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Reknitting connections
Why do we need wild salmon and steelhead to thrive in the Snake River? Because they make connections. Wild salmon connect the Sawtooth Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Fish born in the rivers find their way to the sea, only to return at the end of their lives to spawn, die and decay—in the process…
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Fixing what ails our western forests and communities
The haze over the early morning sun spurred a call from a friend. “Did you see the moon this morning? It’s wild!” It wasn’t the moon, but it was wild. Wildfires 3,000 miles away shrouded the sun in smoke. The light smoke in Washington, D.C., signaled devastation in the West. In California, for example, at least 26 people have perished from wildfire, and more than 7,000 structures were destroyed. In…
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Native and wild
A few weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic, I was catching wild trout in western North Carolina with a guide who had rejoined TU because the local chapter decided to stop helping the state to stock hatchery fish, and instead chose to focus exclusively on creating the flow and habitat conditions necessary to support wild and…
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Public lands, past and future
September is Public Lands Month, and few places are more important to trout and salmon than our public lands. Half of all the blue-ribbon trout streams in the West, for example, flow across public lands. Our public lands are often the last and best strongholds for many species of native trout and char. My exposure…
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Chris Wood cheers Bristol Bay news: Ding dong, the witch is down (but out?)
Pebble mine is on the ropes in Alaska, but the work goes on to protect Bristol Bay once and for all The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers “finds that the project, as currently proposed, cannot be permitted under section 404 of the Clean Water Act.” With those words earlier this week, the prospects for the development of Pebble mine suffered…
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Former opponents now partners working to restore the upper Colorado River
Editor's note: This op-ed first appeared in the Colorado Sun on Aug. 14. By Chris Wood and Brad Wind Born in Colorado, the mighty Colorado River serves over 40 million people and irrigates nearly 5 million acres of farmland before it enters Mexico. It is the hardest-working river in the West. The river also provides…
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Recovery through restoration
Now is the time to double down on our investment in the outdoors. This summer, the President and a bipartisan majority in Congress have coalesced around an old good idea. Namely, that we as a nation ought to be investing in our public lands. Our parks and forests and wilderness areas are a national endowment,…
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