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Across North America, forests evolved with natural disturbance processes such as wildfire and cycles of native insects like bark beetles. The scale and intensity of these processes varied widely in a dynamic dance of constant change, shaping forest structure and the life within it.

This is not about protecting communities from wildfire. This is a blank check for the logging-industrial complex, written in the language of crisis.

Fire is natural and ecologically essential in U.S. forests. There is no scientific disagreement about this. But a political narrative has been circulating in recent years, asserting that it is infeasible to simply manage public forests with fire because many are too dense, or have not burned in many decades.

The real wildfire disasters occur when communities are impacted, and the real driver of community wildfire disasters is exposure: ember-driven, structure-to-structure ignition, a reality that the FOFA logging bill largely ignores.

Americans deserve wildfire legislation that defends people, not smoke-filled headlines. While tragedies like the LA fires rightly drew attention, the political narrative used them to push policy rather than reflect the broader reality.

Public lands and taxpayers deserve solutions grounded in demonstrated outcomes – not a logging-first narrative repeatedly contradicted by the very fires used to justify it.

The early contours of “Reconciliation 2.0” are deeply concerning: punitive fees on environmental litigation, expanded categorical exclusions for forest management, and broader efforts to dilute procedural environmental protections under the banner of efficiency. These moves are not about resilience. They are about shifting power from communities and public accountability back toward concentrated interests.

As the year winds down, it’s worth taking a moment to celebrate the wild, wonderful forces of nature that shape our landscapes—from fire to flood to beetle outbreaks. These natural disturbances, often demonized in mainstream narratives, are actually the rhythms that sustain resilient forests and ecosystems. We’re also grateful for a little legislative good fortune:…

What we see here is a completely missed opportunity. The voters polled want Roadless Area protection; they want to protect wildlife. They are afraid of wildfire and want forests to be protected from wildfire, and they disfavor logging. Once you look at the facts and lean into correcting the misunderstandings, the path for a truly protective Roadless Rule is available.

FOFA doesn’t protect homes. It prioritizes backcountry logging while removing public oversight and environmental review, giving federal agencies unchecked authority — all without ensuring communities are actually safer.

Misunderstanding the complexity of forests and wildfires: Calling them ‘complex’ shouldn’t be an excuse to manage them; it should be a reminder to listen. In Part 1, we unpacked some of the most common myths we see repeated about wildfire and forests; the ones that crop up under nearly every post about fire ecology. Part…

The Misinformation Machine and the Myths that Keep it Running Our recent series on the so-called “Fix Our Forests Act” (FOFA) drew in a gaggle of comments, many thoughtful and supportive, some misinformed, and some outright dismissive. Others repeated long-debunked talking points or revealed just how deep logging industry messaging runs. It was, in many…

Observations from the road, the forest, and the resilience of life. I’ve been struggling lately, with work and with words. Writing takes me hours, even full weekends, as I try to articulate the strife I feel and propose solutions rather than just complain. Yet I always end up tangenting — after all, it’s all connected.…

Shutdown season may freeze federal employees’ pay, but it does nothing to stop logging agendas and forest destruction as both remain on the fast track, exposing where the true priorities lie. Many federal employees are furloughed, offices sit empty, and essential government functions grind to a halt. Security and stability for ordinary Americans hang in…

 A walk through fall colors reminds us of resilience, the wisdom of trees and their networks, and what is still possible. I headed out to Golden Gate Canyon State Park this week to catch some of the local Colorado fall colors. The trail was paved in yellow, a soft carpet of fallen leaves that guided…

Preserving the Sanctuaries That Ground and Uplift Us All When I first arrived in Washington D.C., over a decade ago, I noticed how the first question after “What’s your name?” is often “Where do you work?” It reminded me of my time in Uganda, where the question was always “What’s your name?” and “Where do…

Edited Out of Context: A Millennial in the Media Machine I recently participated in my first on-camera interview, for a segment on Stossel TV that had been pitched to me as a conversation about whether public lands should be sold for housing. In the interview, I explained that this is a manufactured crisis, and if…

Tomorrow, the House Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing titled The State of Our Nation’s Federal Forests. The title alone sets the tone: as if our forests are in crisis, waiting for Congress and industry to swoop in with chainsaws and prescriptions. This isn’t the fault of a single administration or party. For decades, political…

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”…

Washington’s Climate Plan: A Step Forward on Forest Protection, but a Step Back on Fire and Bioenergy. Washington state is often a leader in climate policy, so it was encouraging to see its new Draft Comprehensive Climate Action Plan (CCAP) recognize the crucial role our forests play in fighting climate change. The plan correctly identifies…

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…

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…

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…

Breaking the myth of “wildfire” and facing our roles in the flames. The word wildfire sounds dramatic — raw, “natural,” something beyond our control. But there’s nothing natural about fires sparked by fireworks, power lines, or abandoned campfires. These aren’t wilderness events. They are human-triggered disasters, made worse by failing infrastructure, reckless development, and negligence.…

From Galileo to Groundtruthers, history shows us what happens when evidence threatens empire. For more than a century, U.S. forest policy has treated wildlands as a malfunction to fix: too dense, too flammable, too untidy. Fire was cast as an enemy to be crushed, not a partner in the oldest ecological dance on Earth. This…

“It’s human nature to assume that what we have today is what we’ll have tomorrow.” — Twelve Trees, Daniel Lewis “Short-term memory is never a substitute for long-term evidence.” — Twelve Trees, Daniel Lewis These two lines capture exactly how we’ve gone wrong with forests. We assume today’s forest is normal and will persist. We assume wildfire,…

A response to SEEC’s climate-and-parks report, and the pantomime of progress around it. Yesterday’s rollout of the new report, America’s Best Idea in Peril, by the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition Institute (SEEC) and the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks (CPANP), is a case study in political branding eclipsing ecological reality. But what it…

Fast-tracking destruction for the wealthy while defunding endangered species recovery. Section 60026 allows project sponsors (i.e., the developers themselves) to pay to accelerate their own environmental reviews. If they pay 125% of the estimated cost, they can: Have their Environmental Assessments completed in just 6 months. Push through Environmental Impact Statements in 12 months. In…

Inviting mega wind and solar to carve up wildlands, with tax breaks and revenue kickbacks to states and counties. These sections unleash a wave of massive wind and solar energy projects across public lands, including National Forests, by formalizing acreage-based rent formulas and annual capacity fees tied to gross electricity sales. They: Set low per-acre…

While some of the most extreme public sell-off provisions were stripped from H.R. 1, buried within the bill are provisions for a massive expansion of extractive and industry activity across public lands. Beneath the slogans and rhetoric is a suite of policies that would accelerate habitat destruction, strip public oversight, and weaken species protections at…