The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is conducting a series of ancient pinyon-juniper forest massacres across the Great Basin. Deep Green Resistance and WildLands Defense are working together to stop this massacre. Some of these tree are being ripped from the earth by chains stretched across bulldozers and reduced to a pile of chips in 30 seconds. Some of these trees are being poisoned with long-lasting chemical herbicides and are dying a slow death.
We visited some of the affected areas and made this video as witness to the destruction.
Huge swaths of ancient, beautiful pinyon-juniper forests are falling victim to BLM policies to subsidize cattle ranchers, and distract from real conservation needs of sage-grouse. These forests were the lifeblood of the Great Basin’s original peoples. Pinyon pine nuts fed the people (and wildlife) while junipers offered medicine. The forests’ wildlife inhabitants are also being killed. Beautiful birds like the pinyon jay (pictured above) and black-throated gray warbler live in the trees while old-growth tree cavities house American kestrels, owls, and rare bats. BLM has already laid waste to millions of acres of forests. Now it plans to clearcut an area larger than the State of Vermont.
Deep Green Resistance and WildLands Defense are advocating for a moratorium on all pinyon-juniper deforestation in the Great Basin and we need your help. Pinyon-juniper forests are being wantonly killed as weeds while their inherent ecological value is summarily ignored. These forests store carbon dioxide, dampen climate change, provide crucial wildlife habitat, protect watersheds, and have helped humans survive in the Great Basin for millennia. A moratorium gives us time to marshall our resources to put this destruction to a permanent end. Sign this petition with us and ask BLM to stop clearcutting pinyon-juniper forests.
