PHOTO © WENDY SHATTIL & BOB ROZINSKI
The Pinedale Anticline Working Group – A dilemma of definition?
A dilemma of intent?
On the heels of the recent President's Conference on Cooperative Conservation, the story of the Pinedale Anticline Working Group is either a sorry tale full of irony and shady language, or of good intentions on the part of the BLM, gone awry. Ask any one of a number of disaffected members, ask some long-time stakeholders. And perhaps, run it by wintering pronghorn.
All but the pronghorn, and maybe they too, want straight answers from Prill Mecham, BLM Pinedale Director. Is the group to be involved in agenda-setting for meetings, to be involved in pre-decision input to the BLM or post-decision input? Ms. Mecham asserts that the agenda is the BLM's charge and that decisions are to be made by the BLM and that the group can put forth their input once a process is in play.
There's a long history here, a community in the throes of tough change, yet "cooperative conservation" seems to be the stated goal of many stakeholders.
BLM "EXPERIMENT" HAS ROUGH START – CASPER STAR-TRIBUNE >>
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IN THE NEWS
Blackfoot Challenge rises to task
When the Plum Creek Timber Company decided to sell 88,000 Blackfoot Valley acres in 2003, ranchers, conservationists and other locals worried that a crop of new houses would sprout. Dependent on the forest and mountains to make a living and for hunting and fishing, they formed a nonprofit group mostly made up of area residents to buy the land.
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