If you want to get a sense of how contentious the decision is over whether the Obama administration is going to block a planned copper and gold mine near Bristol Bay, consider this: the Environmental Protection Agencyhas just decided to allow the public another month to weigh in on a scientific review of the project they released a year ago.
In The News
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In just a few weeks, I'll be boarding a plane headed for Juneau, Alaska where I'll be joining a group of other journalists, photographers and conservationists on a tour of the Tongass National Forest, a trip that is being generously sponsored by Trout Unlimited, Fishpond, Tenkara USA and RIO. The Tongass, located in southeast Alaska, is the last remaining large tract of temperate rainforest, the only remaining ecosystem of its kind. It is commonly referred to as the "Salmon Forest", a place where -- quite literally -- trees grow salmon and salmon grow trees.
Sportsmen petition to protect Wyoming Range from oil and gas production
More than two dozen outdoor advocacy groups wrote the US Forest Service this week, asking it to remove almost 45,000 acres-worth of land in the Wyoming Range from consideration for oil and gas leases.
The organizations, including Trout Unlimited and the Wyoming Wildlife Federation, said the land comprises vital habitat for mule deer, moose and cutthroat trout.
There, in about a foot of water, they spied something that had vanished from the San Joaquin River more than 60 years ago: a spawning chinook salmon.
Southeast AK's salmon and trout contribute an estimated $1 billion to the regional economy and support 1 in 10 jobs, according to the U.S. Forest Service. The Tongass National Forest produces on average 28-percent of Alaska's annual commercial salmon catch from less than five-percent of the state's land base. Some 70-percent of wild salmon harvested from national forests originate in the Tongass.