Managing Forests for the Lynx

  • Canada lynx are naturally rare in the U.S.: their populations fluctuate following the population cycles of snowshoe hare, their main prey. Photo by Erwin and Peggy Bauer: courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In the wake of last year’s decision by the Fish and Wildlife
Service to list the lynx as a threatened species, the Forest Service is
now considering whether it should improve the habitat for these shy
cats in the Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Rebecca Williams reports:

Bush Plan Offers No Leadership

Energy and the environment are on center stage after White
House Task Force on Energy chairman Dick Cheney announced plans
to build nuclear power plants, increase production of oil and coal, and
do
little to encourage conservation. Concerned about the environmental
consequences of nuclear power and of burning fossil fuels, Great Lakes
Radio Consortium commentator Julia King thinks the plan might need
some ”tweaking”:

Ethanol Forgotten in Energy Plan?

President Bush recently unveiled his plan for an energy policy.
The plan’s reliance on traditional energy sources, such as oil, coal and

nuclear power, has received a great deal of attention. However, one
potential fuel source that’s very important to Midwestern farmers
barely received mention. Midwest states produce more than half
of all the ethanol used in the U.S. and Canada. But the corn-based
fuel is referred to in only two sections of the one hundred and seventy
page document. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Jonathan Ahl reports that there are very differing opinions among
supporters of ethanol on how to interpret the fuel’s role in the
administration’s plans:

Sowing Trust With Farmers

  • Environmentalists and others wonder why farmers persist in using certain chemicals that cause pollution when there are economical alternatives. Reseach shows that a strictly economic argument is not enough to persuade farmers to change their land management practices.

For years, environmentalists, government workers and others
have been puzzled about why more farmers don’t make use of
environmentally friendly land management practices. Now, researchers
have found some of the reasons farmers persist in farming the way they
do and why they don’t listen to outside experts. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham reports: