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Fire Doesn’t Care About Fences, But Congress Keeps Building Them
— ‘Fix Our Forests’ or Feed the Industry? A Reality Check on the May 15th, 2025 House Natural Resources Subcommittee Hearing This week’s House Natural Resources Committee Oversight Hearing — laughably titled Fix Our Forests: How Improved Land Management Can Protect Communities in the Wildland-Urban Interface — was yet another masterclass in business-as-usual greenwashing dressed up…
Read MoreThe ‘Fix Our Forests’ Act: Cutting Trees, While Putting Communities at Greater Fire Risk
The Senate’s “Fix Our Forests” Act (FOFA) hearing on May 6, 2025, gave us a master class in how to mislead the public while pushing business-as-usual logging policies that worsen climate change and increase wildfire threats to communities. Despite claims from politicians and forestry officials that this bill is about curbing wildfire and saving towns,…
Read MoreStop Clearcutting CA | Sonia Demiray and Jennifer Mamola
Keep It In the Forest – An Environmental Campaign to Combat Misinformation America’s forests are under siege. The Keep It In the Forest campaign is a grassroots education movement led by a coalition of NGOs and experts, which breaks down the science and economics behind why protecting forests, NOT cutting them down, is essential for…
Read MoreUpcoming Webinar Series: Discover Nature’s Phoenix
Discover the Wonders of Nature’s Phoenix Second Edition! We are thrilled to announce the release of the extensively updated 2nd edition of Nature’s Phoenix. This new edition is once again co-edited and authored by Wild Heritage’s Chief Scientist, Dr. Dominick DellaSala & John Muir Project’s Director and Principal Ecologist, Dr. Chad Hanson, with contributions from…
Read More“Fix Our Forests Act” is Just Another Destructive Logging Bill in Disguise
In the wake of recent wildfires that have devastated numerous human communities, Representatives Bruce Westerman (R-AR) and Scott Peters (D-CA) have introduced the “Fix Our Forests Act.” The bill, touted as a solution to enhance forest health and protect towns from wildfires, in reality is a logging bill that would roll back bedrock environmental laws and would actually increase, not decrease, the threats to vulnerable communities.
Read MoreBiden Old-Growth Amendment is Logging Plan in Disguise
The Biden Administration’s new Old-Growth Amendment Draft Environmental Impact Statement (Draft EIS) predictably endorses commercial logging in old-growth forests, under the guise of wildfire management and forest health. This draft allows the logging of mature and old-growth trees, contradicting extensive scientific research, including studies by the U.S. Forest Service itself, which show that such practices worsen wildfire risks. Ignoring pleas from over 200 scientists, the administration’s plan prioritizes logging over genuine forest protection, putting these vital ecosystems and surrounding communities at greater risk.
Read MoreDr. Chad Hanson, Keynote Speaker at the 32nd Annual Heartwood Forest Council – May 2024
At the 32nd annual Heartwood Forest Council in May 2024, Dr. Chad Hanson delivered a keynote presentation examining the misuse of the “fire-oak hypothesis.” This forest management paradigm promotes the idea that historical eastern U.S. forests consisted of open, low-density oak stands maintained by frequent, low-intensity surface fires. The John Muir Project combines primary scientific…
Read MoreOver 200 Scientists and Over 200 Environmental Groups Urge Biden to Protect Mature and Old-Growth Forests for Real
In early 2024, over 200 scientists and over 200 environmental and environmental justice groups signed letters to the Biden Administration, urging the Administration to completely protect all mature and old-growth forests on federal public lands from logging, including “thinning”, and regardless of the reasons that federal land agencies claim for wanting to sell public trees…
Read MoreSen. Feinstein and Rep. Panetta join Republicans in Disasterous Logging Bill
With a short title of the “Emergency Wildfire and Public Safety Act of 2020” you would think that this piece of legislation introduced in the U.S. Congress would be focused on actually protecting communities from wildland fire. Unfortunately, you would be mistaken. Out of its 53 pages, 4 Titles and 13 Sections, there is exactly…
Read MoreWho Was John Muir, Really?
We have often been conditioned to think idealistically about great historical figures as icons, institutions, or superheroes, despite the historical context of their times, but that’s a mistake. They are all people, and their lives have arcs that may involve major changes and transformations. They are a product of their upbringing but it is up…
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