They’re probably right on the cusp of a breakthrough!

I heard somewhere that someone turned water into wine. Maybe the same guy can turn dirt into water? How is that for delusionally optimistic?

They will be finding that out more regularly as we continue to exhaust all available environmental resources.

The Great Salt Lake is dying. Can this $1B Trump plan save it? Two factors are driving the decline: water use and less precipitation due to climate change. Saving the lake may require 260 billion gallons of water.

Money can’t buy water that isn’t there.

What If Consciousness Exists Beyond Your Brain What if consciousness isn’t something your brain creates, but something far more fundamental?

Rather than asking whether consciousness exists beyond our brains, a better question may be how many different forms of experience evolution has produced?

"By the time porcupines vanished—the last diminished continuation of an ancient disturbance process—forests were no longer structured to absorb frequent ignition without unraveling. Fire shifted from a background process into a dominant force.

The forest became a sitting duck."

I remember being sent to a class on aerial photo interpretation in the early 80s. The logging around Olympic National Park left no doubt where the park was.

It never ends.

But at least we have a plan for the hooping.

“Forests did not fail when ground sloths disappeared. They did not fail when porcupines thinned. They failed when nothing was left to take their place…”

“That is how ecosystems usually unravel: not when the first pillar falls, but when the last brace is quietly removed.”

5 takeaways from Maine’s new wildlife action plan From newly listed plants to the symbolic return of the gray wolf, the state’s 10-year plan provides a nonregulatory path to protect Maine's most vulnerable species.

Maine releases a new 10-year wildlife action plan.

Another plan.
Another framework.
Another decade.

Over the last 50 years, we’ve produced hundreds of conservation plans and wildlife populations have declined by ~75%.

What they allow us to avoid doing is the problem.

Thanks for your tireless environmental advocacy Hugo. It is very much appreciated.

The more you know, the less there is to admire. No different than any other environmental resource agency in the US.

As we both know too well.

San Francisco Bay exemplifies what is happening globally.

We often ignore minor changes at scale make a significant difference……..while making a mountain of minor changes ourselves.

Substance Without Spectacle How the Loss of Ground Sloths and Porcupines Turned Forests into Fuel

Ecosystems don’t always unravel when something large disappears.

Sometimes they unravel when the last small disturbance disappears.

open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...

New essay Saturday morning: How porcupines, ground sloths, and the loss of small disturbance may help explain why western wildfire regimes changed.

Seahorses were being pulled from Mozambique's ocean at an alarming rate. Then something incredible happened A community-led initiative to transform poachers into protectors is turning the tide for seahorses in the waters off Mozambique

The only way seahorses were saved here was by making them worth more alive than dead.
It worked.

But most species don’t get that option. They disappear without ever becoming economically useful….only ecologically essential.

Fire becomes dangerous when landscapes become uniform. Logging can accelerate uniformity, but it can also emerge slowly through the quiet loss of disturbance.

The surprising truth about logging The value of forest ecosystems is hard to overstate. Blanketing roughly a third of the US, they supply clean water and air, absorb planet-warming carbon dioxide, and provide homes for imperiled wildlife and a tranquil place for Americans to hunt and fish.

Logging doesn’t “mimic fire.”

Fire leaves structure.
Logging removes it.

Fire creates mosaics.
Logging simplifies them.

Fire redistributes nutrients.
Logging exports them.

Fire is disturbance within ecology.
Logging is extraction from it.

Before porcupines, ground sloths performed similar work at much larger scales. When they disappeared, forests didn’t collapse. But something important was lost: unevenness.

Thank you!

Hopefully, what I write will allow you to better understand the ecological processes unfolding. That is my goal!

Beavers are misunderstood in many ways. I plan to do an essay about them down the road.

Ranchers……in the short-term.

Voices: How Trump is opening up federal land for ranchers in Utah and across the country “This MOU affirms what America’s ranchers have always known: They are essential partners in stewarding our public lands,” write U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum in an op-ed.

After two centuries of overgrazing and rangeland decline, the plan is to expand grazing on federal lands. There isn’t much left.

“Milk a mouse” seems about right.

In a drying West, we’re prioritizing cattle over the systems that sustain both wildlife and people.

FOIA reveals U.S. Forest Service considering nationwide chainsaw use in Wilderness - Wilderness Watch Wilderness Watch recently intercepted a letter from the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association (IOGA) to U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz requesting

Wow, this blog post already has over 230 comments from our members and supporters!

See what all the fuss is about and share your own thoughts!

wildernesswatch.org/foia-reveals...

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

That’s why our research is making the case for keeping connected old-growth forests standing across Western Canada. Visit our YouTube channel to learn more! @albertabats.bsky.social

One of the last animals in North American forests capable of creating small, persistent disturbance is something most people don’t associate with ecological change: porcupines.