Facts are getting in the way of attempts to blame fires on a lack of logging and to blame a lack of logging on environmental lawsuits!

Greenwire reports Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told a U.S. House Subcommittee hearing on the matter Thursday that only 5% of Forest Service timber sales were taken to court this year, while 16% of the timber sales failed because the timber industry simply refused to buy them!

And an abundance of research shows the importance of not trying to replace or follow fire with logging: "There is substantially less high-intensity fire now than there was historically, prior to fire suppression policies, and this post-fire habitat deficit is worsened by extensive post-fire clearcutting on national forests and private lands, and by landscape-level mechanical 'thinning' designed to further suppress fire, making snag forest habitat the most endangered forest habitat type in the U.S."

However, these facts hardly sway Congress as it works alongside the Forest Service and industry to perpetuate the lie that public forests are sick and need a logging "cure!" Congress and the Forest Service are, in fact, paying collaborators that help perpetuate these lies! (See our recent newsletter and our letter to editors in this regard. Click here for more details and supporting documents showing how the Forest Service is paying collaborators.)

We need your help stopping the perverse waste of your tax dollars trying to replace ecologically beneficial backcountry forest fires with subsidized, ecologically destructive logging!

Click here to Donate Now and your contribution to our work will be doubled by Cinnabar Foundation!

Thank you!

Our Summer-Fall 2015 newsletter looks at the politics of logging and wildfires, and tracks the millions of dollars the Forest Service is paying its collaborative "partners!"

That's right, the Forest Service is using Congressional funds to pay its collaborative "partners" millions of dollars, some of whom are then asking Congress for more money and urging it to ignore those who "oppose collaborative approaches to forest management!"

Yet, midstride in complaining about too little logging of public lands and blaming it on presumably "non-collaborative" conservation groups, the entire Montana Congressional delegation is now urging the Forest Service to slow down and extend logging contract deadlines due to a glut of timber on the market!

Remember to support our work by Nov 30 and Cinnabar Foundation will match your donation, doubling your money!

Here's our newsletter's table of contents and you can click here to view or download it as a pdf:

We hope you enjoy the newsletter and will continue to support our work!

Fish, wildlife, wilderness, and people are counting on us - and you!

A celebration of Bruce May's life will be held Sunday, June 7, 2015 at the Whitefish Community Center, 121 Second Street, Whitefish, MT, from 3-6 pm!

Join Bruce's wife, Elaine Snyder, family and friends in this celebration and potluck dinner.

Bruce was a fisheries biologist with Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks and an avid volunteer, helping stop the proposed Kootenai Falls Dam and helping secure better protection for fish, wildlife and wildlands in Northwest Montana!

Bruce died April 23, 2015. Click here for his full obituary.

Come join us for a wilderness slide show and book signing by Frederick Swanson on Wednesday, May 13, 7-9 pm, at the Swan River Community Hall!

Learn about the hard-fought battles for Wilderness in Montana and Idaho - and be inspired to continue the charge!

Mr. Swanson will emphasize the long fight for the Swan Range's Jewel Basin and Bunker Creek, while talking about his new book "Where Roads Will Never Reach: Wilderness and Its Visionaries in the Northern Rockies."

Admission is free! The Swan River Community Hall is located across Highway 83 from the Swan River School and Echo Lake Cafe northeast of Bigfork.

Click here for a press release that provides more details and background.

Click here to listen to Mr. Swanson's 35-minute interview on this subject with Whitefish Community Radio - but still come to the slide show May 13 to see and hear much, much more!

Our Spring 2015 newsletter provides a bit of background and 7 points we'd like you to consider making in your comments on the Proposed Revised Flathead Forest Plan by May 15!

It also invites you to join us for an inspiring Wilderness Slide Show and Book Signing by Frederick Swanson on May 13!

You can use the PDF version of the newsletter to cut and paste your comments to the Flathead, or you can CLICK HERE to download, print, sign, and mail a FORM LETTER!

You can also click here to listen to our Montana Public Radio interview on why these comments and bold, science-based proposals like our Citizen reVision are so important!

Here is the newsletter's table of contents:

Please DONATE NOW to help us continue digesting 500-page federal documents into short newsletters and single-page action alerts!

Fish, wildlife, wilderness, and people are counting on us - and you!

Please take a moment NOW and write an email to the Flathead National Forest, which wants to institutionalize and highlight ORV use of the wildlife-rich Krause Basin in its new draft Forest Plan!

Send a quick email to flatheadplanrevision@fs.fed.us and make the following points:

1. The 1988 Noisy Face Recreation Plan intended to phase out ORV use of Krause Basin by prohibiting ORV races, reducing ORV routes by half, and requiring that remaining ORV routes "will not be marked on the ground."

2. The 1995 Flathead Forest Plan Amendment 19 finds that the Krause Basin area has more than twice the density of motorized routes allowed and only half of the grizzly bear security required by Forest Plan standards.

3. It is high time to close the ORV routes to motorized vehicles to provide adequate security for grizzly bear, calving elk, wolverine, and lynx.

4. These routes and wildlife habitat can better accommodate lower-impact uses by foot, ski and mountain bike that have become increasingly popular, while maintaining peace and quiet in the adjacent Foothills Road neighborhood.

5. The new draft Forest Plan's Management Area 7 "Focused Recreation Area" emphasizing "motorized trails" is absolutely unacceptable for Krause Basin and contrary to the goal of limiting human uses to those that don't trash wildlife security (as are Swan Lake Ranger District's plans to illegally mark the ORV routes on the ground)!

Click here to download a petition that makes the above points, sign it along with a handful of your friends and associates, then mail it to us at the address provided on the petition.

The Forest Service has had 26 years to reduce ORV use and abuse to levels that protect fish and wildlife. Now it wants to head in the opposite direction and at the expense of lower-impact, quiet recreation! DON'T LET THEM!

Click here to find more details on the history of legal protections for Krause Basin, on pages 4-6 of our 60-day notice of intent to file suit in this matter.

PLEASE ALSO ATTEND the Forest Plan meeting/open house Tuesday, March 17, from 5:30 - 7:30, at the Flathead Forest Supervisor's Office, 650 Wolfpack Way, west of Costco and Glacier High School!

While we handle the legal stuff, YOUR VOICE IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY TO SHIFT THE POLITICS IN FAVOR OF QUIET RECREATION, FISH AND WILDLIFE!

We'll issue several more alerts over the next two months as we dig deeper into the new proposed Flathead Forest Plan!

THANK YOU!

The Washington Post has found Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) lied not once, but twice recently, greatly exaggerating how much federal logging in Montana is being held up by environmentalist lawsuits!

This well-researched disclosure is important! It shatters the underlying myth and scapegoating upon which efforts by Congress, some State Legislatures, some "conservation" groups, and industry are trying to increase logging on federal public lands, even if it means turning control or title of those lands over to the States!

Conservation groups enforcing America's bedrock environmental protection laws in court is not the problem industry allies say it is! Senator Tester and others are simply going to have to find a new myth and a new scapegoat in order to do the timber industry's bidding!

Tester last week told Montana Public Radio "Unfortunately, every logging sale in Montana right now is under litigation. Every one of them." The Washington Post finds "there are 97 timber sales under contract in Montana's national forests. Of that number, just 14 have active litigation, so about 14 percent. But only four of the sales are enjoined by a court from any logging."

When Tester was again questioned by MTPR, he suddenly became "unavailable" for the week and his staff shifted to talking timber volume, claiming "Nearly half of the awarded timber volume in Fiscal Year 2014 is currently under litigation." The Washington Post finds this to also be a lie, finding only about 10% of the timber volume under contract is halted by litigation.

The Washington Post has awarded Tester "Four Pinocchios," its worst rating for telling a "whopper" - in this case two whoppers.

Click "Read Full Article" below to read more about how such lies are the false premise upon which even some "conservation" groups are basing their collaboration with industry to increase logging on federal public lands.

Our Winter 2015 newsletter outlines why we must intervene NOW to protect America's wilderness and conservation legacy - and how you can help!

Montana Wilderness Association and Headwaters Montana are selling out wilderness quality lands in the northern Swan Range, an indicator of even larger problems in the conservation movement!

This newsletter describes how bedrock environmental laws based in social justice, anti-materialism and public challenges to government are being sidelined and replaced by social favoritism, giving consumers everything they want, and paying any price for access to government officials.

If you read only one newsletter in 2015, let it be this one! We need your help getting the conservation movement back on track!

Click here to view or download our Winter 2015 newsletter.

Here is the table of contents:

Please DONATE NOW to help us turn things around!

Fish, wildlife, wilderness, and people are counting on us - and you!

Swan View Coalition wishes you a Happy New Year from high atop the Swan Crest!

We greatly appreciate your support of our work protecting the Swan Range and the greater Flathead River Basin from development and human misconduct!

We are currently involved in both public education and lawsuits to help protect bull trout, fisher, lynx, wolverine, grizzly bear, elk, and more.

These are the wildlife and wild places that have made Montana and American public lands famous, yet these sanctuaries are still threatened!

There are two days left to make a year-end contribution securely online or by sending a check to 3165 Foothill Road, Kalispell, MT 59901! Your gift is tax-deductible!

We had a great 30th year in 2014 and will continue fighting to secure quiet, calm habitats for fish, wildlife and people in 2015 and beyond!

With your support the sky is the limit!

THANK YOU!

Swan View Coalition wishes you a Happy Solstice and Holidays!

Whichever hemisphere you live in, today's Solstice offers an opportunity to reflect on our relationship to the natural world.

We hope you'll take ten minutes to watch this wonderful and empowering video.

"We are All One" shares an Indigenous Native American Prophecy that links all of life and the future of our planet.

We each hold the power to make a difference, in part by regarding "natural resources" as family rather than commodity.

We wish you the best this Solstice and Holiday Season!