Posts by Bekah Mamola
Roadless Rule Recission Proposal Comments
Letter: What’s happening in Jefferson County Open Space should alarm anyone who cares about public lands and public trust in Colorado
September 10
By Bekah Mamola-Hill
Longmont Leader
“If we let agencies and industry partners co-opt the language of resilience while advancing projects that industrialize, fragment, and degrade these landscapes, we lose more than trees. We lose the integrity of public lands and the meaning of conservation itself.”
Read MoreLosing Sight of Wilderness Fuels Misguided Fire Policy
When abstract reasoning ignores the science: how lofty ideas about wilderness mislead wildfire policy. Last week, the Los Angeles Times’ Noah Haggerty published a Boiling Point newsletter piece titled, “To solve the wildfire crisis, we have to let the myth of ‘the wild’ die.” It argues that John Muir’s belief in protecting wilderness as “untouched”…
Read More‘Fix Our Forests Act’ Misrepresents Wildfire Solutions
September 4, 2025
By Jennifer Mamola
VTDigger
Vermonters deserve solutions grounded in science, not legislation that industrializes forests. The “Fix Our Forests Act” diverts resources, weakens protections and undermines ecosystem resilience. Protecting Vermonters means strengthening communities and homes while letting forests function naturally, supporting both ecosystem and climate resilience.
Read MoreAs Trump moves to undo ‘Roadless Rule,’ enviros ask Congress for stronger wilderness protections
TusconSentinel.com
By Paul Ingram
“We need more wild, intact ecosystems—vibrant landscapes that include everything from bustling post-fire snag forests to ancient old growth,” said Jennifer Mamola of the John Muir Project. “Nature has governed itself for eons and must continue to do so if we’re to protect biodiversity, store carbon, and sustain air and clean water.”
Read MoreIs ‘clear-cutting’ the way to cut down on Utah’s raging wildfires?
FOX13 Now
By Chris Reed
But ecologist Chad Hanson, the co-founder of the John Muir Project, said it’s a myth that forest mitigation prevents wildfires. “The most current research is telling us that the speed of fires is the key factor,” said Hanson. “And the one thing that almost all the science agrees on now is that removing trees from forests increases the speed of fires, typically by a large degree.”
Read MoreBefore We Lose What’s Good: A Call for Societal Reformation in the Age of Public Lands Crisis
Across the globe, people hold countless ways of seeing the natural world. Some draw meaning from scientific understandings of evolution, others from religious or spiritual creation lore, and still others from cultural traditions that see land, water, and all living beings as kin. What unites these varied worldviews is an understanding that the natural world…
Read MoreProtecting America’s Wild Core: The Case for a Stronger Roadless Rule
The Science, the Stakes, and the Urgent Call to Defend Roadless Wildlands By John Muir Project, Western Watersheds Project, and Eco-Integrity Alliance Our National Forest system contains over 58 million acres of roadless wild lands. These areas, rich in biodiversity, are among the last strongholds of wilderness in the lower 48 states. But today, these…
Read MoreFortify Roadless Rule Sign-On
Living with Fire: Real Wildfire Preparedness Starts at Home
Each year, the dominant narrative around wildfire focuses on trying to control wildfire “out there” in the backcountry. Logging and vegetation removal are touted as the solution, rooted in the misbelief that if we can just remove “fuels,” aka the trees and shrubs that create forest habitat, with these extractive activities, we can keep fire…
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