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If you want to know what Trump thinks of our Public Lands..

Renae said:
People lack perspective, There is far far more lands for "hiking and wildlife" than is being used for industry.
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Not true, the only public lands that are off limits to timber sales, grazing, mining, or extractive uses, are those in the Federal Wilderness System or National Park System.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
1. More roads leads to more fires and more vandalism. The easier it is to get into an area, the easier it is to dump trash, vandalize, poach and so on.
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Which is why these problems have been increasing despite gating more roads im sure. The easier It is to access the more probability for witnesses. The forest service is gating roads to satisfy political extremists at the expense of all other users. In fact reducing access to lands and thus reducing the number of users is the end goal. And If that means more vandalism, fires, and harder access for disabled people or anyone else so be it.

2. The notion that old growth forests are somehow inherently less healthy is about as unscientific as it gets.
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No, it's not. Old growth trees form canopies that block sunlight to the ground, and take up all the nutrients, they monopolize the resources to the detriment of other species of plants and animals, which is why the natives started burns to get rid of dead worthless forests. That is science
3. What kills the cattle industry in high desert regions is the exponentially more productive cattle industry in the plains states and midwest.
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And I'm sure that when the Feds come in and say you can't raise enough to be profitable has nothing to do with it.
Remember Bundy was making profit for years until the Feds to "save the tortoise" limited his herd size to like 100 head, THAT and not grazing fees was the root of that Dispute.

I get you think 100% of public lands should be your reserve to use for only your sport and everyone else should be pushed off, but that's not the governments job. I have never seen you argue against shutting down land to motorized access or logging, or any economic activity.
 
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EMNofSeattle said:
Which is why these problems have been increasing despite gating more roads im sure. The easier It is to access the more probability for witnesses. The forest service is gating roads to satisfy political extremists at the expense of all other users. In fact reducing access to lands and thus reducing the number of users is the end goal. And If that means more vandalism, fires, and harder access for disabled people or anyone else so be it.
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I grew up bordering National Forest. The easier it is to get into the backcountry, more white trash is back in there trashing it, dumping construction refuse and so on. Witnesses??? Come the hell on, we are talking about millions of acres.

No, it's not. Old growth trees form canopies that block sunlight to the ground, and take up all the nutrients, they monopolize the resources to the detriment of other species of plants and animals, which is why the natives started burns to get rid of dead worthless forests. That is science
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Native Americans would burn out forests to improve the hunting, it had nothing to do with ecology. Furthermore, the notion that Native Americans were good stewards of the land is a myth, they trashed it every bit as much the Europeans did, the only difference was there was less of them so the impact wasn't as big.

And I'm sure that when the Feds come in and say you can't raise enough to be profitable has nothing to do with it.
Remember Bundy was making profit for years until the Feds to "save the tortoise" limited his herd size to like 100 head, THAT and not grazing fees was the root of that Dispute.
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The government loses money on grazing fees, its less than the cost of managing the land, its a big subsidy. Drive through the plains states and the midwest, compare how much wetter, greener, and more productive that pasture land is than high deserts are, that is why Bundy can't compete with a rancher in Kansas or Nebraska.

I get you think 100% of public lands should be your reserve to use for only your sport and everyone else should be pushed off, but that's not the governments job. I have never seen you argue against shutting down land to motorized access or logging, or any economic activity.
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That is not my position at all. I think they should be managed for balanced use. The fact is though, the economic value of most public lands in terms of recreation (fishing, hunting, so on), exceeds their value in terms of extractive industries. Furthermore, most of our timber comes from private land, not public land.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Not true, the only public lands that are off limits to timber sales, grazing, mining, or extractive uses, are those in the Federal Wilderness System or National Park System.
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There is more wilderness than we know what to do with, relax.
 
Fletch said:
Actually, there should be no public lands. All land should be privately owned.
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So you think places like Yellowstone and Sequoia National Park should be sold off to the highest bidder?
 
Renae said:
There is more wilderness than we know what to do with, relax.
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Once again, you don't know what you are talking about on this one. I grew up bordering national forest and do backcountry wilderness trips every year.

The furthest you can be from a road in the entire lower 48 is just 21.7 miles. It's in Northwest Wyoming. In many states you can't even get 2 miles from the nearest road. There is less true wilderness left than you think, and virtually all of it is protected by the Federal Wilderness System.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Once again, you don't know what you are talking about on this one. I grew up bordering national forest and do backcountry wilderness trips every year.

The furthest you can be from a road in the entire lower 48 is just 21.7 miles. It's in Northwest Wyoming. In many states you can't even get 2 miles from the nearest road. There is less true wilderness left than you think, and virtually all of it is protected by the Federal Wilderness System.
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You can't see the forest for the trees man, seriously. It's like the hoopla over that drilling up in Alaska, postage stamp sized area and people lost their ****ing minds.
 
NIMBY said:
Zinke will be crucified when he goes back to Montana. Look for this decision, already being walked back, to have a big effect on the Montana-at large CD election 5/25 .
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I'm not sure what decision you're referring to. It will be a close race but not because of anything Zinke's done at the Dept of the Interior (yet). Personally I think we have two bad candidates running to represent Montanans. A wealthy, out of stater, creationist with public land access issues who has absolutely nothing in common with 99% of the people he wants to represent vs a musician, albeit well known, with money problems many of his own making. Ugg.

My gut tells me Giaforte will win with a 5-6% margin.
 
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SouthernDemocrat said:
Of course the operations are not new. The feed is chronological. It seems to be pretty indicative of the priorities of Trump's Department of the Interior that mining and extraction are all they thus far have posted.
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Your correct, the operations are not new. All the site is doing is highlighting use of the land that was started and approved by past Presidents. Yet, you want to hang that on Trump as some negative thing. The sites that the mineral extraction is taken place had to been identified in approved land use plans (which involves public input), supported by an EIS (which involves public comments), and is now being highlighted.

Let's see how the site evolves over the next 6-12 months.



You do know that Congress pretty much sets the laws and mandates multiple use of federal lands. Some exceptions for example are National Parks and Wildlife Refuges.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
1. More roads leads to more fires and more vandalism. The easier it is to get into an area, the easier it is to dump trash, vandalize, poach and so on.

2. The notion that old growth forests are somehow inherently less healthy is about as unscientific as it gets.

3. What kills the cattle industry in high desert regions is the exponentially more productive cattle industry in the plains states and midwest.
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So provide links to support your statements.
Your pont 1. Your point there is more of a sad commentary of some of the people who use public lands. I agree some are pigs.

Your point 2. Trees do not live forever. The problem humans have is many trees live way longer than us. The problem we also face is that there is way to many trees / acre (stocking levels). There are many reasons for that. Some is lack of fire in fire dependent ecosystems, reduced logging, etc.
Old growth plays an important role. But we also should manage the forest.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=old+growth+forest+conditions&spf=399

Questions came up during the spotted owl issue on Oregon many years ago. Where did the spotted owl live before their was old growth?:lol:
 
mike2810 said:
So provide links to support your statements.
Your pont 1. Your point there is more of a sad commentary of some of the people who use public lands. I agree some are pigs.

Your point 2. Trees do not live forever. The problem humans have is many trees live way longer than us. The problem we also face is that there is way to many trees / acre (stocking levels). There are many reasons for that. Some is lack of fire in fire dependent ecosystems, reduced logging, etc.
Old growth plays an important role. But we also should manage the forest.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=old+growth+forest+conditions&spf=399

Questions came up during the spotted owl issue on Oregon many years ago. Where did the spotted owl live before their was old growth?:lol:
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There was old growth before we were even here, so that is where the spotted owl lived. Old Growth Forests typically predate European settlement. I could show you forests in the Ouachitas that predate the Declaration of Independence.

Yes, some forests in the mountain west are too dense, but that is due to overly aggressive fire prevention and the fact that a lot of them are not commercially competitive with forests in the Southeast. You can harvest a forest in the Southeast and within 2 decades it will be ready to harvest again. That isn't the case in the much slower growing western forests. Remember Bush's "Healthy Forest Initiative", it failed because the trees were not worth enough to timber companies for them go in and thin those forests out. Most forests in the West just can't compete with forests in states like Georgia, Alabama, or Arkansas.

I agree, it is a mess though: Seeing the (overcrowded) forest for the trees ? High Country News
 
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SouthernDemocrat said:
There was old growth before we were even here, so that is where the spotted owl lived. Old Growth Forests typically predate European settlement. I could show you forests in the Ouachitas that predate the Declaration of Independence.

Yes, some forests in the mountain west are too dense, but that is due to overly aggressive fire prevention and the fact that a lot of them are not commercially competitive with forests in the Southeast. You can harvest a forest in the Southeast and within 2 decades it will be ready to harvest again. That isn't the case in the much slower growing western forests. Remember Bush's "Healthy Forest Initiative", it failed because the trees were not worth enough to timber companies for them go in and thin those forests out. Most forests in the West just can't compete with forests in states like Georgia, Alabama, or Arkansas.

I agree, it is a mess though: Seeing the (overcrowded) forest for the trees ? High Country News
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You missed the point. Old growth did not just suddenly appear. They started as seedling and continued to grow. It took hundreds of years.
 
mike2810 said:
You missed the point. Old growth did not just suddenly appear. They started as seedling and continued to grow. It took hundreds of years.
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I realize that, I am not sure what we are even arguing in that regard. If you clear cut a forest, it will take between 200 and 500 years to return to old growth status depending on its type. Prior to settlement, all forests were old growth other than those that were lose to due fire or were cleared / burned by Native Americans. Today, only a tiny fraction of that original old growth remains.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
You are accusing me of being disingenuous, and you show a flickr page for the BLM that is not chronological. It is a collection of all the albums, not the current photo stream. So the albums you are all seeing is from the Obama Admin BLM.

The link I provided, https://www.flickr.com/photos/91981596@N06/

Is chronological, you will notice that every single picture the Trump BLM has posted is of mining or other forms of resource extraction.
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There are a bunch of Valentines images on that page. They're quite difficult to miss; there's about thirty of them, and they all have big pink hearts on them.

They were uploaded in February 2017. They all have pictures of landscapes or animals, and extremely witty comments.

In addition, by implication, there are also at least a dozen other lovely landscape images which were uploaded after mid-February and before the mining images were posted.

Including the first image you linked to in your OP, with remarkable irony. There seem to be a whole series of photos taken in August 2016 including that one and the other one you linked in your OP; they obviously weren't posted when taken (since this was uploaded on December 15th, and is further down the chronological list). Since at least one of the August 2016 photos was obviously uploaded in mid-February or later, it's entirely possible that both of the images you praised and many others besides were uploaded in that month.
 
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Mithrae said:
There are a bunch of Valentines images on that page. They're quite difficult to miss; there's about thirty of them, and they all have big pink hearts on them.

They were uploaded in February 2017. They all have pictures of landscapes or animals, and extremely witty comments.

In addition, by implication, there are also at least a dozen other lovely landscape images which were uploaded after mid-February and before the mining images were posted.

Including the first image you linked to in your OP, with remarkable irony. There seem to be a whole series of photos taken in August 2016 including that one and the other one you linked in your OP; they obviously weren't posted when taken (since this was uploaded on December 15th, and is further down the chronological list). Since at least one of the August 2016 photos was obviously uploaded in mid-February or later, it's entirely possible that both of the images you praised and many others besides were uploaded in that month.
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Good point. /thread.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
If you want to know what the Trump Administration thinks of our public lands, just look at the BLM Flickr page.

Prior to the Trump Admin, the BLM Flickr stream was a showcase of beautiful landscapes and iconic animals on our public lands.

For example, here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mypubliclands/32604113543/

Or here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mypubliclands/31828924941/

Now, the Trump Admin has turned it into a showcase of strip mining and extraction industries.

For example here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mypubliclands/33895351165/

Or here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mypubliclands/33545780762/

If you go to pornhub you can see the Trump Admin's video playlist of them them blowing mining industry lobbyists. :mrgreen:



Finally, yes, of course one of the roles of public land is for oil and mineral leases where appropriate, but that they think this is the soul purpose of our public lands is sickening.
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https://www.flickr.com/photos/91981596@N06/

oh look. Trump must be in support of wildflowers.:mrgreen: Hint, BLM adds photos all the time to highlight certain aspect of the public lands.

imo, your the OP is a hit piece regarding Trump.
 
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