in this study. Likewise, SRS and PILT payments are critical resources to local communities for a wide variety of government functions and purposes including but not limited to roads and schools.

In total, Wyoming currently makes $1.39 billion a yearÌęfrom itsÌę25 million acres of federal land.ÌęThatÌęmoney goes directly to the state government—without it having to pay a cent of the federal government’s $170 million annual budget for managing that land.Ìę

Curious what those numbers look like for Utah, given that state’s desire to take over its public lands?ÌęIt receives $185.2 million annually from federally managed public lands within its borders. That’s . Ìę

Other Organizations Need the Revenue fromÌęWyoming's Public Lands

What happens to the other 52 percent of mineral revenue extracted from Wyoming? TenÌępercent of the remaining total goes to federal coffers, to be applied to a variety of programs. FortyÌępercent helps fund the Bureau of ReclamationÌę.ÌęOne in five western farmers relies on BOR water. The agency’s hydroelectric power stations generate 40 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. TenÌętrillion gallons of BOR water is delivered to 31 million people annually. The BOR manages 289 recreation sites with 90 million annual visitors. The agency’s economic output is $46 billion a year, supporting over 300,000 jobs.

It would be unlikely that Wyoming would be able to keep all or more of the revenue generated on federal lands than it already receives.

StatesÌęHave Better Ways to Exert Influence Over Land Management

There are already systems in place that require federal land management agencies to consider the input of local governments and communities.

Management of federal public lands is an incredibly complex puzzle of interwoven and sometimes conflicting pieces.ÌęWe believe the resources of the state would best be utilized if directed at tackling smaller pieces of this puzzle. Federal laws (NEPA,ÌęFLPMA,ÌęNFMA) require Federal agencies to give meaningful consideration to local governments’ land use plans (NRPPs) during federal agency decision making processes—generally referred to as consistency review. The adoption of a well written, research and data driven Natural Resource Policy Plan by a local government is a critical tool that allows a local government to have a substantive impact on federal decisions, plans, policies, and programs.

…They Just Don't Use Them

This report recommends using and expanding upon existing legislation that already authorizesÌęcertain mechanisms that allow for state and local community involvement in federal landÌęmanagement which are not currently being utilized to their fullest potential. The resources of the State of Wyoming would be better utilized being directedÌęat fixing the problems and working to encourage the development of a system more attentive and responsive to the voice of local communities instead of directing resources towards an effort that would ultimately merely pass on the myriad of problems that exist today to the state.

In other words: put up or shut up. Wyoming and other states already have effective tools in place to influence federal management of public lands at both the state and local levels. ButÌęinstead of effectively governing by using these tools, local politicians are wasting tax money pursuing solutions that at best aren’t viable, and at worst will cost citizens their natural heritage, while only benefiting special interests.Ìę

The Bottom Line

The study is blunt about this: transferringÌęfederally managed lands to the state is a terrible idea.

We would not anticipate any substantial gains in revenue production or additional sources of revenue with any transfer of management—certainly not enough to offset the enormous costs such an endeavor would likely entail.

Read More

• Fact Checking the GOP's Official Plan To Steal Your Public Land
• The Great Public Land Heist Has Begun
• How I Earned My First Hunting Trophy

Ìę

The post Public Lands Belong in Federal Hands appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Early on the morning of August 17, 2013, Keith Matthew Emerald found himself cold and hungry following a hunt in a remote section of the Sierra Nevada, near Yosemite National Park. So he did what countless generations of outdoorsmen before him have done—he started a campfire. Nine weeks later, the wildfire that resulted would finally be extinguished at a cost of $127 million. Scorching a total of 400 square miles, the Rim Fire was the .

Because a fire ban had been in place, , and because state and local governments have started holding individuals financially responsible for the massive costs of fighting wildfires, he also faced a nine-figure penalty.

IndefinitelyWild

IndefinitelyWild is a lifestyle column telling the story of adventure travel in the outdoors, the vehicles and gear that get us there, and the people we meet along the way. Follow us on , , and .

See the Archive

Will you be able to enjoy a fire on your next camping trip? For residents of California, Oregon, and Washington, the likely answer is already no. For much of this summer, most wilderness areas in those three states were under a total campfire ban. șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű of the metal fire rings in organized campgrounds, you could not have a fire on public land. With the West Coast’s drought thought to be long-lasting, next summer will see similar if not even further-reaching restrictions—especially as these states face massive shortfalls in firefighting budgets.

But the risk and cost of wildfires is only one nail in the campfire’s coffin. And that means they could also be at risk in areas less prone to conflagration. Let’s look at the problems campfires cause.

Pollution

Wood smoke contains fine particles of unburnt wood. That may not sound like pollution, but reduced in size to 2.5 microns or less, these microscopic particles Wood smoke also contains benzene, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acrolein, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). In Washington, wood smoke creates an estimated 51 percent of the state’s fine-particle pollution in winter. Most of this is due to wood-burning stoves, but outdoor fires remain a significant contributor.

These toxic residues can also end up in water sources as fire ash leaches into the ground or is swept into them by rain.

Smoke from campfires can also lead to visible haze in high-use areas like the national parks.

Health Problems

As nice as we all think wood smoke smells, inhaling all of the above isn’t good for you. The list of effects wood smoke has on your health: irritated eyes, throat, sinus, and lungs; headaches; reduced lung function; lung inflammation and swelling; increased risk of respiratory disease; more severe and frequent symptoms from existing lung diseases; increased risk of heart attack and stroke; chronic bronchitis and emphysema; cancer.

Washington estimates that fine-particle pollution, which again is 51 percent wood smoke, causes Ìęin that state alone. The health problems it causes cost the state $190 million annually.

Litter

Campfires leave behind charred wood, piles of ash, and blackened rocks. People often use them to burn trash, which may only be partially destroyed, frequently leaving behind remnants of cans, bottles, plastic, and foil. This may not sound like a huge issue, but in high-use areas, fire rings and the aforementioned detritus quickly become blights on the natural landscape and create additional work for maintenance crews.

Tree Damage

We all know we’re supposed to harvest only dead, fallen wood for our campfires. But in large volumes, removing even that stuff can cause problems. Dead logs and other wood may be essential habitat for insects, birds, reptiles, and small mammals. Dead wood increases soil’s water-holding ability, and removing it may lead to erosion.

And we know that wood gathering frequently goes beyond the dead and the fallen. Visit any popular campsite and you’ll find trees denuded of low branches or scorched by nearby fires. In areas where plant growth is very slow—high alpine environments, deserts, arctic tundra—wood regeneration may not be able to keep up with campfire demand.

Invasive Species

Firewood that you harvest or buy like the . Moving firewood can introduce the beetles to a new environment and threaten native trees in that area. An act as simple as throwing a few logs from your backyard into the back of your truck and driving up to the mountains for a campout can cause irreversible damage to the environment you’re trying to enjoy.

Injury

There’s no national tally of campfire-related injuries, but found that 57 people were injured and one person was killed due to campfires in a ten-year period. And it’s not just ongoing fires that can injure people: after a fire is supposedly extinguished.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BJ8OrRhhf88/

The Campfire’s Uncertain Future

I’m an odd person to be writing this article. To me, having a fire has always been a fundamental component of enjoying a night outdoors. I’ve been building campfires without incident or injury since I was a Cub Scout. The legality and ethics of fire making were never something I considered at all until I moved to California five years ago.

Here, the mere mention that you enjoyed a fire on a camping trip can lead to trouble, even when one is legally permissible, ethically built, and fully extinguished. A story I wrote about a backpacking trip friends and I took a couple winters ago drew criticism from readers in part because I mentioned splitting apart dead standing wood to access its dry insides during a rainstorm. That’s textbook bad-weather fire making, there was obviously no risk of wildfires during a very rainy winter, and we caused no damage to the local ecosystem by using a small amount of dead wood, yet an online firestorm still developed.

Camping with my group of local homeless kids this summer, a little fire-making class had to be conducted with store-bought firewood (that we probably shouldn’t have carried in from Los Angeles). It was of poor quality and difficult to light. But rather than just grab the combustible stuff laying all over the campsite, I had to explain to the group that gathering was prohibited in organized campgrounds. They got a poor lesson as a result of the rules.

And that got me thinking: perhaps the real lesson here is that the campfire has had its day. With massive wildfires raging all summer long and , and with participation in outdoor recreation booming to record numbers, maybe the the negative impacts of the campfire now outweigh tradition and comfort.

Is this attitude too risk averse or politically correct? Maybe, but our inability to enjoy campfires responsibly is inarguable——and this combines with the and other outdoor areas to create an understandableÌęneed for regulation.

Campfire Penalties

Ultimately, the charges against Emerald were dropped following the mysterious deaths of two key witnesses. That was a good result for him: for starting a fire in a restricted area, lying to investigators, and failing to control his fire, Emerald faced a maximum jail sentence of 11 years and a $500,000 fine in addition to the $127 million firefighting bill. ​

That’s obviously an extreme case and a huge wildfire. But don’t say it couldn’t happen to you. Simply leaving a fire unattended or having a fire in a restricted area in Arizona can incur fines of .

California defines some types of accidental fire-setting as arson. The penal code : “A person is guilty of unlawfully causing a fire when he recklessly sets fire to or burns or causes to be burned, any structure, forest land or property.” Penalties include up to six years in prison—and you’re held responsible for the costs of fighting the fire, even if those costs are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Other states have similar laws.

Will I miss the ability to have a fire on most of the camping trips I take on the West Coast next summer? Definitely, but I’d miss the ability to visit those areas much more. Maybe even more than I’d miss $127 million.

The post The Case for Killing the Campfire appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.