Our Public Lands

In this episode, I interview Josh Schlossberg, representing Protect Colorado’s Land, Communities and Tax Dollars in opposition to Colorado Prop 137. Josh argues Colorado has become a proving ground for “wildfire pretense logging,” enabled by fear-based messaging, supportive media coverage, and corporate-aligned NGOs. He says fuel-reduction projects in Colorado commonly involve industrial logging, clearcutting, and large-tree removal, which he claims can worsen fire risk while harming ecosystems, wildlife habitat, and recreation. Our discussion centers on Proposition 137, which he says would divert $175 million annually from the general fund or TABOR surplus refunds, with about $83 million effectively incentivizing up to 25,000 acres of public lands logging per year, while excluding proven home-hardening approaches. He highlights groups like The Nature Conservancy and Western Resource Advocates who are major funders, and that media and state processes have quelled opposition.

https://noprop137.com

 coloradogreenvoice.substack.com

00:57 Episode Focus Prop 137

02:12 Meet Josh Schlossberg

03:11 Colorado as Logging Proving Ground

08:29 Propaganda and Media Failure

13:20 Why Forest Thinning Doesn't Work

15:50 Prop 137 Money and Acreage

20:11 Home Hardening vs Logging

23:26 Where the Funds Flow

27:36 Green Groups as Cover

35:13 Building a Stronger Movement

39:18 Culture War Over Logging

40:55 Truth Versus Managed Nature

43:46 Prop 137 Money Trail

47:30 Tax Shift And Precedent

51:18 Early Warnings And Roadless Logging

55:16 Media Blackout

58:51 Late Campaign Ramp Up

01:02:41 Media Bias And Democracy Crisis

In this episode, I interview Ryan Callaghan, former hunting and fly-fishing guide who worked in PR & media at First Lite, led conservation efforts across MeatEater brands, and is now six months in as president and CEO of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers (BHA), a 501(c)(3) advocating for public lands, waters, and wildlife. We discuss current threats including monument reductions, wilderness and WSA reviews, mineral-withdrawal rescissions, roadless rule rollback, land sells offs, unfair land exchanges, and Alaska issues. We debate roadless management, wilderness protections, declining public favorability toward hunting, beaver trapping restrictions, and public-lands livestock grazing, including permit buyouts and disagreement over whether grazing can be responsibly managed.

03:48 Montana Check In

05:04 Cal’s Background

06:24 From Guiding to Media

09:18 Leading BHA Today

11:40 Mission of BHA

12:29 Fighting Land Sell Offs

16:29 Alaska Dalton Corridor

19:02 Crazy Mountains Land Swap

20:53 Roadless Rule Debate

29:51 Wilderness Reviews and WSAs

32:41 Gallatin Range

37:44 Hunting Favorability Decline

38:52 Disconnected From Food

40:15 Defending Hunting

42:17 Beaver Trapping Debate

51:36 Ungulate Habitat Threats

53:06 Grazing Impacts

55:47 Permit Buyouts And Policy

58:10 Cows To Condos

01:03:00 Wild Horses And Wrap Up

Roadless Areas contain some of my favorite places on our National Forest lands. Some of your favorites spots are probably in Roadless Areas as well. Unlike wilderness areas, there are no wooden signs you pass or lines crossed on the map. These invisible boundaries are often traversed without us knowing.

Please read on for some useful links and information. And how you can submit your comments to USDA on the Roadless Rule rescission.

Despite the rhetoric that you hear from national and state big green NGOs, Roadless Areas should not be considered as “protected lands.” Extraction like logging and livestock grazing are occurring in Roadless Areas right now.

The information below was discussed in the video for your reference:

Early government surveys found that ponderosa forests were 17x denser than claimed. And mixed conifer forests are 4x denser. Baker et al. 2023

A comprehensive analysis of 1,500 wildfires in the west found they burned slower and less intensely in protected areas. Bradley et al. 2016

34% of “fuels reduction logging” occurs in Inventoried Roadless Areas according to Healey 2020.

This tradeoff (better firefighting, more human-caused fires) partially explains why the presence of roads is relatively neutral with respect to the long term occurrence of fire in national forests. Management records also indicated that a lack of roads did not prevent fuel reduction efforts in IRAs between 2001 and 2019. IRAs contain approximately 21% of the total tree cover across NFS (Homer et al 2015); those areas accounted for 34% of the total fuel treatment activities and 8% of the total area treated (USDA 2019a). A lack of roads in IRAs has not implied passive fire risk management.

The Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act would designate 23 million acres of Inventoried Roadless Areas as new wilderness in OR, WA, ID, MT, and WY.

Submit your comment here for the Roadless Rule rescission here → http://www.Roadless.org

Some talking points to consider:

* I oppose the Forest Service’s proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

* The Forest Service should strengthen the Roadless Rule, not eliminate it. The current rule provides essential protections but still permits damaging activities in Inventoried Roadless Areas.

* Rescission would remove national protections from approximately 45 million acres of National Forest lands, exposing intact wildlife habitat and watersheds to additional logging, grazing-related roads, mining, and fragmentation.

* Research examining 1,500 fires shows that protected (unroaded) forests burn at lower intensity and have lower rates of fire spread when controlled for weather conditions. Roads can increase human-caused fire ignitions and spread invasive plants.

* The Forest Service should close loopholes that permit logging and the construction of so-called “temporary roads” in roadless areas. Temporary roads can cause lasting harm to wildlife habitat, soils, and watersheds.

* The 2001 Roadless Rule does not address livestock-grazing impacts, and grazing has continued uninterrupted in Inventoried Roadless Areas. A mapping analysis estimates that between 10 million and 15 million acres of these lands are actively grazed by domestic livestock each year. Livestock can damage streams and springs, remove riparian vegetation, compact soils, spread invasive plants, and displace native wildlife. New road construction would enable harmful livestock grazing to expand.

* The Forest Service should prioritize voluntary grazing-permit retirement within roadless areas and close vacant allotments and allotments where grazing conflicts with roadless-area values.

* The existing rule does not prohibit hardrock mining claims under the General Mining Law of 1872, and mineral leasing can continue. USDA should ask the Secretary of the Interior to withdraw Inventoried Roadless Areas from mineral entry under section 204 of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, subject to valid existing rights. The Forest Service should also prohibit new mineral leasing within these lands.More than 9,000 miles of mapped motorized trails cross roadless areas.. Motorized use can compact soils, spread invasive species, disturb wildlife, fragment secure habitat, and increase human-caused wildfire risk. Inventoried Roadless Areas should be nonmotorized by default, with narrow exceptions for valid existing rights, necessary administrative access, and emergencies.

* The Forest Service should withdraw the proposed rescission and adopt a stronger national rule that protects roadless lands from commercial logging, unnecessary roads, damaging grazing, new mineral development, and harmful motorized use.

In this episode, I interview Erik Molvar, executive director of Western Watersheds Project to talk about cheatgrass, an annual invasive grass taking over large areas of the America West. Cheatgrass is an invasive Eurasian annual that arrived in contaminated crop seed and spread through the West via rail corridors and especially through cattle and sheep, whose fur carries its spiny seeds. Erik argues cheatgrass establishes where perennial bunchgrasses have been knocked back by disturbance—particularly chronic livestock grazing—rejecting claims that it is primarily a fire-driven phenomenon, citing fires in ungrazed areas that recovered with native bunchgrasses rather than cheatgrass. Erik describes how cheatgrass grows briefly in spring, then dies into highly flammable fine fuel that enables large rangeland fires, kills sagebrush, and can lock landscapes into cheatgrass monocultures with fire-return intervals now around 30–40 years in invaded areas. He outlines identification tips, notes other invasive annual grasses, disputes blaming wild horses as the main vector, critiques herbicide-and-reseed approaches, and emphasizes long-term rest from grazing to allow native seed banks and bunchgrasses to recover and resist reinvasion.

Cheatgrass Monograph

www.westernwatersheds.org

04:40 About Western Watersheds Project

07:40 Overgrazing Impacts

11:22 Grazing Economics Reality

18:50 Pivot to Cheatgrass

19:13 Cheatgrass Origins Spread

21:47 Grazing Link Denial

28:23 Fire Fuel Feedback

30:01 Identify Cheatgrass

31:50 Other Invasive Grasses

35:23 Invasives Ecology Ethics

43:14 New Fire Intervals

48:25 Recovery Without Cows

54:56 Cheatgrass and Ranching

58:12 Wild Horses Scapegoat

01:00:54 Herbicides Reseeding Limits

01:04:40 Manager Playbook

01:10:44 Buyouts and Restoration

In this episode, I interview George Nickas, the outgoing executive director of Wilderness Watch. George discusses ending his 30-year tenure at Wilderness Watch as the group transitions to new executive leadership under Dana Johnson. George recounts Wilderness Watch’s origins in 1989 in response to illegal outfitter caches and proposed lodges in the River of No Return country, then describes early battles against helicopter landing zones and monitoring flights in Tongass wilderness and winning the Cumberland Island case (Wilderness Watch v. Mainella) banning motorized van tours. He highlights key litigation on wild rivers, Boundary Waters motor use, rebuilding structures, and the Buffalo Creek case opposing fish-poisoning/restocking as unlawful “trammeling,” now on appeal. George warns of agency budget cuts, policy rollbacks, recreation commercialization, chainsaw proposals, grazing impacts, and the decline of “big green” advocacy, arguing wilderness needs vigilant enforcement and champions, and a new dedicated wilderness agency overseeing these federal public lands.

www.wildernesswatch.org

01:17 Why Fight Wilderness Fires

02:26 Thirty Years In

03:25 How It Began

07:00 Early Battles

10:06 Cumberland Island Case

13:04 Courts And The Act

15:18 Key Legal Wins

17:21 Buffalo Creek Untrammeled

22:10 Why Watchdogs Matter

25:24 Programs Gutted

27:13 Need A Wilderness Agency

30:05 Logging Loopholes

36:41 Fire Hysteria Pushback

38:28 Recreation Impacts

39:49 Wildlife Displacement Costs

41:00 Recreation Industry Pressure

43:07 Exceptions Eroding Wilderness

45:14 Trails Chainsaws Enforcement

49:45 Policy Attacks Funding Loopholes

57:14 Big Greens Movement Critique

01:05:15 Career Reflections Future Fight

01:10:35 Public Lands Birthright

01:12:34 Retirement Staying Involved

In this episode, I interview Tim Ingalsbee, co-founder and executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology (FUSEE). Tim and I discuss his critiques of the new U.S. Wildland Fire Service, arguing consolidation is framed as efficiency but functions as defunding, job shedding, and a suppression-first “Fire Force” detached from land stewardship, able to override local land managers. Tim says federal fire management is failing due to an obsolete full-suppression paradigm, reinforced by “attack all fires” directives, which wastes resources, increases hazards, and can worsen ecological damage. He advocates strategic suppression and an Alaska-style triage model, prioritizing protection of lives, communities, and infrastructure while living with fire for ecological benefit. Our conversation covers problems with thinning for timber, home ignitability and community-wide mitigation, workforce programs like the Oregon Conservation Corps, Indigenous fire stewardship, cultural change away from militarized firefighting, and FUSEE’s work promoting proactive fire management and policy reform.

Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology (FUSEE)

Oregon Conservation Corps

S. 3609 (The Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act)

H.R. 948 (The SAFE HOME Act)

03:26 New Wildland Fire Service

05:50 Consolidation Risks And Missions

10:18 Attack All Fires Directive

14:29 Strategic Suppression Triage

18:33 Smokey Bear Myths

22:35 Thinning/Prescribed Fire Debate

28:05 Home Ignition Zone Focus

32:47 Community Workforce Programs

35:46 Preparing Communities For Fire

38:03 Fireproofing Homes First

39:28 Oregon Conservation Corps Model

40:28 Indigenous Fire Stewardship

44:53 Living in the Pyrocene

47:04 Militarized Firefighting Culture

49:31 Toxic Tools and Home Hazmat

52:31 Firefighters as Stewards

55:23 Epiphanies on the Fireline

59:51 FUSEE Mission and Advocacy

01:01:08 Prescribed Burn Smoke Concerns

In this episode, I speak with Defenders of Wildlife’s Kelly Cox and Christian Hunt about the Wildlife Corridors Act and why it’s needed to counter habitat fragmentation and improve wildlife movement across landscapes that don’t match jurisdictional boundaries. They explain the bill’s goal of creating a national wildlife corridors system focused primarily on federal lands, requiring agencies to coordinate through a corridor committee, use mapping and science to prioritize corridors, and adopt implementing regulations within a couple years of enactment. The act defines connectivity around movements that support genetic exchange, range shifting/expansion, seasonal movement, and recolonization after disturbances, with urgency heightened by climate-driven range shifts.

Beyer, Buchanan, Lofgren, and Fitzpatrick Introduce Bipartisan Legislation To Support Wildlife Migration and Protect Biodiversity

www.defenders.org

02:59 Meet Kelly and Christian

03:39 Defenders Parks Program

06:45 Refuges Rulemaking and Predators

10:38 Why Corridors Matter

14:48 Defining Connectivity and Roads

17:53 Climate and Private Lands

21:14 State Models and Crossings Funding

28:04 Science and Political Hurdles

31:16 Mapping Agencies and Sideboards

36:36 Economics ESA and Future Vision

43:49 Public Lands Reflections

I this episode, I interview Dave Stalling, writer and wildlife advocate based in Missoula, Montana. Dave recounts his time serving in Marine Corps Force Recon, struggling for years with self-acceptance, and finding his footing by spending long periods alone in remote Montana wildlands, influenced by Doug Peacock’s Grizzly Years and writers like Edward Abbey and Jack Turner. Dave explains his deep connection to grizzlies as teachers of humility, and critiques how modern hunting culture, commercialization, and hunter-dominated agencies use “science” to justify politically driven predator killing and maximizing harvest of game animals. Dave argues wildlife management should include all citizens, discusses ballot initiatives, and shares how hiking with his son Cory, who has a muscular disease, taught him to slow down, notice small details, and practice “forest bathing.”

https://substack.com/@davidstalling

Doug Peacock’s Grizzly Years

Jack Turner’s The Abstract Wild

01:47 Meet David Stalling

03:27 Gray Hair Hypocrisy

05:21 Force Recon Self Acceptance

08:32 Father Roots in Wild

12:53 Grizzlies Teach Humility

16:43 Hunting Culture Critique

17:32 Anti Hunter Who Hunts

25:20 Science Versus Politics

27:03 Elk Bears Misused Science

34:59 Commercialized Hunting Takeover

37:51 Conservation Groups Letdown

38:51 Reforming Wildlife Management

40:33 Ballot Initiatives vs Science

45:31 Calling Out Hunter Culture

47:54 How Dave Learned to Write

53:05 Lessons From Cory

58:18 Rethinking Wild Places

01:03:56 Forest Bathing and Healing

01:07:17 Public Lands Are Everything

In this episode, I interview Alex Kelloff, a first-time candidate running in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District. Alex launched his campaign after Donald Trump’s 2024 reelection, citing concerns about January 6, public-lands selloffs and leasing for oil and gas, federal land-agency staffing cuts, and opposition to Republican Rep. Jeff Hurd and Project 2025-style policies. We discuss top voter concerns including cost of living, rural hospital instability, Medicaid cuts, and the need for universal affordable healthcare with an independently managed public system. Drawing on a 30+ year telecom career, Alex critiques AI data-center “land grab” spending, opposes data centers in his district due to land, water, and utility constraints, and discusses renewable transmission, mining tradeoffs, and public-lands governance.

https://alexkelloff.com/

00:57 Episode Preview Alex Kelloff

02:54 Campaign Trail and Voter Struggles

05:15 Public Lands as Economic Lifeline

06:00 Inside Colorado Third District

08:13 Why He’s Running Now

10:52 Trump Era Impacts on Public Lands

12:22 Top Issues Healthcare and Hospitals

14:14 Universal Healthcare Vision

17:33 Telecom Career and Infrastructure

20:44 AI Data Centers and Public Lands

22:31 AI Land Grab

28:46 Opposing Data Centers in District

30:05 Siting Data Centers Smartly

30:43 Geothermal Drilling Risks

31:43 Mining Materials Tradeoffs

35:46 Rare Earths and War Strategy

39:05 Renewables on Public Lands

41:23 Transmission and Grid Bottlenecks

44:13 RMPs and Project 2025

49:41 Grazing Permit Retirement

51:47 Public Private Models

In this episode, I interview Paul Lynn, a Walla Walla, Washington-based mycology educator, business owner and public-lands advocate, about fungal ecology, mycelium networks, and how logging disrupts soils’ “sponge” function that stores and releases water. Paul links fungi to forest hydrology, climate processes, and a precautionary approach given how little is known about fungal communities. Our conversation focuses on the 38,000-acre Tiger Mill Project, a quote, unquote, “wildfire-risk-reduction timber sale” in and around Walla Walla’s heavily protected municipal watershed within a roadless area adjacent to the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness. Paul argues the project is a subsidized extraction effort using black-box models and flawed assumptions, risking worsening forest drying, fire behavior, sedimentation, and flood impacts in a rain-on-snow zone, and is positioned as a pilot for watershed logging elsewhere like in Bend and Portland Oregon, and Seattle, Washington.

https://youtube.com/shorts/XX0jIhtVjFg

https://youtube.com/shorts/qOhp9yqJidU

https://youtube.com/shorts/hLPbptKCzYE

https://youtube.com/shorts/fFXVC_Hldl8

Confluence Series

Walla Walla Watersheds

Fungaia

02:18 Meet Paul Lynn

03:41 Mycology to Ecology

06:36 Mycelium and Precaution

08:43 Logging Impacts Soil Sponge

10:47 Foraging and Drought

12:33 Disturbance Morels and Spores

15:01 Responsible Mushroom Picking

18:04 Roots and Walla Walla

20:55 Blue Mountains Microclimates

24:48 Into Forest Activism

29:15 Tiger Mill Pilot Project

32:55 Wildfire Risk Narrative

34:48 Water Stakes Floods and Fire

36:59 Why Logging Worsens Hydrology

40:21 Fire History and Recovery

41:39 Endless Management Loop

42:59 Trout After Wildfire

44:41 Local Politics And Players

48:36 Fire Risk Logging Debate

51:05 Grassroots Education Strategy

54:58 Money Grants And Liability

59:13 Tiger Mill Project Details

01:02:36 Modeling And NEPA Loopholes

01:08:12 Flood Risk And Sediment

01:12:07 Water Scarcity Big Picture

01:16:18 Confluence Series And Links