Future firefighters have their work cut out for them. Perhaps nowhere does this hit home harder than in Australia, where in early 2009 a persistent drought, high winds, and record high temperatures set the stage for the worst wildfire in the country’s history. On February 9th, now known as “Black Saturday,” the mercury in Melbourne topped 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46.4 degrees Celsius) as fires burned over 1 million acres in the state of Victoria—destroying more than 2,000 homes and killing more than 170 people, tens of thousands of cattle and sheep, and 1 million native animals.

Even as more people move into fire-prone wildlands around the world, the intense droughts and higher temperatures that come with global warming are likely to make fires more frequent and severe in many areas. (See table of regional observations and predictions) For southeastern Australia, home to much of the country’s population, climate change could triple the number of extreme fire risk days by 2050.

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“When we look at the parks and we look at the United States and we examine the whole idea of democracy, I think that the park experience is an exploration of the idea of freedom.”

-Shelton Johnson, Park Ranger

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Walmart has won approval to build a Supercenter on the edge one of the most important battlefields from the Civil War: the Wilderness Battlefield.

Wilderness was the location when Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant first met in battle, on May 4, 1864. Altogether, on both sides of the fighting, 160,000 soldiers total took part with approximately 29,000 killed or wounded. It was the beginning of the turning point of the Civil War.

Supervisors in Orange County, Virginia voted Monday night to grant a permit to the corporate giant, despite public outcry, especially from historians and Civil War buffs.

Jim Campi, of the Civil War Preservation Trust, is against it because,

What Walmart is proposing would absolutely transform the landscape. Walmart is proposing a superstore closer to a national park boundary than any previous Walmart, and this is right on the boundary of the national park.

Only one-quarter of the historic battlefield is protected, so the controversy has surrounded the question, “What is a battlefield?”

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During this trip we cloth diapered and had a potty trainer on our hands! The condo at Bass Lake had a washer and dryer and while camping in Yosemite we used the laundry mat at Curry Village. I only did the washing at Curry Village and let the diapers & undies air dry in the sunshine on a tree branch at our site. We were prepared to use a bucket and gloves if we did not have access to a washer! It worked out nicely though. My 2 yr. old loved being in nature and really enjoyed boat rides on the lake. He saw tons of wildlife including a BEAR! While driving back to our campsite, our first day in Yosemite, we watched a bear eating in a meadow through the car window. It was neat. Tristan also saw a “Big ole Buck” on a bike ride first thing in the morning around the campground.

It was so amazing to see nature through his eyes. He chased the squirrels to their holes and around the campsite and collected specimens to put into his bug kit. Our hike to Vernal Falls was quite a journey and I think he understood it’s significance. My husband and I consider ourselves experienced campers. We’ve done a lot of camping. Every time I walk away from a campsite, I have a new perspective on life. Unplugging for the few days and recharging your soul with Mother Nature is a must! Getting away from all the stimulus and “roughing -it” for a few days makes you appreciate the things we have in life.

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1872 saw the birth of a law that has governed American mining for over a century. It is the General Mining Act of 1872. While amendments have been made to the 1872 Act, we are still governed by what some would call “outdated” policy.

“We must find an approach to modernize the General Mining Law of 1872 and ensure that development occurs in a manner consistent with the needs of mining and the protection of the public, our public lands, and water resources,” said Interior Secretary Salazar today Before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

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“the road is currently composed of dirt or native material and several segments of the existing road do not meet current federal and state road design standards for public safety. All projections indicate a continued substantial increase in light and heavy vehicle traffic on the road, primarily associated with energy development in the Book Cliffs area.” (UT-080-08-0238 section 1.2)

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You might think that renewable energy developers have few problems convincing towns to let them move in. But things can get surprisingly tricky when it comes to wildlife protection, according to a new map from the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Audubon Society. The Google Maps mash-up shows which renewable energy project locations are likely to provoke a fight based on the location of wilderness areas, areas where roads are banned, national parks, wildlife refuges, areas under consideration for wilderness protection, and areas that lack legal protection but contain endangered species.

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The Friant Dam on California’s San Joaquin River, built in the 1940’s, is slated for removal as part of today’s Congressional designation of wilderness status and federal protection to 2 million acres across nine states.

Included in Congress’ largest expansion of the wilderness system in 15 years is an ambitious river restoration effort on the San Joaquin River. The legislation authorizes the federal government to carry out an $88 million settlement won by environmentalists in 2006 after a court battle that spanned two decades.

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“Connecting with nature calms and soothes both children and adults, and it is something that both children and adults can do for a wealth of benefits, for free”, says REAL School Gardens.

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[Creative Commons photo via rjime31]

It’s actually a collection of 160 bills and covers over two million acres in nine states. THe land ranges from the Sierra Nevadas in California to Mount Hood in Oregon and Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. It also includes areas in Virginia, Idaho, Michigan, Arkansas, and Utah.

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Thank you for welcoming me back after an extended hiatus travelling our great American countryside.  Burned out from the stresses of the Sust Enable project, my partner Scott and I took off for the great wilds of U.S. National Parks in early August.  I haven’t written a blog since, as my adventures swept me far from the reaches of the Internet, for the most part.  Now I am back in Pittsburgh, not living sustainably, yet still reeling from the life lessons reaped from the past four months.

I anticipated having a slew of breathtaking photographs to offer you, alongside commentary from the trip in which I reflected on our often-severed connection with nature, and the deep wisdom such a connection provides.  Instead, one night while we camped in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, our video and digital camera were stolen from the glovebox of Scott’s car.  In the middle of a peaceful campsite, in which the sense of goodwill invoked a dozen campers to leave their car doors unlocked that night, a band of thiefs took advantage, slipped in after dark, and robbed a handful of people… not only of material possessions, but of their precious trip memories.

I wept inconsolably when I learned that the camera which held our trip photographs had been taken from us.  I cared little for the money-cost of these items, but I couldn’t stop hurting from the void that the thief left in me–having robbed me of the potential for life-long memories.

Memories surely live on in one’s mind… but as an avid student of the sciences, psychology easily reminds me that minds distort experiences.  I was hoping to use the photographs from our trip as a guideline for revisiting the feelings and sights that this wonderful trip stirred in me.  That hope is gone now, exchanged for a fleeting handful of cash to another.

And so, in the middle of my meditations on how the entire human race might be unified if we each and all had the opportunity to pause in the arms of nature’s bounty… I was sharply reminded with a single malicious act… that we have much further to go before then.

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That old wilderness magic was in the air in Seattle a few nights ago.

Republicans and Democrats, business leaders and environmentalists, hunters and vegetarians gathered at an outdoor retailer to celebrate the Wild Sky Wilderness in the north Cascades. Earlier this year, legislation designating the 106,000-acre Wild Sky was passed by a Democratic Congress and signed into law by a Republican president.

Just as the authors of the Wilderness Act intended, protecting the Wild Sky Wilderness was a great American cause beyond the dividing lines that crisscross American society.

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[UPDATE: The Senate version of the Conservation Act passed overwhelmingly today, by a vote of 91-4]. The House of Representatives has voted to pass H.R. 2016, the National Landscape Conservation Act, by a tally of 278-140. The bill will give legal recognition to the National Landscape Conservation System, a Clinton-era program that oversees some 27 million acres of federal land mainly in 11 Western states and Alaska. Joining the 238 Democrats in support of the legislation were 50 Republican members of the House [follow this link to see how your Representative voted].

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