KGLP Podcasts

Holiday in New Mexico music, 12/3/15 at UNM-Gallup

Music performed during Holiday in New Mexico, a December 3, 2015 event at the University of New Mexico, Gallup campus.

Navajo Tech business incubator center grand opening 12/10/15

KGLP Station Manager Rachel Kaub covered the Grand Opening of Navajo Technical University's Churchrock, NM business incubator center on December 10, 2015.  Dr. Elmer Guy, President of NTU, was among dignitaries present, and his address and interview are included here, along with other folks.

UNM-Gallup Nov. 2015 Native Heritage Month observance

In November, 2015, the University of New Mexico Gallup campus hosted an observance of Native American Heritage month, featuring area workers, artists, leaders and professionals whose Native ancestry inform their lives and careers, serving as role models for Native Youth.

Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission 12/9/15 hearing Gallup emp

On December 9th, 2015, the eve of International Human Rights Day, there was a public hearing on employment practices affecting Navajos in a border town.

The Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission, NNHRC, welcomed testimony from Diné workers in the City of Gallup, New Mexico, on their work experience, application process, and other information related to employment practices.

Brandon Benally was one of those who provided testimony...

NNHRC Executive Director Leonard Gorman acknowledged that similar issues affect indigenous people all over the world.

 

For more information on the work of the commission, you may visti nnhrc.navajo-nsn.com.

Gallup Finalists for Gallup Police Chief at 12/1/15 Meet & Greet

On December 1, 2015, the three finalists vying to take over from Gallup Police Chief Dan Cron early next year were at a meet and greet in downtown Gallup, New Mexico.

Logging Bill Won't Reduce Fire Risk, Researchers Claim - Dec. 2015

KGLP Station Manager Rachel Kaub speaks with and Dr. Chad Hanson, Ecologist with the John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute in California, who, with Dr. Dominick DellaSala, Chief Scientist of the Geos Institute in Ashland, Oregon, are making a case opposing a logging rider that is being developed in Congress that could be attached to a spending bill very soon.  These researchers make the following argument:

As Congress considers the "fire-borrowing" issue via legislation to prevent the wildfire suppression program from taking money from non-suppression programs, Republicans in the House and Senate are using fear and misunderstanding of forest fires to urge some Western Democrats to attach provisions that would exempt commercial logging from environmental analysis and public oversight, weaken environmental laws, and increase federal funding for logging on national forests. These provisions are out of touch with the latest fire science, and, as a result, could actually be detrimental to national forests and the safety of rural communities.

Dr. DellaSala and Dr. Hanson were the lead authors of a recent letter to Congress from over 260 scientists, informing policy-makers that large fires are not ecological catastrophes, rather, they create variety in forest habitat associated with extraordinary levels of plant and animal richness and diversity in the western United States, including many imperiled species that require post-fire habitat http://johnmuirproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Final2015ScientistLetterOpposingLoggingBills.pdf They are also the editors and co-authors of the recent book, The Ecological Importance of Mixed-Severity Fires: Nature’s Phoenix (http://store.elsevier.com/product.jsp?isbn=9780128027493&pagename=search), and a 2015 op-ed in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/opinion/more-logging-wont-stop-wildfires.html. 

As the work of Drs. DellaSala and Hanson and their colleagues demonstrates, there is generally a deficit of post-fire forest habitat created by these beneficial fires, and many wildlife species that depend upon the unique "snag forest habitat" created by more intense fire patches have become rare and imperiled, and/or are declining, due to fire suppression, "fuel reduction" logging, and post-fire logging.

The best available science indicates that comprehensive fire management should consist of:

• managing backcountry fires safely for ecosystem benefits and

• focusing the existing limited resources on protecting homes from fires.

• It also shows that the only effective way to protect homes from wildfires is to reduce the flammability of the homes themselves and encourage reduction of combustible vegetation within 100 to 200 feet of homes.

The logging appropriations rider currently being developed will do nothing to protect rural homes from fire; in fact, it will increase risks to homes by diverting scarce resources away from home protection and toward irresponsible and environmentally damaging backcountry logging, while creating unnecessary risks to firefighters by focusing fire management in steep, remote forests.