This is a special episode recorded live in Bozeman at the premiere of the important new short film titled "Good Fire, Bad Fire: Inside the Race to Restore America’s Forests."

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On the evening of May 16, 2024, around 200 folks gathered at Bozeman’s Museum of the Rockies to watch the 15-minute film, which captures the breathtaking beauty of our nation’s forests and delves into the urgent crisis threatening their existence. Following the screening, I moderated a panel discussion featuring an extremely impressive line-up of some of the nation’s leading conservationists and forest-health experts. The on-stage conversation gave us the opportunity to dig deeper into some of the issues raised by the film, and glean valuable insights into the importance of responsible forest management from ecological, recreational, economic, and policy perspectives.

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“Good Fire, Bad Fire” was directed by filmmaker Eric Ian, and produced by the team at the Property and Environment Research Center, better known as PERC, who also hosted the event. The panelists you’ll hear in this episode are:

Brian Ferebee, Chief Executive of Intergovernmental Relations for the U.S. Forest Service
Randy Newberg, renowned conservationist and Host of Fresh Tracks and Hunt Talk with Randy Newberg
Morgan Varner, Director of Fire Research at Tall Timbers
Corey Lewellen, District Ranger for the Bozeman Ranger District
Hannah Downey, Policy Director at PERC
Brian Yablonski, CEO of PERC (and a past Mountain & Prairie podcast guest)

I could’ve spoken with each of these experts individually for several hours, but having them all share a stage and combine their wide range of expertise into a single conversation was a powerfully educational experience.

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While you can listen to this episode on its own, I would strongly encourage you to first spend 15 minutes watching “Good Fire, Bad Fire” as a primer. There’s a link in the episode notes and it’s embedded on the episode webpage.

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I’d also encourage you to check out the episode notes for a full list of all of the topics we discussed, which included everything from a history of fire as a resource management tool to the Forest Service’s evolving approach to wildfires and forest health. We talked about forest health’s impact on hunting and fishing, the pros and cons of policies such as the ESA and NEPA, on-the-ground success stories, optimistic good news about the future of forest health, and much more. There were tons of resources mentioned, all of which are listed and linked on this episode’s webpage.

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A huge thanks to Brian Yablonski and the team at PERC for creating such an important film and for inviting me to participate in such an enlightening conversation. I hope you enjoy the film as much as I did, and I hope that this discussion provides some new insights into the all-important issue of forest health in the American West.

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WATCH THE FILM: "Good Fire, Bad Fire"
Full episode notes and links: https://mountainandprairie.com/good-fire-bad-fire/

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TOPICS DISCUSSED:

3:15 - Introductions

6:15 - Where the USFS stands right now on its approach to wildfire and forest health (Brian F)

8:45 - A hunter and public lands advocate’s perspective on the state of the forests (Randy)

10:30 - A brief history of how fire became a resource management tool in the US and before the US (Morgan)

13:45 - Discussing obstacles to the forest management work described in Good Fire, Bad Fire (Corey)

18:00 - How we can streamline large federal processes like the ESA and NEPA (Hannah)

21:00 - Why PERC became involved in this forestry work (Brian Y)

23:15 - What is preventing ideal progress on forest management in Montana (Brian F)

27:30 - How Randy would recommend hunters and anglers take action and advocate for forest health

31:00 - Discussing how lessons in forest management from the Southeast can impact forestry in MT (Morgan)

35:15 - On-the-ground success stories in forest management (Corey)

39:45 - An example of fire outpacing procedure, and the impacts that can have (Hannah)

41:15 - How discussions of conservation and forestry are received by elected officials (Hannah)

43:00 - Predictions for the next five years of forest management (Morgan and Randy)

47:15 - Brian Y’s optimistic take on the state of forest stewardship

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